The Great Palace of Peterhof

Peter I, Tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725, gave himself the title of Peter the Great. And he wanted a great estate to match the title. So he began developing sketches and technical drawings for the Grand Palace at Peterhof. The Palace, located on the Gulf of Finland about an hour’s drive from St. Petersburg, was dedicated in 1721. However, additions and changes continued for another 200 years after Peter’s death. Peter was proud of his accomplishment and eagerly showed off his “paradise” to foreign visitors. 

After Peter's death in 1725, work was halted. His Grand Palace was nearly abandoned for fifteen years until his daughter, Elizabeth came to the throne in 1740. Elizabeth ordered resumption of work on the  Palace resulting in an even more grand and elegant design than her father envisioned. 

Even though the Palace exterior architecture is relatively simple, the interior rooms are considerably more lavish. The Palace was heavily damaged during WWII and had to be almost entirely reconstructed. Only about fifty percent of the furnishings are original. 

Today, the 300 acre park of the Grand Palace of Peterhof consists of a series of palaces and pavilions, fountains and cascades, marble, bronze and gilded statues, formal gardens and treelined pathways. It became known as the “Russian Versaille”. 

The East Chapel, among the first Palace sites seen by visitors, is one of two matching chapels flanking the central palace. The five gilded Russian onion domes glow brilliantly in the sun.

The Palace park has an Upper Garden and a Lower Park. Visitors arriving by ground first see the 37 acre Upper Garden with five fountains and smooth basins of water adorn with gilded, marble and bronze sculptural groups including this Neptune Fountain.

During a tour of the Great Palace (no photos allowed), we were ushered through several of its richly gilded rooms with ceiling frescoes. Stern faced Russian docents kept a close eye on the stream of visitors to ensure that no one took photos, touched the doorways or walls or brushed against the rope separating tourists from royal treasures. 

The tour filed through the 2,900 sq. ft. Ballroom, Peter the Great's Oak Study essentially unchanged since Peter labored there, the Crown Room, the nearly 4,000 sq. ft. Throne Room (the largest in the palace) with the red throne chair perched on a rise, the Imperial bedchamber, and other rooms.

Hundreds of gilded and marble statues can be found on the grounds of the Peterhof  Palace including the Adam and Eve Fountains. The Adam Fountain is pictured here. During the Nazi invasion early in WWII, the statues were buried in the Lower Park and escaped destruction. They were excavated and restored in 1948.

This statue of Apollo stands in the Fountain of the Eastern Square Pond.
 

During Peter the Great's time, the Sea Canal, which leads from the Gulf of Finland, was navigable. He and his guests arrived in small vessels that went right up to the terrace.

We emerged from our tour of the Grand Palace just in time to see the rhythmic dance of water spouting from some of the 80 fountains of the Great Cascade as the "Hymn to the Great City" from Reinhold Gliere's ballet "The Bronze Horseman" played over the speaker system. The fountains at Peterhof are typically in operation from April to October and draw huge crowds.

 

The 253 acre Lower Park has more fountains and formal gardens. In addition to the Sea Canal, the Great Parterres with symmetrical flower beds, the Bowl Fountains, two smaller palaces, and the Aviaries are located here.

The gilded sculpture of Samson Tearing Apart the Jaws of a Sea Monster is the chief fountain at Peterhof. It celebrates a major Russian victory in the war with Sweden. Peter the Great had been compared to Samson in his lifetime. The central jet in the sea monster's mouth soars nearly 70 feet high.

In the Lower Park is the Orangery Garden. The garden contains the Triton Fountain as well as a beautiful masonry orangery. During Peter the Great’s time, the orangery was a hot house for overwintering tender citrus trees and other plants during the harsh Russian winters. Every fashionable residence of the day had one. Today the orangery is a restaurant for Palace visitors.

The Lower Park connects to the Gulf of Finland via a network of paved walkways and a shady canopy of mature trees.

Although there was much more to see at the Grand Palace, our time was up. The trip to Peterhof from St. Petersburg was by private coach and took about an hour. The return trip by hydrofoil took only about 20 minutes.