[ Aug.2017 ] On the third day in Saint Petersburg in Russia, we joined the optional tour to Catherine Palace in Pushkin in the suburbs of the city.
The local guide on the day was Lev whose fat
her was a great fan of Lev (Leo) Tolstoy.
Probably not only the father, but all his family are keen on literature as Lev was very enthusiastic when he was talking about Russian poems and authors.
The ‘Catherine’ of the Catherine Palace we visited was not the famous Catherine the Great, but Catherine the first who was the second wife of Peter the Great.
According to Lev, Peter the Great drove his lawful wife to a convent and got married again to Catherine from a farming village who he had an affair with, and he could not take her to the palace in Saint Petersburg, so he had this 
palace built for her as a modest home.
The couple’s daughter, Elizabeth, who was born before their marriage, then inherited this palace, and she made it gorgeous using gold and silver.
The luxurious design was done by the Italian architect, Rastrelli, who also designed the Winter Palace in the centre of Saint Petersburg.
This Elizabeth is the one who had 15000 dresses and later she became an Empress.
I found Russia very interesting that two of their Empresses were a commoner from a farmland and her daughter.
Later this palace was inher
ited by the famous Catherine the Great, but she did not like gold, so when the gilt came off, she did not replace it.
It seemed that the admission was limited, so we had to wait for a while and then we climbed up the staircase probably originally for the servants to the main rooms.
We saw the beautiful huge hall and the front staircase decorated with some oriental potteries and so on.
In the rooms where successive emperors were int
roduced, our guide, Lev pointed out a painting of Alexander the third, saying “He is my favourite emperor”.
He was the penultimate emperor and although he was huge and looked rather frightening, he was a calm person who was very religious and always reading a Bible.
But after his death, people found out that his Bible was a cache of a bottle of vodka.
Apparently he never won against his Danish wife and he was drinking vodka secretly without the knowledge of his wife.
By the way, the place where this palace is is officially called Pushkin now.
Before the Russian revolution, it was called Tsuarskoye Selo (Tsar’s village) and Soviets changed the name.
The only reason why it is Pushkin is that the great writer Pushkin attended the aristocratic school for the higher education located on the side of the palace.
