ST. PETERSBURG -- Inside St. Petersburg's suburban palaces, artisans are busy recreating elegant parquet floors and carving intricate door panels from original designs.
But this is not a routine restoration project.
When the re-creations of five rooms from the royal palaces go on display, it will be on the other side of the globe, as part of a special exhibition that is planned for next year in Jackson, Mississippi.
"We think this exhibit will be a visual feast," said Jack Kyle, executive director of the Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, which is organizing the Palaces of St. Petersburg exhibition.
"This will give visitors a real sample of the grandeur of these great imperial palaces," Kyle said.
The exhibition will run March 1 to Aug. 31, 1996 at the Mississippi Arts Pavilion. The palaces are loaning the original furnishings of the rooms for the exhibit, other objects will displayed in a separate gallery.
In all, more than 600 pieces from the palaces will be on display, one of the largest such collections to leave Russia for the United States.
Among the touring treasures will be the coronation throne of Tsar Nicholas II, the Gurev porcelain service from the period of Tsar Alexander I and a set of carved oak panels from Peter the Great's study.
Visitors will have a chance to walk through the Yellow Dining Hall from the Peterhof Palace, see Paul I's throne in the Upper Throne Room of the tsar's palace in Gatchina and gaze into Maria Feodorovna's Lantern Study from Pavlovsk. From the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, the Portrait Hall and the Blue Formal Sitting Room will be recreated.
"It's very important for us to gain the interest of the American public and to let them see our treasures, without having to leave the States," said Nikolai Tretyakov, director of the Gatchina palace. "They'll know they're seeing only a small part and can come to Russia to see the rest."
The $7.75 million project grew from contacts between doctors in Mississippi and St. Petersburg.
The Russians hit upon the idea of offering the city's cultural treasures as a gesture of appreciation to the American doctors, said Kyle.
One of the original ideas was to organize an exhibit of paintings from the Russian Museum. However, Kyle said, Americans are not very familiar with the Russian masters and might not have been as motivated to travel to see such a display.
"In order to achieve an exhibition that would appeal to a broad spectrum of American society, we changed the plans and chose to work with the palaces," he said.
In Gatchina, craftsmen have created a perfect replica of the rich parquet floor that graces the throne room.
Plaster cornices have been molded, and the carved borders for the doors are complete, awaiting their gilding once they arrive in Jackson. Two tall gilded candelabra are also being designed from photos of the original four that once adorned the corners of the pastel pink and green room. All four perished, but when the exhibition is over, the two replicas will return to the palace as part of its permanent display.
"This is greatly helping our restoration process, because all of these re-creations will be returned to the palace," Tretyakov said.
The rooms on display will take visitors through some of the highlights of architectural design in Russia -- from the baroque style of Bartholomeo Rastrelli (1700-1771) in the Catherine Palace's Portrait Hall to the neo-classicism of the Yellow Hall from Peterhof, designed by Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817).
The organizers are hoping that the exhibit will attract several hundred thousand visitors from Canada and the United States, including sports fans attending the 1996 summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.
A similar exhibit was planned in 1990 for display at the National Gallery in Washington, he said, but none of the palaces could come up with the finances to transport the objects.
This time, the expenses, such as insurance and shipping, are being picked up by the American sponsors, which include Jackson banks, Chevron, and local enterprises such as Sam's Town Hotel and Gambling Hall.
On the American side, there is hope that the display will put the state of Mississippi in the cultural spotlight.
"My first impression when I heard about the exhibit was, 'Why Jackson, Mississippi?' " said Joseph Rosendo, one of 88 American journalists and educators brought over for a preview of the exhibit last week.
"My next thought was, 'It can't be much.' When I came to St. Petersburg and saw the palaces, I was amazed. Now my feeling is, Jackson, Mississippi is pretty lucky," Rosendo commented.
Mississippi, an impoverished Deep South state perhaps best known as the birthplace of the blues and Elvis Presley, is little associated with international art happenings.
After an intensive marketing effort in the 1970s, however, Jackson, with a population of just 197,000 people, became the American host to the International Ballet Competition, which rotates among three other cities around the world, including Moscow.
But this is not a routine restoration project.
When the re-creations of five rooms from the royal palaces go on display, it will be on the other side of the globe, as part of a special exhibition that is planned for next year in Jackson, Mississippi.
"We think this exhibit will be a visual feast," said Jack Kyle, executive director of the Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, which is organizing the Palaces of St. Petersburg exhibition.
"This will give visitors a real sample of the grandeur of these great imperial palaces," Kyle said.
The exhibition will run March 1 to Aug. 31, 1996 at the Mississippi Arts Pavilion. The palaces are loaning the original furnishings of the rooms for the exhibit, other objects will displayed in a separate gallery.
In all, more than 600 pieces from the palaces will be on display, one of the largest such collections to leave Russia for the United States.
Among the touring treasures will be the coronation throne of Tsar Nicholas II, the Gurev porcelain service from the period of Tsar Alexander I and a set of carved oak panels from Peter the Great's study.
Visitors will have a chance to walk through the Yellow Dining Hall from the Peterhof Palace, see Paul I's throne in the Upper Throne Room of the tsar's palace in Gatchina and gaze into Maria Feodorovna's Lantern Study from Pavlovsk. From the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, the Portrait Hall and the Blue Formal Sitting Room will be recreated.
"It's very important for us to gain the interest of the American public and to let them see our treasures, without having to leave the States," said Nikolai Tretyakov, director of the Gatchina palace. "They'll know they're seeing only a small part and can come to Russia to see the rest."
The $7.75 million project grew from contacts between doctors in Mississippi and St. Petersburg.
The Russians hit upon the idea of offering the city's cultural treasures as a gesture of appreciation to the American doctors, said Kyle.
One of the original ideas was to organize an exhibit of paintings from the Russian Museum. However, Kyle said, Americans are not very familiar with the Russian masters and might not have been as motivated to travel to see such a display.
"In order to achieve an exhibition that would appeal to a broad spectrum of American society, we changed the plans and chose to work with the palaces," he said.
In Gatchina, craftsmen have created a perfect replica of the rich parquet floor that graces the throne room.
Plaster cornices have been molded, and the carved borders for the doors are complete, awaiting their gilding once they arrive in Jackson. Two tall gilded candelabra are also being designed from photos of the original four that once adorned the corners of the pastel pink and green room. All four perished, but when the exhibition is over, the two replicas will return to the palace as part of its permanent display.
"This is greatly helping our restoration process, because all of these re-creations will be returned to the palace," Tretyakov said.
The rooms on display will take visitors through some of the highlights of architectural design in Russia -- from the baroque style of Bartholomeo Rastrelli (1700-1771) in the Catherine Palace's Portrait Hall to the neo-classicism of the Yellow Hall from Peterhof, designed by Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817).
The organizers are hoping that the exhibit will attract several hundred thousand visitors from Canada and the United States, including sports fans attending the 1996 summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.
A similar exhibit was planned in 1990 for display at the National Gallery in Washington, he said, but none of the palaces could come up with the finances to transport the objects.
This time, the expenses, such as insurance and shipping, are being picked up by the American sponsors, which include Jackson banks, Chevron, and local enterprises such as Sam's Town Hotel and Gambling Hall.
On the American side, there is hope that the display will put the state of Mississippi in the cultural spotlight.
"My first impression when I heard about the exhibit was, 'Why Jackson, Mississippi?' " said Joseph Rosendo, one of 88 American journalists and educators brought over for a preview of the exhibit last week.
"My next thought was, 'It can't be much.' When I came to St. Petersburg and saw the palaces, I was amazed. Now my feeling is, Jackson, Mississippi is pretty lucky," Rosendo commented.
Mississippi, an impoverished Deep South state perhaps best known as the birthplace of the blues and Elvis Presley, is little associated with international art happenings.
After an intensive marketing effort in the 1970s, however, Jackson, with a population of just 197,000 people, became the American host to the International Ballet Competition, which rotates among three other cities around the world, including Moscow.
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