Have a Go News Ambassador John Burgess continues his trip down memory lane with a Russian history lesson.
I hope all the celebrations and holiday excesses haven’t taken too much of a toll on you and yours.
Last month I was reflecting on a trip my wife Jan and I took from Beijing to St. Petersburg by train, which was a fantastic experience, traveling through China and Mongolia and finishing up in Russia.
Firstly, Moscow, where we celebrated Christmas and New Year, was covered in snow, which I enjoyed more than the very hot conditions we’re enduring during this summer here.
After the overindulgence of great food and the vodka excesses, we continued on our way to St. Petersburg. This time by train that made the one out of Beijing look like a cattle truck. Very impressive indeed. I was told President Putin travels on it regularly, so I guess that explains it.
Once again, I was completely enthralled by this city, with very modern buildings along with some very old ones, built centuries ago by the Romanoffs, headed up by Peter the Great and his wife Catherine.
There are two palaces, the Winter and the Summer Palace, so Catherine could enjoy the same comforts and splendour whatever the season might be. If you’ve been fortunate enough to visit them as well, I’m sure you’ll have to agree with me they are extremely impressive. They’re about the same size as Subiaco.
The Winter Palace, huge, so many rooms, including the throne room, where I managed to convince a guard to let me sit on the actual throne itself that Catherine would have sat on.
Just as I started to get the feeling of royal importance, my wife suggested I should abdicate and return to the side of another great woman, (guess who?). So much grandeur and opulence, those Tsars certainly knew how to live.
The next day we travelled to the Summer Palace. According to the experts this was Catherine’s favourite and consequently was known as Catherine’s Palace. She excelled herself when she built this one. Starting on the outside, the grounds are superb with large promenades, passing beautiful gardens and huge fountains.
The biggest of these is a large avenue leading to the Neva river, which is nearby (I say nearby but it was about two kilometres along this road).
You just had to stand there with your mouth and eyes wide open, but the jaw dropping really got underway when we went inside. With the amount of gold leaf in this joint, we could have covered Adelaide Terrace. Absolutely amazing.
I can assure you, when we moved into another area, my eyes looked like plates. We were in the Amber Room. Floor, walls, ceilings, light fittings, tables, chairs, ornaments, everything was covered in amber, it was just unbelievable. Amber is fossilised tree resin so you can imagine that you collect that and then build something that is worth few bucks. It was just unbelievable; this was first built back in the early 1700s.
But let’s fast forward to 1941 when the Germans attacked St. Petersburg, they looted all the amber. They packed it up and hid it and then in 1944 but before they retreated, they firebombed the palace and almost burned it to the ground.
The mystery remains. Where was the amber? To this day nobody knows. It has never been found but after the war artisans and craftspeople got to work and restored the Catherine Palace to what stands today including the Amber Room which was reconstructed using real amber. Donations, you might be surprised to hear, came from Germany,
The palace was opened to the public and is still being enjoyed by everyone to this day including the late Queen Elizabeth, who visited there and Elton John who gave an exclusive concert in the palace’s grand hall.
Well, I guess I’ve bored you enough with this history lesson. I could hear you saying, ‘yeah Burgo’.
So I’ll leave you with this until I join you again next month with some more stories about this very interesting life I’ve managed to lead.
Cheers, Burgo.
