Catherine Palace
- July 7, 2025
- Rated 5 of 5 by
Wasatch from heber ctity, Utah
This is a “don’t miss” while in St Petersburg. By now, I had lost track of how many palaces the Tsars
had, but this was their favorite. The entrance is through the main door in the front of the 900 ft blue and
white long facade of the main palace.
The first room visited is the aptly named “Grand Hall’, with a short concert, CDs, $20. The star of
Catherine’s Palace (named for Peter the Great’s Wife, Catherine I, not for Catherine the Great, Catherine
II). Two dinning rooms are next, each set up for a state diner. Next are the ruby(red) and emerald(green)
gaming rooms. Tradition has it that gambling debts in the first were to be paid with rubies and with
emeralds in the second.
The star of the palace, and one of the grandest rooms anywhere, is the Amber Room, where all the walls
are covered with amber mosaic decorations. Also note the two pictures in amber frames. These are also
mosaics, not paintings. The German Army occupied Catherine’s Palace during The Great Patriotic War
(WW II). After the German retreat from St Petersburg, the Amber room had disappeared. The KGB
searched for the room for 45 years without luck. Finally, a reproduction was made, being completed in
2003. There are several photos in the palace with pre-post WW II scenes showing the destruction caused
by the war.
Next are the state apartments. Our tour then went downstairs through a series of servant rooms lined with
before and after photos of WWII damage. Germans say the palace was destroyed by Russian artillery, the
Russians say the Nazis blew it up when they retreated.
The tour ends in a extensive gift shop.
The palace and several out buildings are located in park about 1.5 miles across. Both the front and back of
the place face French gardens, with a larger English garden beyond the formal garden outside the palace
courtyard.
There is a free and decent restroom across the entrance lobby opposite the gift shop.
From journal Three Days in St. Petersburg