The city that is rightfully considered the cultural capital of Russia is St. Petersburg. Having visited it once, I want to come back again and again. Every corner of it, every centimeter is saturated with the centuries-old history of the Russian Empire. Streets, squares, gardens, parks, bridges, museums and architectural monuments create a unique atmosphere in this city. Anyone who comes to St. Petersburg will be able to feel the unique harmony of the excellent settlement. The sights of St. Petersburg never cease to amaze his guests. The main pearl of which is the palace of Peter I, where we will focus our attention, is especially popular with tourists.
The history of the appearance of the first Summer Palace
After the construction of the Admiralty began on the left bank of the Neva, residential buildings began to appear house by house. Peter I also chose a site for his residence - an area on the coast of the Neva between the river Myya (Maika) and Bezymyanny Erik (Fontanka). The first Summer Palace was a small wooden structure. The plastered and painted building did not stand out in any way from other buildings located in the neighborhood, and little resembled the royal residence.
The symbol of the new policy of Russia
The victory at Poltava in 1709 marked a turning point in the Northern War in favor of the Russian army. In St. Petersburg, the hasty construction of numerous stone buildings began. During this period, the Lebyazhy Canal was laid, which connected the Moika to the Neva. As a result, a small island was formed between the rivers. It was on this piece of land that Peter I decided to build a stone palace. By order of the tsar, a project was created that symbolizes the new political direction of Russia. The architect of the Summer Palace Trezzini proposed to arrange the building of the future royal residence in such a way that the same number of windows would face both to the west and to the east. Peter I approved this idea, and on August 18, 1710, construction of the palace began, which was completed in April 1712.
Summer house
An amazing feature of this structure was that during its construction the first sewerage system of the city was built. Water was supplied to the house with the help of pumps, and the drain went to the Fontanka. Since the Summer Palace was surrounded on three sides by water, the flow of the river itself was the driving force. However, after the flood that occurred in 1777, the small bay of Gavanets, located in front of the house, had to be filled up. This led to the fact that the first sewerage system ceased to function.
The first floor of the palace
The Tsar moved to the Summer Palace, the photo of which is presented below, with his entire family immediately after the completion of the construction and lived in it from spring to late autumn. He occupied six rooms located on the ground floor, including a bedroom with a fireplace. There was a reception room nearby, where various meetings were held and important matters were decided. The favorite premises of the king was a lathe with a machine tool, where the emperor mastered the craft of a carpenter in his free time. He spared no effort to work and was proud that he had calluses on his hands.
Second floor of the palace
The summer palace of Peter I also had a second floor, to which a massive oak staircase led. There were six rooms in which the queen was housed with her maids of honor and children. The interior of the second floor was significantly different from the first, as there was a huge number of mirrors and paintings. Next to the bedroom of Catherine I there was a beautifully decorated throne room, in which the queen decided her affairs. The Green Office amazed visitors with its magnificent gilded decoration, numerous ivory and wood figurines, and amazingly beautiful Chinese frescoes. A special room was set aside for parties and dancing.
Summer garden
A magnificent garden was laid out near the palace in 1720, which resembled a huge park. Beautiful alleys stretch across the entire territory of the garden. They share an array of beautifully trimmed trees and shrubs. Sculptures symbolizing Russia were installed throughout the territory. In addition, there were many marble busts in the garden, which were created by the best Italian masters. Particular attention was paid to the construction of fountains, which served as an adornment of the palace grounds. Due to the fact that the Summer Palace was surrounded on three sides by water, special boats were offered to the guests for walks.
Historical memo
The Tsar was very fond of the Summer Palace. It was here that he spent the last days of his life. In 1725, in the lobby of the palace, Peter I was attacked by one of the schismatics, which ended in death. After the death of the Tsar, Catherine I never lived in the residence. For some time, meetings were held here, but as a result, the palace became a resting place for the imperial courtiers.
