Let’s continue walking through the Alexandria Park in Peterhof.
Here, the park opens up to the gulf.
A sad, lonely dog looks into the foggy distance.
Nearby is the Gothic Chapel but for some reason it’s being restored again (seems like they finished not too long ago, took down the scaffolding, it looked new. Now, everything has scaffolding again.)
There’s also the Farmer’s “palace,” but it looked very worn down.
The grave of the garden’s master P. Erler.
The sign reads:
“To my husband and my friend. Here lie the remains
of Peterhof court’s garden master
Peter Ivanovich Erler
who died on February 7, 1857”
Although Erler was buried at the Saint Trinity cemetery, his remains were transferred here, to Alexandria, in 1970.
Memorial to the builders of Peterhof.
There is no sign any more but, in original documents, it’s written that it was made of marble and bore a sign:
“To the working people – the builders of Peterhof.”
The small bridge of ruins.
Otherwise also known as the “Large bridge of stone ruins” :-)
It’s interesting that the bridge is called “of ruins” not because it looks like (now) like it’s in ruins, but because, until 1941, the ruins of Menshikov’s palace “Mon Courage” were here (mentioned in the previous album).
In 1941-1944 it was blown up.
It’ll probably be rebuilt some day but, to be honest, I previously thought that it was meant to be built as ruins in the first place.
The bridge was built from the plans of Adam Menelas in 1827-1829, using the stone slabs from the old Menshikov’s palace.
It had 3 arks and was 45 meters long and 30 meters wide.
The vases are made from a local limestone, carved out by the stonemason S. Kopylov and his men.
We’ll continue our tour of Peterhof and its surrounding areas in the next album.
