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| The cost for a ticket to enter all buildings is 700 R + 100 R for the permission to take pictures (for the palace and grotto)... I think you have to pay more for pictures in some of the other buildings, but I didn't |
Through the American Women's Organization (AWO) and Ros, Tanya, Angie and I joined a group of ladies (Ros - UK/USA, Nori - USA, Vee - Belgium, Hillary - UK) to tour the Kuskovo Estate.
We took the red line to Lubyanka, then switched to the purple line at Kuzenski Most all the way to Ryazansky Prospect. We exited (#4) and then took the #208 bus which dropped us off right across the street from the entrance.
Kuskovo was the summer house of the Sheremetev family, built in the mid-18th century. Today the estate is also home of the Russian State Museum of Ceramics (we didn't go inside - a room full of old ceramics wasn't of enough interest to us after we had already toured so many of the estate buildings).
The 26 rooms of the palace building were designed for entertaining and impressing guests on state occasions. This is where we started off our self-guided tour...
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| Kuskovo Palace - designed in Neoclassical style (which means? classical antiquity - translation: really old-fashioned and the kind of furniture your great grandmother wouldn't let you sit on)? 😝 |
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| We were fortunate to be there during a time when French fashions were displayed throughout the Palace. All the descriptions were in Russian, so I do not know the details, but they were beautiful to see! |
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| Boris & Anna Sheremetev(a) portraits - they really loved having their portraits done in those days! |
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| That's quite the hat! |
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| Interesting how the furniture and the wallpaper are the exact same - as the wallpaper is fabric also. |
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| creepy little dolls - I took this picture for the fabric because it is apparently all hand-embroidered (both the walls and upholstery) |
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| The floors were gorgeous in the palace - understandably, they did not allow us to walk or even stand on any part of the actual wood floors. I was scolded when my one foot was touching the floor (off the carpet) while taking a photo! |
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| The gorgeous ballroom... I took only photos of the upper half because there was a group sitting down in there in very non-traditional type chairs that really took away from the beauty. |
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| Here's a beautiful picture from the internet that shows the room as it was meant to be seen. |
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| Left to right: Tanya, Vee (Belgium), Angie... here you can see the ugly chairs I was talking about. I should have taken the picture up on an angle |
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| The French garden in the back of the palace |
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| Angie in her fashionable plastic shoe covers viewing the portrait as if looking through binoculars... we're not sure why, but this made the image much clearer/sharper. This adorable little old lady who watches visitors was giving us some good tips and history of the estate |
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| The Grotto (natural or artificial cave) portion of the estate. It was designed to represent the palace of the King of the Seas. The interior is meant to be the throne room of Neptune crusted with seashells with the original decoration. Again, we were lucky, this building was going to undergo renovations next week, so if we went any later we would have missed it. |
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| The grotto as seen when we first walked up the path (but I didn't yet know what it was) |
Internet photo above showing the grotto from behind and reflected in the pond
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| Entrance to the grotto - outside is supposed to look like seaweed and the shape like a wave |
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| Inside the grotto - all that is shells on the walls |
The grotto ceiling gave the impression that you were underwater and the sea creatures were swimming by the windows
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| View of the French House (closed for renovations) from the ornate window of the grotto |
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| As usual, I felt sad for the several peacocks/peahens kept caged |
A great day was had by all... left the house at 9:15 and returned at 4:00.
Thank you to Ros from the AWO for organizing and guiding us on this trip. I look forward to more adventures.