All beautiful things are eternal
After three centuries, the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg has hardly undergone any changes. Time has not made any adjustments to the exterior of the palace. Not only the austere appearance of the building, built in the Baroque style, has survived to this day, but also the summer frieze under the roof, consisting of twenty-nine bas-reliefs that separate the floors. Under the high hipped roof, gutters built in the form of winged dragons have been preserved, and a weather vane in the shape of St. George the Victorious has been installed on it, showing In addition to the external appearance, the main part of the interior decoration has been preserved: artistic carvings on the walls, painted ceilings and tiled stoves. The Green Office, the dining room and the rooms in which the royal maids of honor lived are practically the same.
Tour of the Summer Palace
Today this palace is rightfully included in the section "The best sights of St. Petersburg". Thousands of tourists are eager to visit it. What can you see in the palace?
The main decoration of the lobby is a large panel - a bas-relief of Minerva, carved from wood. It is impossible not to pay attention to the door, the platbands on which are made of black marble. It leads to a room that was once the king's reception room. The next room is for orderlies, it is not of particular interest. Next is the Assembly (Second Reception), the main decoration of which is the "Triumph of Russia" plafond. And between the windows is the Admiralty chair, which previously belonged to Peter I. Behind the second reception room is a narrow room that once served as the tsar's dressing room.
Continuing to inspect the Summer Palace, we move on to the next room - the Emperor's office, where some of the Tsar's personal belongings have been preserved. So, of interest is the gift of the English King George I - the ship's. In the corner there is an oak cabinet with beautiful carvings. In the center is a huge table and a desk chair. From the study there is a door to the king's bedroom. Here the attention is drawn to the plafond, which depicts the god of sleep Morpheus, holding poppy heads in his hands. Looking at it, it is not difficult to determine the purpose of the room. There is a beautiful fireplace in the bedroom, in which, according to legend, the royal court jester Balakirev was hiding.
On the second floor, the most interesting will be the Green Office, which has preserved all its decoration in its original form, it has already been described. In the corner there is a fireplace with sculptures of cupids. Moving to the dance room, you will enter the world of mirrors. Particularly noteworthy is the large walnut-framed mirror with unique carvings. In the children's room, you can see the plafond, which depicts a stork holding a snake in its beak, which symbolized the glorious reign of the heir and the death of enemies. Finally, you need to go to the throne room of Catherine, where her throne still stands.
The palace still retains a cozy, homely atmosphere that attracts numerous tourists. People come here not only to see this landmark of St. Petersburg and get acquainted with the history. Many people want to understand exactly how the emperor lived and what surrounded him.
Where is the Summer Palace and how to get there
The palace is located at the address: Summer Garden, Building 3. To get to this place, you need to get to the metro station "Gostiny Dvor". After that, walk along Sadovaya Street to the Lebyazhya Kanavka embankment. It is necessary to go towards decreasing the numbering of houses. Near the embankment is the entrance to the Summer Garden.
Until the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703, the banks of the Neva were by no means deserted.
Above, along the course, life was raging in the city of Nyen, and in the place where the Fontanka River branched off from the Neva there was a rich estate of a Swedish major who served in the Nyenskans fortress.
The manor was called the Konau manor, and the Russians called it "Kononov manor".
At this place, after the founding of the city, the summer residence of Peter was built.
It should not be assumed that the Neva banks were inhabited by Swedes, who were expelled by Tsar Peter as a result of the war. Almost next to Konon's estate there was a completely Russian village called Usadishchi.
Unlike the surrounding swampy terrain, the territory of the estate was landscaped not so much in terms of noble amenities, but also quite utilitarian: the field was plowed up, fertilized and had a good vegetable garden.
On the basis of this garden (when the need for it disappeared), in 1706, the Summer Garden, which became famous throughout the country, began to be planted around the palace.
At first, the building of the royal house was made of wood; a canal was dug from the Fontanka River to it, thus, for safety, the estate was surrounded by water on three sides.
