http://www.flickr.com/photos/42272251@N06/show/
This weekend, we went to see the Imperial hunting preserve and palace of Tsar Paul, son of Catherine the Great. It was raining the entire time, so the gardens and park were more or less a waste of time, but at least the interior of the palace made the trip worthwhile. Paul was a relative failure as a Tsar, but he did a pretty snazzy job on his personal hunting villa...the Neoclassical decor is a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get used to it, it's really quite pleasing to the senses. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures of all this resplendency, so there's next to no evidence of my visit, sad to say.
Tonight, I have conversation hour with a Russian student, which will be a chance for each of us to practice speaking in one another's languages. I've got my fingers crossed, hoping for a pretty young devushka...hahaha, well a man can dream, can't he?
Oh, for those of you who don't speak Russian, devushka means girl...although I imagine most of you could figure that out on your own, eh?
Neoclassical can be pretty intense, especially the architecture. That's really neat though. It must've been gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I'll be rooting for you to get a devushka!