At this point, I hope you have already found St. Petersburg as a very interesting city. Although St. Petersburg is a city in Russia, it has a strong connection with Western Europe. So, you can find a lot of references of Western Europe in this city. An example is Peterhof Palace (彼得霍夫宮), which has been briefly mentioned in my last article.
The palace is one of the finest royal residences in Russia and is referred to as the "Russian Versailles" (俄羅斯的凡爾賽宮). Why does the palace have this nickname? On one hand, of course, it is because of the outstanding architecture and the crafting skills of the Peterhof Palace, which can be compared to the best palace of Western Europe, Versailles. On the other hand, the palace gets the reference of Versailles because both of them are very luxurious. The builders of these two palaces, Peter the Great of Russia and Louis XIV (路易十四) of France, wanted to showcase their strength and wealthiness. Last but not least, the most obvious and important reason is, as per Peter the Great's request, Versailles was used as the blueprint to build the Peterhof Palace.
Among all unique buildings in the Peterhof Palace, it is no doubt that the most eye-catching (引人注目) feature is the Samson (參孫) Fountain (噴泉). This fountain symbols (象徵) the victory of Russia over Sweden in the Battle of Poltava (波爾塔瓦會戰). This Battle was carried by Peter the Great, but this fountain was not built by him. The Battle of Poltava happened in 1709. And, since Russia won, the battle signified the end of Sweden being a European great power (歐洲列強).
In 1734, the decision of building the fountain to celebrate this 25th anniversary of the battle was made. In the centre of the fountain, there is a sculpture representing Samson tearing the lion's jaws, which is abstracted from a story from the Bible (聖經). In the Bible, it is a story representing a victory of a battle. In addition, if you have looked at the coat of arms of Sweden (瑞典國徽), you can find that a few lions are in the design. So, the lion whose jaws are torn in the sculpture represents Sweden.
Why is the Fountain so eye-catching? Not only because it is huge, but also, same as other buildings and structure of the palace, it is nothing but grand: all sculptures in the fountain are shining and golden. Apparently, the successors of Peter the Great inherited Peter's character of showing off the wealthiness of Russia. It is without doubt that Russians have made this palace a remarkable attraction for visitors.
■米奇 中大通識碩士，工作數年又跑去英國留學，順道看看外國文化
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