Since the main events of the beginning of the construction of St. Petersburg took place on the other side of the Neva, a small quay bay was organized in front of the Summer Palace, which was called Gavanets.
In 1710, according to the project of the architect Domenico Trezzini, the stone Summer Palace was built.
The facade of the new building was decorated by the architect Schlüter with bas-reliefs depicting the events of the Great Northern War.
Peter ordered the same architect to equip the interior of the palace, but Schlüter died, devoting only a year of his life to the palace.
Peter's wife and children lived on the second floor, and the tsar's chambers were located on the first. There was also a reception room, where he received petitions, and a punishment cell, where the tsar personally imprisoned the guilty, and from where he himself released them.
It was in the vestibule of the Summer Palace that the first attempt on Peter's life was made by schismatics.
And Peter's favorite room in the palace was a lathe.
The palace was named "Summer" because the royal family moved here in May and lived until October.
The walls were quite thin and there was no heating. On the other hand, the first sewage system in St. Petersburg was installed in the Summer Palace.
It was flowing, this was facilitated by the strength of the current of the Fontanka River. And water was supplied to the house by pumps.
In 1777, a flood destroyed the canals around the palace and the sewerage system ceased to function.
After the death of the king and his wife, no one lived in the palace, it was used for meetings of the Privy Council and for the rest of the court emperors. And after the construction of a new large Summer Palace for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna on the banks of the Moika River (where the Mikhailovsky Castle now stands), this one was completely abandoned.
This saved the house from alterations and rebuildings and retained its original appearance to this day.
After the revolution, it was transferred to the Russian Museum, in 1934 it was given the status of an independent Historical and Household Museum, but then returned back.
Today the Summer Palace of Peter the Great is a branch of the Russian Museum.
In the 60s of the 20th century, the palace was completely restored, thanks to which many of the original elements were restored.
Until now, the Summer Palace has retained a cozy homely atmosphere; in the museum's exposition you can see the personal belongings of the Tsar, his wife Catherine, their courtiers and the Empress's maid of honor.
Opening hours:
- Visiting the exposition of the Summer Palace of Peter I session: 11.00, 12.00, 13.00, 14.00, 15.00 and 16.00, groups of up to 15 people.
- Tickets only at the box office of the palace
Official site
Address:
- St. Petersburg, Summer Garden, Kutuzov embankment, building 2
How to get there:
The nearest metro station is Gostiny Dvor.
Leaving the metro through the underground passage we find ourselves on the other side of Nevsky Prospekt. This is an intersection with Sadovaya Street.
You need to walk along Sadovaya without turning anywhere.
We pass the Mikhailovsky Palace, cross the Moika River, walk along the Lebyazhya Canal (on the other side of which is the Summer Garden). The road ends at the Palace Embankment.
Here you need to turn left, cross the Verkhnee-Lebyazhy Bridge and, reaching the middle of the grating of the Summer Garden, go inside. Turn left on the first alley.
The alley goes to the Fontanka embankment, where the Palace of Peter 1 is located.
The summer palace of Peter I was built in the 1710s on the territory of the summer residence of the sovereign ( Summer garden) designed by the leading architect of that time D. Trezzini.
The Summer Garden is only nine months older than St. Petersburg. It was this place that was chosen for the construction of the residence for several reasons. Firstly, this area among swamps and forests has been inhabited for a long time. Even under the Swedes, in the 60s of the 17th century, there was a manor with a garden, which belonged to the Swedish major Konau. Secondly, the place was quite far from the noise of the construction site. Peter and Paul Fortress, and Peter, although he was a giant with heroic strength, suffered from a nervous breakdown and woke up from the slightest rustle.
By the fall of 1710, a small wooden house was dismantled, which remained on the territory of the Summer Garden from the Konau estate, in its place began the construction of a summer palace for Peter I.
