A celebration with the fireworks is held in Peterhof yearly in the beginning of September. Somehow I didn't manage to call on it before, but this year I did, so you too will be able to get a general idea. I'll say straight away that the feelings are contradictory, so the description came out corresponding.
The fireworks starts when it gets totally dark - at about nine p.m.
The people, surely, arrive in advance. The admission which is free after six (even more so in the autumn) is half as much again this day than the usual daily one. However, one can always find a chink in the fence bars if making some effort.
A particularly edifying in this sense event was when three girls were squeezing through such chink and one of them got stuck. Neither one way nor the other.
The moral is: pressure for money is not the good reason to neglect the figure :)
On the whole, the number of those who want to attend is great, at that many of them are from the other cities.
I'll mention in parenthesis, that the park and the pavilions in Peterhof are not lighted up in the evenings (in many other suburbs also though). There are not even lamps along the alleys (or they're turned off).
That's why the central and the only place for celebration is the Grand Cascade and the palace.
As I already said - there's lots of people. Not any less than on a hot summer Sunday. So when all these people rush to the Grand Cascade, it's a distressing sight.
First of all, the lawns are all trampled down at once. Some people climb on to the trees, as even I, being quite tall, didn't see much from behind the backs in the front. Militia doesn't interfere in this since it's absolutely no use - firstly, the crowd is huge, secondly, nothing is seen in the dark.
The conclusion here is simple:
Since they didn't make any effort to improve the visibility (for instance, they might have built temporary stands in several levels - as they made at the Red square as I recall), then next year I should go to the Cascade 2 hours before the start and not gad about the park all this time. But there're definitely other problems - the crowd will push those in the front down on the cordon.
However, I'm slightly carried away, it's time to mention something good :)
The show began with the highlight of the Bolshoi Palace. By the floodlights of different colors in turns. So bright that the impression was that the palace changes the color in reality.
At the same time the music started.
Something pompous, solemn and majestic.
Then they let off the fireworks.
Single first, as in this shot.
At the same time someone was dancing at the very foot in front of the cascade. But next to nothing could be seen from behind the backs.
Then they set different figures like these hieroglyphs on the fire.
And the flame spurts of "water" were falling from the cascade.
And towards the end we saw a grandiose fireworks high in the sky. It continued for long and impressed a lot. People behind us even stopped drinking :)
Having enjoyed this sight, we went to the station. The first train was taken by storm in our sight, with outcries as in the movies about war. But it was possible even to sit already in the second train :-)
It's interesting that two days later (on the 17th) one more fireworks was organized in Peterhof for 400 people (management of one of the commercial companies), but entrance was by invitation cards. Apparently, it wasn't such a crush..
