Russia's Disneyland: Oranienbaum

The town of Oranienbaum,

erstwhile summer residence of Catherine the Great

and her husband, Peter III, lies slightly more than an hour

from St. Petersburg by train. Off the radar of most tourists, who

are shuttled through Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof, this

quiet retreat provides a more relaxed view into the lives and leisure

of the eighteenth century Russian imperial family and aristocracy.

Oranienbaum was founded by Peter the Great, who, legend has it, found an orange tree growing along the southern coast of the Baltic and named the local village Oranienbaum (“orange tree” in Dutch). Peter deeded the village to his favorite, Alexander Menshikov, who built the first palace there (begun in 1710, by Giovanni Fontana). Several years later, Peter came to visit Menshikov by ship, but was unable to land, due to the swampy shoreline. Upon hearing of this, Menshikov had a canal dug nearly a mile from his palace to the sea in the space of three days, so that Peter could visit him. Following Peter’s death, Menshikov was exiled, and ownership of the estate passed to Peter’s heirs, who turned it into a favorite summer residence. Empress Elizabeth had Rastrelli redesign the interior of the Grand Palace, and Rinaldi created several new buildings at the direction of Peter III and Catherine II. The town was renamed Lomonosov in 1948.

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A rash of thunderstorms has renewed the atmosphere along the path from the train station to the main palace. The earth smells fresh and invigorating, leaves glisten with raindrops, flowers dazzle with a giddy array of colors and smells, sparrows bathe in the newly-formed puddles along the sidewalk. The Karost river, ordinarily a tiny stream, now filled with muddy rainwater, noisily tumbles toward the Baltic.

A ten minute walk up a low hill, past an artificial lake (the “Small Sea of Pleasure”) is all it takes to reach Menshikov’s Grand Palace, a huge structure spread out on a hilltop. Its peeling, pale yellow paint leaves no doubt that, like so many monuments in Russia, it is closed for restoration. In any event, there is not much to see inside. The palace was used as a research facility in Soviet times, and the interior became a series of offices, devoid of ornament. Only in the children’s bedroom do smiling cherubim from the turn of the century still grace the walls.

During the 1950s, the centuries-old lower garden was rooted out to make room for a soccer field, and huge letters spelling “S-O-C-C-E-R” were hung across the palace façade, where they remained until the 1980s, when the garden was replanted. Only two oaks—both planted by Peter the Great —remain from the old garden. An enormous crown adorns the palace roof—the veritable last straw for Peter, who saw in it a warning sign of Menshikov’s ambitions. Nonetheless, the view from the crown is stunning: gardens, the canal, the Baltic, and, in the hazy distance, Kronstadt, the base of the Baltic fleet.

Leaving behind the Grand Palace and circling the “Small Sea of Pleasure,” one enters the area of the park known as the Russian Switzerland. European Russia is mainly quite flat, so any hilly ground is considered extraordinary. The minute hills and valleys that form the Karost river basin are a far cry from Switzerland’s mountains and rivers, but their skillful handling by 18th century British landscapers present a startling contrast to the general flora around the Baltic littoral. Pines and elms alternate with birches and other less familiar trees along winding paths over stone bridges and around waterfalls. Then, suddenly, the path breaks out of the woods and into an open field of brilliant green. The vapors are visible in the air as the sun calls back the rain that had fallen only minutes earlier. The moisture lifts a heady mix of scents from the fresh grass and field blossoms.

In the distance, trees conceal a structure that, with its beige and lavender pastel hues, seems to belong more on the Californian than the Baltic coast. It is Catherine the Great’s summer palace, the only example of true rococo architecture extant in Russia today. The “Chinese Palace,” as it is called, is an accurate reflection of the gaudiness of Catherine and her times. Each room of the diminutive palace is decorated sumptuously, even gratuitously. Yet no two rooms are even remotely alike in style, design or materials used. Intricate parquet floors, portraits and paintings by period artists, hand-carved furniture, silk and embroidery detail every room. Particularly appealing are the two large halls at either end of the palace: the Hall of Muses and the Large Chinese Hall. The architect, Antonio Rinaldi (whose work can be seen in many places in and around St. Petersburg, most notably in the Marble Palace), seems to have had an intense dislike of right angles: the Hall of Muses is a breathtaking example of his attempt to smooth them all out, giving the room an almost oval shape. The complex parquetry, complemented by paintings of Venus and the Graces on the ceiling and the Muses along the walls, make the hall a more fitting home for the goddesses of Greek antiquity than the top of Mount Olympus.

