File:Petrograd, past and present (1916) (14582795588).jpg

Identifier: petrogradpastpre00stev (find matches)
Title: Petrograd, past and present
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Steveni, W. Barnes
Subjects: Saint Petersburg (Russia) -- History
Publisher: Philadelphia : Lippincott
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
park, andsplendid bands play there in the hot season. Thepalace, for a long time the residence of the Grand DukeConstantine the Elder, contains a library of 30,000volumes, also a very valuable collection of paintingsby Correggio, Guido Reni and other Italian masters.Here I made the acquaintance of Colonel Kirjaieff,brother of the famous Olga Novikoff, who in Glad-stones days made such a stir by championing Russiascause in England. The Colonel was then acting asadjutant to one of the Grand Duchesses. He was amost gifted soldier, a skilled swordsman and curiouslyenough equally distinguished as a dialectician andtheologian ; a rare combination for a military manin our days, but less uncommon among soldiers ofthe past. Richelieu, Ignatius Loyola, Servetius andothers might be mentioned as men who were at thesame time soldiers and keen theologians. At Peterhoff the Tsar usually spends a portion ofthe summer. The palace is said almost to rivalVersailles in its fountains and grounds. It was k
Text Appearing After Image:
4 THE ENVIRONS OF THE CITY 301 founded by Peter I., who, true to his German pro-chvities, called it Peterhoff —a name now corruptedto Petergoff in Russian. The Russian language,like the Cockney, has no use for the troublesomeletter h. On special occasions the grassy alleys,the fountains and cascades are illuminated by thou-sands of coloured lights. Here Peter used to passhappy days with his miniature wife, whose tiny slipperis still to be seen in the old Dutch house which hemade his home—small mansion indeed for so mightya man ! But we measure men by their characters,not by their dwellings. Close to the house standsa smaller palace, where the Empress Elizabeth usedto amuse herself with feasts of love and dinners ofher own cooking—a strange combination. Near it,again, is the little palace of Alexandria, built bythe bluff Alexander III., who, like Peter, preferredsmall houses devoid of pomp and display. Only oncehave I visited this place, for here the Tsar, surroundedby triple cor

Note About Images