St Petersburg Part 10 - More of Catherine Palace, and an entertaining story

Following is a rather entertaining story about the Catherine Palace.

In Elizabeth’s palace, there were heavy curtains in the corners of the rooms. This was not merely decoration. Our guide told us with some amusement that there were no toilets in the palace. Behind these drapes were hidden what looked like what we in Australia call ‘sauce boats', which are beautifully curved dishes with a handle for serving gravies and sauces at the dinner table. The ladies in their full dresses had to stand behind the curtains whilst their poor personal maids had to work their way underneath their ladies’ dresses and petticoats holding these little chamber pots, and then carefully remove them when the ladies were finished . . . Little wonder a lot of perfume was used in the ballroom! And as for me, I will never look at a sauce boat with the same eyes again!

But that is not all. Sometimes couples would sneak behind the curtains too, for an entirely different, more pleasurable activity . . . and not with their spouses. And so that has been since the beginning of humankind . . . 

Anyhow, to more banal aspects of the palace. One of the most well-known features of the palace is its Amber Room. This is literally made entirely of amber of different-sized pieces and different shades, from pale yellow to gold to green and ruby red. What it must have cost to replicate the room does not bear thinking about. Fortunately there is a large amount of amber under the Baltic Sea.  We were not permitted to take any photos in this room, but I managed to get a bit of it in one of my photos taken in the next room. 

I meant to tell you to that when we were admitted to the palace after the usual security checks, we had to put on the kind of ‘boots’ surgeons wear over their shoes so we did not damage the floors. All of these were the same size. As I have very small feet, there was I clumping around the palace in my oversized brown ‘boots’. It really looked hilarious seeing everyone in them. We were glad to take them off to explore the gardens. I will talk about the gardens in the next post. 

The beautiful golden domes over the chapel. The interior of the chapel has yet to be replicated.

Some of the incredible furniture and parquetry.

This was a portrait of Elizabeth, if I recall correctly. 

Through this extremely ornate doorway you can see a little of the amber room.

A wall of portraits and other paintings.

More of the furniture and parquetry.

Hand-painted silk wallpaper completely covered the walls of one room. 

The exquisite 'green room'. The porcelain on the table was beautiful too. 

Some of the parquetry up close. The workmanship is superb.