Down the enfilade of rooms, the Large Chinese Hall pays homage to the fascination with the Orient that left its mark on European culture in the 1760s. Dominated by a gargantuan billiard table, the hall is packed full of Chinese vases, panels and other ornaments whose main interest lies in the fact that almost all were produced by 18th-century Russian artists and artisans who had never been to China. Their stylized versions of what they pictured Chinese life to be like say more about Russian fantasy and creativity than about the country and people they are supposed to represent.

Elsewhere in the palace, two tables decorated with a mosaic of opaque glass are reminiscent of the work of Max Ernst. The founder of the glass factory where they were made, Russia’s great scientist, Mikhail Lomonosov, took his glass-making secrets to his grave, making these tables two of the few remaining objects produced by his technique.

North of the palace, the chaotic English style of Russian Switzerland gives way to a more regular French design, with geometrically-arranged, criss-crossing paths and symmetrically-planted trees and hedges. A five-minute walk brings the visitor to the Coasting Hill Pavilion. This brilliant blue pyramid is the only building of its kind in the world. Also the work of Rinaldi, it was built from 1763 to 1774 to serve as the starting point of a roller-coaster—a long straight track with hills and dips that extended from the third floor balcony across the park.

The bottom two floors were used for storage (of the coasters) and as a vestibule, respectively. But the magnificent third floor is where guests, the cream of Russian aristocracy as well as foreign dignitaries, spent the day in conversation and relaxation between rides. Inside, the building is in the shape of a cylinder with three rectangular rooms attached. One of the rooms was used for dining and today displays a fine example of the service of the period. The second, called the Porcelain Cabinet, is decorated from floor to ceiling with small statuettes representing a fair sampling of Greek and Roman mythology. The third room led to the roller-coaster. All are connected to the Circular Hall, with its one-of-a-kind floor of faux marble. While fashionable in the 1760s, the secret of making this gypsum-based material was subsequently lost, leaving Oranienbaum as the last example of its kind.

A model on the second floor shows the ensemble as it looked when it was built — with the roller-coaster and raised promenade around it. The latter two structures were torn down in the first half of the 19th century after coming into disuse. Catherine’s grandchildren, the Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I, did not share her tastes, and the money that was to go toward rebuilding the pavilion was instead spent on a new hunting lodge.

Even so, this Russian forerunner of the modern-day amusement park is no disappointment. The lack of tourists allows its treasures to shine brighter than those of its better-known neighbors, and the traveler willing to spend the extra time it takes to get to Oranienbaum will be rewarded with a fascinating glimpse at the world of leisure during the time of Catherine the Great. The very fact that her descendants lost interest in the place after her death has helped to preserve its original appearance far better than is the case with the other imperial residences, whose appearance changed with the taste of every new tsar. RL

“I would rise at three in the

morning and dress in man’s clothes. An old huntsman of mine would be waiting for me with guns. He had a fisherman’s skiff all ready on the seashore, nearby; we crossed the garden on foot, shouldering our guns, got into the skiff, he, a pointer, a fisherman and I, and went out shooting duck in the reeds which fringe the sea on both sides of the Oranienbaum Canal, stretching about a mile into the sea. We often rounded the canal and so sometimes found ourselves in stormy weather out at sea in the skiff. The Grand Duke used to join us an hour or two later, after he had had his breakfast.”

— Sophia Augusta Fredericka of Anhalt-Zerbst, future Catherine the Great, from her Memoires.