НАПИШИТЕ ПОЖАЛУЙСТА НЕ БОЛЬШОЙ РАССКАЗ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ ПРО ИНТЕРЕСНЫЕ ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЕ МЕСТА РОССИИ

Kizhi Island
You may find yourself humming the Song of the Volga Boatmen when you visit Kizhi Island. It’s an island in Lake Orega on the Volga River waterway. More importantly, Kizhi Island is home to an outstanding collection of picturesque wooden churches. Once an important lumber and mining town serving 100 villages, residents began abandoning the island until only two log churches and a bell tower remained. These became the basis for one of the best open-air museums in Russia. Other historic buildings were added, but the star remains the Transfiguration Church with its 22 domes.

Peterhof Palace
In 1721, Peter the Great ordered a palace built outside St. Petersburg on the site of a palace a nobleman had started seven years earlier. It soon evolved into a collection of palaces and other ornate buildings. Peter died four years later, but his daughter Empress Elizabeth continued with the construction. The Grand Palace is incredibly lavish, especially the ornate Ceremonial Staircase, from floor to ceiling. Plenty of gold is used both inside and out. Rich fabrics and wallpapers abound. As you walk over them, note the design work of the wooden floors. Craftsmanship through is superb.

Catherine Palace
The stunning structure that stands in Tsarskoye Selo, also known as Pushkin, today isn’t the original Catherine Palace that was built in 1717 by Catherine of Russia. A later empress had that summer residence of Russian tsars demolished in 1752 and replaced with a gold-plated stunner. Completed four years later, the new Catherine Palace featured 220 pounds of gold covering the exterior and statues on the roof, making it a shining example of Rococo architecture. Catherine the Great later ruled from amidst this opulence. The Germans destroyed Catherine Palace in World War II, but enough records existed to restore it to its former glory.

Winter Palace
Once the official home of Russian rulers, the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg today houses the outstanding Hermitage Museum. The present Winter Palace isn’t the original built by Peter the Great in 1708; indeed, there have been four Winter Palaces. What stands today is far from the log cabin Peter built. St. Petersburg’s most famous building today is ornate, with a greenish façade and roof topped with statuary. The inside is just as ornate and opulent. But all was not peaceful for the imperial residents. The Bloody Sunday massacre took place here in 1905, followed by further violence during the 1917 Russian Revolution.