The modest palace in its appearance embodied all the features of the architecture of the Peter the Great period (the style of the Petrovskoe Baroque). The two-storey building, rectangular in plan, was completed with a high hipped roof.
The façades of the palace are designed very simply: the walls are cut through by rectangular windows in platbands of a form very characteristic of the early Baroque (in the upper part of them there are ledges, the so-called "ears"). Small glass windows are also typical for the architecture of the early 18th century. Between the floors, on all four facades, there are 29 terracotta reliefs in rectangular frames.
The reliefs made in 1714 depict scenes from ancient mythology, associated with the theme of the sea, in allegorical form these reliefs reveal, probably, about the Northern War. The outstanding German master A. Schlüter took part in the creation of these reliefs.
Probably, it was he who was the author of the decorative relief that decorates the entrance to the palace. The goddess of wisdom, Minerva, is depicted here, surrounded by trophies of war and victory banners. Also on the facades you can find such sea characters as Nereids, newts, sea cones-hippocampus with scaly fish tails. Here are the ancient gods and heroes, as well as dolphins, which were perceived as symbols of a calm sea. The gutters at the corners of the roof are made in the form of winged dragons. The palace was crowned with a weather vane-figurine of the ancient patron saint of the Russian army, George the Victorious.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the bank of the Neva had not yet been filled up and the Summer Palace stood right next to the water. From Fontanka to the steps of the main entrance there was a small canal - "Havana" for the approach of boats. Painted in light yellow, the palace seemed to grow out of the water.
Peter I was very fond of this cozy palace, intended not for official visits, but for family life. There were six rooms on each floor. On the top floor are the chambers of Ekaterina Alekseevna, and on the first floor - the chambers of Peter himself.
After the death of the sovereign, the building was actually not used, only it was supported by periodic repairs.
Thanks to this, the interiors have been preserved in almost their original form. Mirror frames, Dutch tiles on the stoves, oak panels, furniture brought from Europe, numerous household items of the early 18th century, all this conveys the spirit of the Petrine era.
Among other rooms, a turning room has been preserved, filled with lathes and metalwork tools, compasses, and various devices. Here Peter often made different things with his own hands, for example a chair, or a model of a ship.
He was in charge of all this economy, as well as turning in other palaces of Peter, and they were almost everywhere where he lived - A.K. Nartov, an inventor and designer.
In June 2009, the Summer Garden was closed for reconstruction, which is expected to last two years, and therefore the Summer Palace is closed to visitors.
The author of the article: Parshina Elena Aleksandrovna Used literature: Lisovskiy V.G. Architecture of St. Petersburg, Three centuries of history. Slavia., St. Petersburg, 2004 Semennikova N. Summer garden. Art. L., 1978
© E. A. Parshina, 2009
The Summer Palace of Peter I in St. Petersburg is located in the Summer Garden, which was founded in the early years of the city's founding. The Summer Garden with the Summer Palace of Peter I are currently under the jurisdiction of the State Russian Museum.
With the beginning of the construction of the Admiralty on the left bank of the Neva, the construction of residential buildings also began. The section of the Neva bank between the Bezymyanny Erik (Fontanka) and the Myya (Moika) river was chosen by Peter I for his summer residence.
At first, Peter I lived in a wooden house built in 1903 and completely unlike the royal residence. It was this building that the author of "Descriptions of St. Petersburg and Kronschlot" saw in 1710-1711: "Up to the river," he writes, "is the royal residence, that is, a small house in the garden of the Dutch facade, motley painted with gilded window frames and lead ornaments ".
Peter called this house his "summer palace", and then this name was inherited by the new building, built in stone, in which the royal family really lived in the summer.
After the Moika was connected to the Neva Swan Canal, a small island was formed. In its northern part, the Summer Palace was built in 1710-1714, which was one of the first stone palaces in St. Petersburg. The author of the project is the architect D. Trezzini. The interiors were created under the direction of the German sculptor and architect Andreas Schlüter. Russian artists A. Zakharov, I. Zavarzin and F. Matveev participated in the decoration of the rooms.
