Would you like to come see a palace? Asked my friend Leanne who is the community liaison officer of the British Embassy in Moscow. As part of her job duties, she has to organize excursions for the British employees and family. Excursions such as going on a private tour of a palace in Moscow which is closed to the public, but will open for Leanne's excursion. What can I say? It's a hard job, but someone has to go to the palace. So, I accepted the invitation gracefully.
I can't tell you much about the Ostankino Palace, since as soon as I saw it, I stopped hearing the vivid, detailed explanations of our wonderful guide. i was consumed by how the light was hitting this very old, charming, elegant palace, and all I wanted to do was capture it on my camera.
And that is what I did. That is, until Simon asked me to "come back from the dark side" and enjoy the lecture with the rest of the group.
Since I put my camera away, I can just tell you about - but not show you - my favorite part of this very noble castle - its theater. Yes, there is a theater inside this castle, and the story behind it is better than any picture I could ever take.
As told so beautifully by our guide, the theater was built by Count Nikolai Shermetev, the castle owner. He build the theater for his lover who then became his wife - a true life Cinderella, the brilliant actress Praskovya Zhemchugova. You can read more about the castle here:
and here
To wrap this great fairy tale up, here is story you will not find on any of the castle's official sites: Out guide brought along her granddaughter, a sweet, quite little girl, who walked the palace with us patiently. I even snapped a shot of her as she was standing on the old wooden castle floors playing with her gloves (it was VERY cold in there). As we were leaving, the guide stroke her granddaughter's hair and said to us: "You know, this girl is part of your tour as well, since she is the great great granddaughter of Count Nikolai Shermetev...
Once upon a time, in a far far away Moscow, lived a little girl...
