The Fountains of Peterhof

Peter the Great was actually great in many ways. First, he was a HUGE man, close to seven feet tall; but, of course, more than his physical stature, he accomplished many amazing things. One of them is the magnificent palace complex he built a few miles outside of St. Petersburg called Peterhof. He had visited France and was duly impressed with Versailles; Peterhof was created to SURPASS the wonders that the “let them eat cake” Marie Antoinette had established there, if you can imagine.

When guidebooks say “King So-and-so built such-and-such,” they of course mean that the king had a place built, but there were architects and scores of builders, etc. who actually constructed the place. When someone says Peter the Great built something, however, you can bet that he was actually involved in its construction (although there were of course thousands of other people involved, too). For example, Peter was responsible for the establishment and construction of the Russian Navy; he spent hundreds and hundreds of hours actually building boats alongside the other builders. But he was interested in boats and water, so he did it. He wasn’t all that interested in palaces, choosing to live most of the time in a wooden house with ceilings too short for him. But the chance to build a palace (actually a lot of buildings are there) with working fountains that led to his beloved Gulf of Finland—now that was something he could get into.

There are over 150 working fountains at Peterhof, and they run today the same way they did when he and a master water architect designed and built them in 1721, using a gravity system that enables all the fountains to erupt, the tallest of which spouts over 63 feet high. Somehow (and this is all I know) a pulley system carries the water up to the top, gravity makes the water rush down, enough to gush in the fountains and then rush down to the bottom to turn the pulley things, which causes the buckets of water to go back up again. Amazing, eh? A system powered entirely for itself and of itself.

Oh, and here’s a fun thing: there are quite a few “trick fountains” as well. Passersby can get a random drenching from these fountains that come on whenever a person comes too close, or when a lever is pushed, or just whenever. Apparently, Peter in particular enjoyed dousing some of the more fussy court women who visited his palace!I went to Peterhof on Tuesday, and I thought the gardens were spectacular; I took over 150 pictures there alone. I’ve reduced that number to only a few for the blog, but enjoy the ones you do see!