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According to legend, the tsar ordered to build the house so that the building symbolized the new policy of Russia. Then D. Trezzini arranged the building of the residence so that six of its twelve windows looked to the east, and the other six - strictly to the west. “So our Russia is equally facing both the West and the East,” the architect explained, and the tsar approved such an expression of his ideas.
The two-story brick building of the Summer Palace in the Baroque style with a four-pitched iron roof is crowned with a copper weather vane in the form of St. George the Victorious, striking a serpent with a spear. At the corners of the roof there are gutters in the form of winged dragons, made of slotted iron.
The entrance to the palace is framed by a black marble portal, above which there is a bas-relief depicting Minerva with war spoils. The main decoration of the facades of the palace of Peter I are 28 bas-reliefs, executed in a rare technique of hand-spreading, located in the frames between the windows of the first and second floors. The theme of the images is the glorification of the sea power of Russia. Perhaps the sketches of these compositions were proposed by the German sculptor and architect A. Schlüter, who used engravings by European masters depicting sea creatures.
The theme of triumph in the decor of the facade of the palace makes it the first monument to Russia's victories in the Northern War. The scenes presented on the bas-reliefs are mythological, but the meaning they contain is divorced from the context of myths and becomes understandable only in connection with the main events in the life of Russia and Peter I himself - the struggle with Sweden for access to the sea. The plots of the bas-reliefs, undoubtedly, were chosen by the sovereign, and it is no coincidence that some of them coincide with the plots of the ship carving ("The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite", "Perseus Overcoming Medusa", "Cupids on Dolphins", "Cupids on the Hippocampus"). The interpretation of these allegories can be found in printed descriptions of the triumphal gates erected on the occasion of victories over the Swedes, where Neptune and Amphitrite are the personification of the sea glory of Russia and a symbol of its growth, in the images of ancient deities and heroes (Mars, Hercules, Perseus) Peter himself appears, and the enemy of the tsar - the Sveyskaya state, is called "a hydroe, a chimera, a cunning snake."
The palace is small (which is commensurate with the tastes of Peter I): 26.5 x 15.5 m; height of two floors - 8.1 m; height to the ridge of the roof - 13.3 m; the height of the rooms is 3.3 m. The layout of both floors is the same. The first floor housed the tsar's chambers, the second - his wife Catherine and children.
The palace was intended only for living in the warm season (from May to October), therefore, it has thin walls and single frames. There are only 14 rooms in the palace, two cooks, two interior corridors. The arrangement of the rooms is enfilade, and the service premises are connected with the inner corridor, which eliminated the need for servants to appear in the front rooms. The service corridor leads to: a) Dressing room (original pine wardrobes for storing clothes have been preserved - they are attached to the walls with special forged hooks); b) Denshitskaya (1st floor); Freilinskaya (2nd floor); c) cooks, toilets, furnace openings of stoves; d) a service spiral staircase hidden behind a carved oak structure resembling a wardrobe (made in accordance with Peter's instructions dated May 2, 1714). The outer door from the corridor opened onto the front Neva gallery.
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The location of the palace on the peninsula was used to set up a flow-and-wash sewage system in it. The idea of the architect Zh.B. Leblond, by that time - the last word of technology, was very carried away by Peter. A sewer tunnel was laid under the foundation of the building, connecting the Neva with the Havanese, through which water circulated. 6 toilets of the palace were connected to the tunnel by means of wooden boxes (the flow-through sewage system operated only until 1777, since after the flood the Havana was filled up).
According to the project of Zh.B. Leblon was equipped with the lower kitchen of the Summer Palace - a fireplace, cutting tables, storage rooms and a sink with running water appeared here. "What constitutes great convenience and which one can only dream of," Leblond wrote, "is to have flowing water by running pipes with water from a nearby source." Water was supplied to the palace from the fountain system of the Summer Garden, pumped into a lead tank in the attic, from where it was piped into the cookery.
