A day at Pushkin and you begin to fully comprehend what sparked the Revolution.
Alicia is our new Polish friend. For our second day in Russia we navigated the subway and bus system to arrive in the town of Pushkin and see Catherine's Palace. And then the lines began.
1. Line to purchase ticket to get into the gardens. 150 roubles each.
2. Line to get into the Palace.
3. Line in the Palace to purchase an entry ticket. 400 roubles each.
4. Line to check our coat.
5. Line for a locker to store our bag.
6. Line to scan our ticket and access the actual freaking Palace.
The Palace, like many places in Russia, are undergoing renovation. Only 20 rooms of the enormous "country cottage" was open. We found opulence in each room: gilded frame work from floor to ceiling and then on the actual ceiling, surrounding scenes of angels and peasants in the impressionists style. The windows overlooked expansive gardens and ground which we later walked to see the Grotto, Turkish Bath, and Cameron Gallery. The latter was simply a long hall with a second floor promenade lined with bronze busts of people the Empress admired and was conceived for walks and philosophical conversation. Can you imagine- a whole separate building for conversations?
The majority of the buildings were under renovation. From afar the facades looked perfectly white topped with colored roofs but up close you saw the chips and flaws in the structures. According to writeups in our tour guides, under Putin's leadership there has been a resurgence in national pride which funds monuments and attractions such as palaces and churches. Below there are two photos displayed in the Palace's small archive dedicated to the process of renovations and reclamation projects. These are before and after photos of what Catherine's' Palace looked like during the Revolution.
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