From St. Petersburg to Peterhof.  The Soviets did extensive research in hydrofoils, and have been using them continuously since the late fifties.

Peterhof is a direct knockoff of Versailles.  It's evident to anyone who has seen both, that Peter, upon returning from France, ordered a palace to match Versailles in its gardens and gloppy 'gold' coatings.

Is it any surprise that the people gathered up forces and tossed out the tsars?  The irony is that Russia's history in the early 1900's is so similar to the history of France in up through the late 1700's.  Large masses of impoverished people overthrew a sclerotic and indifferent monarch who brandished all this wealth in the face of their poverty.  Same story repeated over a hundred years later.  You would think the Romanovs would have learned a lesson from their idols.

Some sort of event was underway during our visit.  I do not know if it was a real party or some type of show.

While some of the ornamentation left me unimpressed, I was really taken with the quality of the woodworking in the floors.  Beautiful woods, and beautiful handiwork.  I was rather disappointed, because much was made of all the gilded bits, and all the amber, but no mention was made of these fantastic wood floors.

A card table, as another example of the excellent woodworking skills overlooked by the tour guides.

I had to crank up the saturation on these images to counteract the fogging.

For some reason this Hummel-y thing caught my eye.    Sorry about the glare.

gloppy clock

The story is that the model is the same person for all of these images.

more images of the same model, and peasant-infuriating gloppy gold.

One thing they did copy correctly from the French is the proper framing of views and public spaces.

A Russian stove.  The Russians are quite proud of their stoves & how there is nothing better at keeping a house warm.

Detail of the ceramic tiles on the stove.  Like the woodwork, impressive craftsmanship overlooked by tour guides wanting to show off the gold things.

Very nice craftsmanship here.

another porcelain thing that caught my eye.

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Hydrofoils: