Considering what the builders of St. Petersburg have been able to achieve working with water and stone, what the architects, sculptors, and engineers who lived in Peterhof created comes as no surprise. Peterhof is often called St. Petersburg’s most beautiful suburb, and when we visited it last Saturday I could understand why.
a view of the Grand Palace
Peter the Great chose this spot in the early 18th century, and in only ten years two parks (Upper and Lower) and three palaces (Monplaisir, Marly, and the Grand Palace) were completed, along with an amazing collection of fountains and sculptures. People often draw comparisons between Peterhof and Versailles, but we learned from our tour guide that there is a key difference between the fountains at each palace complex. While the fountains of Versailles spew water thanks to pumping from nearby water sources, the fountains of Peterhof depend only on gravity and pressure. Many of the fountains feature wonderful sculptures, and some of them are “trick” fountains that will spray you when you least expect it. (Apparently Peter the Great liked to play pranks.)
Triton
Rastrelli’s Oak fountain – nearby a hidden trick fountain sprayed tourists
I first learned about Peterhof in our Conversation class at MSU. The parks and fountains seemed totally beautiful, and seeing them in real life was even better than I had expected.
A collection of short clips of some of the fountains in motion (plus the Baltic Sea), with Reinhold Glière’s Hymn of St. Petersburg, which played while the Grand Cascade was turned on: