You Won't Believe But It Is a King's Palace! (Tallinn)

Will you believe that you can see a house of the Russian King (Tzar) in this photo? But that is true. It was a house where Peter the Great (Peter I) would stay with his wife Catherine the 1st while visiting Tallinn in the beginning of the 18th century. When you see that "palace", you will probably better understand the nature of the most unusual and the most discrepant king (tsar) in the history of Russia.

It is a museum now with lots of authentic items. Actually, it is the oldest museum in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. It has been a museum since 1806!

It looks very modest not only outside but also inside. There is a kitchen near the entrance.

That is how they kindled fire using wooden splinters.

Firewood was kindled from above, right on the stove. The smoke was going directly into the chimney.

They also heated the house from there.

There is also the living room and the bedroom which date to late 17th - early 18th centuries. Peter the Great bought the building from a Member of the local Magistrate and would occasionally stay there with his wife in the period between 1714 and 1723. It had only 1 storey back then.

In 1718 Peter I started building a real palace which was completed later by the other Russian tzar, Alexander the 1st.

But this my post is about the simple house of the tzar who led very simple life and liked to work with his own hands. Just look at this model of a ship "Shlisselburg" made by Peter the Great from the first to the last step!

There is also a a cast of Peter's hand — quite huge, actually!

A couple of pipes. I am not sure they are authentic, but show how they looked like.

This thing, which looks like a huge tabletop, actually was hunging on the wall and showed the direction of the wind from the weather vane. Tsar Peter I was an excellent sailor and it was important for him.

Some authentic pieces of furniture with copies of Tsar Piter's handwriting.

The tsar's bedroom.

We were offered to guess the purpose of this item.

Not a too difficult puzzle - the servants used it to heat the bed without putting on or in! They let us hold it - heavy even without coal! Poor servants!

This armchair or a throne, maybe, looks nothing special, but it has an interesting the story behind.

Peter the Great and Karl XII, the king of Sweden competed, fought, and certainly were not indifferent to each other. Peter liked Karl's traveling throne very much and ordered himself the similar one.

Peter's chest also has its own story behind. The restorers found a bundle of expensive paper behind the upholstery. They looked for traces of the records, but did not find it and settled on the version that it was smuggling. 😁 Who can know the truth?

Later, Alexander I added the attic floor. The table there belonged to Peter the Ist, too. The size is not small, as you can see, but it it was often taken out of the hous for the tsar would sit at it somewhere on a
heigh place to be able to watch the enemy warships, which patrolled in the Gulf of Finland and often approached dangerous distance to the city during the Northern War (1700-1721).

The exposition of the museum today is a unique collection of authentic objects that surrounded the royal couple in everyday life. The pride of the museum is its art collection, the earliest work of which is the portrait of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, donated in 1639 to the Brotherhood of Blackheads.

That vase also belonged to Peter I.

There is a basement as well. Now there are only some statues from the new palace there.

Near the house, Peter laid out a small garden which then became a beautiful park called in Catherine's honour and now has the name Kadriorg. A very beautiful place and needs a ceparate post.

@pinmapple
[//]:# (!pinmapple 59.437720 lat 24.796016 long House of Peter the Great d3scr)

All the pictures were taken by me on my telephone Huawei P9.