A unique description of the interiors of the Summer Palace, left by an unknown author in 1720, has survived: "... the palace, very beautifully decorated with various Chinese upholstery. Three rooms had velvet beds with wide braces, corresponding to the entire decoration. There were many mirrors, many decorations, the floor is marble The rooms have a kitchen, the walls of which are covered with upholstery, like rooms in other palaces. It contained pumps, utility rooms, cupboards for silver and pewter dishes. One of the rooms opposite was filled with turning and locksmith tools ... ".
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The doors, wall panels, stairs in the Peter's palace are made of oak. The exception is two offices - Green (on the 2nd floor) and Peter's personal office (on the 1st floor), where the doors and wall panels are trimmed with walnut (meaning the room that was previously called by the researchers of Turning - here the lathes of Peter I were demonstrated, which are now kept in the State Hermitage). The rooms adjoining the Cabinet are the dining room and the king's bedroom. On the panel of the door leading to the bedroom there is an image of Golgotha (presumably the work of Peter I). The emperor's study and cookery are decorated with unique Dutch tiles, fireplaces - stucco bas-reliefs. Picturesquely painted plafonds of the study (master G. Gzel).
The Cabinet contains a unique wind device. In the carved frame, the carving of which is made on the theme of nautical symbols, there are three discs with a scale: the upper one - hours with hands (hour, minute and second), the lower discs - "wind decrees", connected to a weather vane on the roof of the palace. The device with "wind orders" is a navigation device that allows you to determine the strength and direction of the wind in the Baltic region. It was commissioned by Peter I to the Dresden masters Dinglinger and Gertner in 1713. In 1714, the wind device was brought to St. Petersburg and installed in the place chosen by Peter himself - in his Cabinet. A weather vane in the shape of a figure of St. George the Victorious, installed on the roof, sets in motion the mechanism of this device. .jpg)
The decoration of the Green Office on the top floor is well preserved. This is one of the first examples of interior decoration in the spirit of the new French fashion, brought to Russia by the architect J.B. Leblond, which involved decorating the walls with panels with decorative paintings, mirrors, and desudeports. In this office, in the closets, the doors of which are still glazed with squares of "moon" glass from the beginning of the 18th century, the objects of the first Peter's Kunstkamera were placed.
After the death of Peter I and Catherine I, almost no one lived in their house. At one time, it hosted meetings of the Supreme Privy Council, and later the imperial courtiers came here to rest.
The external appearance of the palace has hardly changed for three centuries. This is due to the fact that even during the life of the emperor, new summer chambers were built at the Swan Canal. After the construction of the large Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna on the banks of the Moika River (on the site of the current Mikhailovsky Castle), the old palace of Peter I turned out to be abandoned. This saved him from alterations and kept his original appearance. The Green Cabinet, the dining room and the rooms where the maids of honor of Catherine I lived have survived in their previous form. There are personal belongings of Peter and Catherine, which later became the main exhibits of the museum.
The fact that the palace has survived to this day without significant changes is confirmed by both the historical plans of the Summer Garden of the first half of the 18th century, and the fixation drawings by M.G. Zemtsov in 1727.
The Summer Palace is not only one of the first stone buildings of St. Petersburg, from which the city "began", but also a unique example of the architectural work of its founder, reflecting the uniqueness of the personality of Peter I.
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At the beginning of the 19th century, the Summer Palace served as a summer residence for senior government officials. The museum history of the building begins in 1903, when an exhibition dedicated to Peter I was opened within its walls to mark the 200th anniversary of St. Petersburg.
After 1917, the palace was preserved as a historical and architectural monument. In 1934, a historical and art memorial museum was opened in the Summer Palace of Peter the Great. At present, the exposition of the Summer Palace includes personal belongings of Peter the Great and Catherine I, as well as furniture, paintings, tapestries, glass and porcelain items of the Petrine era.
