A small room following the Bedroom, with a window facing the Sectorial Ponds, is the Plane Study, named so because it is faced with beautiful iridescent panels of planewood.
Campredon, the French ambassador to the Russian court, in his report to the king about his visit to Peterhof, made a special emphasis on the decor of the Plane Study, although he erroneously identified the wood which decorated the interior as "the cedar of Persia". In actual fact, however, the planewood was sent to St Petersburg by Artemy Volynsky, the governor of Astrakhan, and was kept in the Admiralty warehouse for a long time. Оn1у several years later it was used by Peter the Great for the decoration of a room in the Marly Palace. On the southern, eastern and northern walls are three portraits of Peter the Great's children - the companion likenesses of Anna and Elisabeth as well as a portrait of Alexis with the attributes of war and of Piotr with the attributes of peace.
Owing to its small size, this room could accommodate only a bureau and a chair.
One of the doors of the Bedroom opens to the Lower Corridor, at the end of which, by the exit to the Sectorial Ponds, there is a staircase leading to the first floor. Its two flights with winding steps at the turn were faced with oak and the handrails were made of wrought-iron with gilded details and of burnished steel. Amazingly elaborate pattern of the handrail featuring Peter's monogram, birds and tropheys suggests that it was created by Nicolas Pineau, who produced sketches for the grilles of the palace's balconies.
At the first floor, opposite the staircase there is a tiny Wardrobe Room, where in past times some part of Peter's extensive wardrobe, which comprised 300 items, was housed. The bulk of Peter the Great's clothes was transferred, in the reign of Nicholas I, to the Imperial Hermitage in St Petersburg, but even today the Peterhof collections own some interesting garments which belonged to the Emperor.
The Upper Corridor leading to the rooms of the first floor is decorated, like the ground floor, with paintings by Dutch and Flemish artists of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Bureau. Italy. Late 17th century.
The Handrail of the Staircase. The monogram of Piotr Alexeyevich (Peter the Great).
The Handrail of the Staircase. The monogram of the Crown of the Russian Empire.
Complete playbill of all St. Petersburg,Russia theatres, shows, concerts, etc. !
World-known music festival "The Stars of the White Nights".