Here in Dublin we are pulling down houses and other buildings of some historic merit. Believe it or not, in Russia, rickety financial situation and all, they are restoring their historic past. Even, and it is hard to believe, palaces of the Tsars. In the last war the Germans stripped the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, now Pushkin, near Leningrad, of its brilliant, unique Amber Room, once, it is claimed "the eighth wonder of the world". Anyway, it is said that six tons of amber, this fossilised resin we were writing about recently, backed with gold leaf vanished. An archaeologist Paul Bahn, writing in the Sunday Times magazine recently, said it took a team of craftsmen 10 years to carve. Anyway, the Germans came in 1941 and took it all away and it has still not been found. But the Russians are re-creating it. And Avine Lydon, writing from 1, Clarinda Park East, Dun Laoghaire, tells of the recreation not only of this Amber Room but the whole palace of which it was a part. "I was lucky enough to spend some time in St. Petersburg in June this year (The White Nights) and went to Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo) for a day. The Palace was demolished during World War Two and has been largely restored. The Amber Room is almost complete and is stunning, golden and glowing. Amongst ourselves we chose our favourite rooms, and my choice was the Amber Room. But there are so many beautiful rooms in these Russian Palaces that choosing a favourite isn't easy. Wonderful artistic creations in so many different styles and outstanding examples of craftsmanship and skill." She ends: "And of course such opulence makes it easy to understand a people's revolution."
And yet, they are restoring it all in this case. Tourism in view? Or just a love of the magnificent? Our friend sends two pages from what is apparently a tourist guide which gives us coloured pictures of these remarkable rooms: the Green Dining Room, the Great Hall, the Cavaliers' Dining Room for Tsarina Elizabeth's gentlemen-in-waiting, all gold and white. Outside are the French-style gardens, formal and geometrical with some English-style landscaping in the park. About 24 kilometres south of St. Petersburg (which was Leningrad). The architecture mostly originated in the 18th century.