Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo): Catherine Palace and Amber room
Catherine Palace (also called Tsarskoye Selo or the Tsar's Village) is located in the small town of Pushkin, about 17 miles south of St. Petersburg. The palace's ornate, baroque design is breathtaking, and its 740 meter (2427 feet) length is massive. Like many St. Petersburg structures, the Catherine Palace is brightly painted. The exterior is a brilliant robin's egg blue, trimmed in white and gilted with over 200 pounds of gold.
Peter the Great presented the palace's estate to his wife Catherine in 1710, and it served as the imperial family's summer residence until the time of the last Tsar in 1917. During the reign of Peter's daughter, Empress Elizabeth, the size of the palace was significantly increased during the mid-1700's by the famous architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, and it was Rastrelli who gave the palace its baroque style. The Baroque interior design of the palace was changed during the reign of Catherine the Great (Catherine II) to suit her more neo-Classical taste.
The amber room is probably the most famous room in Catherine Palace, and it was used as a study. King Frederick William of Prussia gave Peter the Great the original inlaid amber panels after Peter admired them in a room in Frederick's palace. The 16-foot jigsaw-looking panels were constructed of over 100,000 perfectly fitted pieces of amber. The Nazis dismantled the amber panels and shipped them to Germany during World War II, and they have never been found. Much mystery surrounds the fate of the amber room panels, and many Russians believe that they still exist somewhere in Germany. Russian artists began recreating the amber panels using the old techniques in the early 1980's, and the room was opened to the public in 2003.
On a quiet stretch of the Moika River stands a long yellow building, which was once the residence of the wealthy and respected Yusupov family and which saw one of the most dramatic episodes in Russia's history - the murder of Gregory Rasputin. It was here in 1916 where the notorious Grigory Rasputin was assassinated. He was lured to Yusupov's palace by several influential figures of the time, given poison cakes, which for some reason had no effect on him, and then shot several times and thrown into the river.
The most sumptuous non-imperial palace in St.Petersburg was the home of the rich and powerful Yussupov family, who from the mid-18th century until the Revolution, were in the most powerful circles in Russia.
The Yusupov Palace features original interiors of the 19th-beginning of the 20th centuries. The rooms are decorated in various styles: baroque (the theater), Empire style (gala halls), Oriental style (the Turkish study), neoclassicism (some rooms of the ground floor) and others. The interiors amaze with rich decorations that includes paintings, carving, marble, mirrors, crystal chandeliers, silk, exquisite furniture and so forth. The Yusupov family possessed extensive collections of paintings, sculptures and applied art objects. Some of them are on the display in the palace exposition.
One of the most beautiful cathedrals of Saint Petersburg, the Savior-on-the-Blood was erected on the place where Russian Emperor Alexander II was murdered on the 1st of March, 1881. The tsar was mortally wounded by the terrorists from the People's Will revolutionist organization. Already on the next day the Municipal Duma on its extraordinary meeting decided to construct the cathedral to commemorate the tsar-liberator.
The cathedral was constructed in the style of the 16th-17th century Russian architecture and has a lot in common with the Church of St. Basil the Blessed that stands on the Red Square in Moscow. The Cathedral of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood stands out for its complicated and picturesque outline, as well as rich and multicolored decoration on the background of the austere Petersburg church architecture.
The rich mosaics that cover the walls of the cathedral both inside and outside are of a great value. The mosaic panels were made in Frolov's workshop to the originals by outstanding Russian artists, including Vasnetsov, Nesterov, Riabushkin and others. The total area of the mosaic is impressive 7,050 square meters.
The church was closed for services in the 1930s, when the Bolsheviks went on an offensive against religion and destroyed churches all over the country. It remained closed and under restoration for over 30 years and was finally re-opened in 1997 in all its dazzling former glory. The view of the church from Nevsky Prospect is absolutely breathtaking.
