St. Petersburg, Peter's Palace, White Nights

Words  399; 6 pics

            I ran around the place where I am staying here.  Curiously, the gravity seems to be fairly consistent to the gravity in Moscow. :)

            After the run, my host and I went to Petrodvorets —Peter’s Palace.  It’s also translated at Petergof and Peterhof (I’ve read that these are from German—Peter’s Court). 
I couldn’t find any explanation why they used the German word, nor why they changed the name back to Peterhof in 1997.  I guess no one has had the guts to tell the powers that be that Peter Gof sounds terrible in English.  There, I’ve done it.  I wonder how long it will take to go from my tiny blog to the ears of Putin.  In 1944, it was called Petergof, then the Germans destroyed most of the place in WWII so they changed the name.  Names are big important around here.  So important that they don’t last long.  It’s all rebuilt now to pre-war splendor. 

Here is one of the fountains from two angles.  The fountain has Samson fighting a serpent:

 This is me, in front of a palace.  We didn’t go into the palaces because they are full of old aristocratic paraphernalia,  1. I don’t like man-made stuff.  2. I really don’t like rich people’s junk.

When I studied in Russia 20 years ago, I saw these statues on the bridges and I said, “Why would anyone make such a statue?  No one would ever try to tame a horse in the nude.”  I was showing my realist tendencies.  My classmate, from Indiana, said, “It’s an artistic style, farm boy.  Get some culture.”  I noted the sentiment and stopped talking for the time being. They are cool-looking, but I still think they are ridiculous.

I’m here in the middle of White Nights when the sun is up all night.  Here are the official times of sun up and sundown:  Sunrise: 4:39  Sunset: 23:16  Day length: 18h 37m   See how much easier it is to use the 24-hour clock?  You don’t have to use am and pm.   

Here is my watch.  You can see that it is 16 minutes after midnight and the sky is still blue.  It was dusk at this time.