Used materials from the site www.rusmuseum.ru
St. Petersburg looks like a carved box made of turquoise and gems. Its carved and painted walls are bas-reliefs with a hundred or two of old fairy tales and half-forgotten stories. The lid is the domes of churches and high spiers topped with weathercocks and crosses. The bottom is the foundations of old buildings that still remember the breath of their creators, high vaults and powerful beams that continue to solemnly support the weight for several centuries. And once you open the box, and inside there will be an eclecticism of styles and amazing combinations - grace, strength and power, which bloom with new colors with the onset of each century.
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The Summer Palace of Peter the Great can hardly be called the most beautiful palace complex of the Northern capital - this building looks somewhat modest or even pale against the background of other giants - real poetry in stone, however, this particular palace is part of the Russian Museum, representing a residence where most of its time, not busy traveling or military campaigns, the great monarch spent. This means that it is worth looking here if there is a desire to understand what exactly and how this person lived.
The Summer Palace was originally erected exactly as an imperial residence, appearing on the map of St. Petersburg with almost the very foundation of the city. The main concerns for its appearance and design fell on the shoulders of the eminent master of his craft - Domenico Trezzini, according to whose project a small two-story mansion was subsequently erected in the rhythm of the Baroque. It is worth noting that, despite the fact that Trezzini is still formally the architect, the first plan of the future mansion was developed personally by the monarch, and only then these drawings were corrected and somewhat reworked in a creative manner. The location of the residence was also chosen personally by Peter the Great - between the Fontanka and the Neva.
Some find the design of the Summer Palace somewhat meager - its walls are decorated with only twenty-eight bas-reliefs, which, as one would expect, turned out to be another variation on the theme of perpetuating the victory over the Swedes in the Northern War, brilliant for Russia, and the layout of the rooms is the same for both floors, but this simplicity the building is more than compensated for by the complexity of the laconic arrangement of the Summer Garden, which was conceived as an imitation of Versailles. It is noteworthy that the imitation turned out to be more than complete - and today the Summer Garden continues to be considered one of the most sophisticated examples of landscape art.
Exposition
The monarch's summer residence is quite interesting place for a visit not only from the standpoint of deepening into the life of the emperor himself, but also from the point of view of observing the innovations that this energetic man decided to adopt from his neighbors who are more confident in technical issues. So, an unusual weather vane in its shape, which represents the figure of St. George the Victorious, with the usual gesture of striking a serpent, is the work of one mechanic with whom Peter the Great met in Dresden.
The originality of this mechanism was that its main component is located just under the roof of the mansion and represents a panel that was complex for that time, by which it was possible to track not only the direction, but also the strength of the wind. Another peculiar detail of the Summer Palace is the presence of a sewage system, which was the first example of structures of this kind in the entire city.
Today, a visit to the Summer Palace includes not only the opportunity to take a personal look at the monarch's office, his dressing room, private rooms and workshops, but also visit another rather remarkable building, which is called the Human Chambers. What is the value of these premises? It was here that the barbarously stolen Amber Room was once located, as well as a number of collections that were replenished on the personal initiatives of Peter the Great. So, it was here that the very collection of Ruysch, the Dutch anatomist, who aroused genuine interest and admiration for the results of his work in the Russian monarch, was kept here. Today, this collection can be viewed during a visit to Kuntskamera, as it became one of the first components of the future Museum of Oddities.
The most interesting sights of St. Petersburg in our article.
Opening hours and ticket prices
A visit to the palace complex usually starts at ten o'clock in the morning and ends at 18:00. Ticket offices close an hour earlier. The choice of a weekend is rather atypical - it's Tuesday. There are differences in the cost of tickets for citizens of Russia proper and some CIS countries, for foreign citizens. The former will generally spend no more than one hundred rubles on tickets, of course, if they are not included in the preferential categories, while the latter will have to pay up to three hundred rubles for an entrance ticket.
