The Palace in Winter

Rundale

Rundale, a little over an hour drive from Riga, is a beautifully restored Baroque palace once owned by the Dukes of Courland and designed by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the architect of many of St. Petersburg's most famous palaces, including the Winter Palace, Peterhof, and Smolny Convent.  It is bea-u-ti-ful. We saw it in winter, when the grounds around it (which have also been restored) were completely buried in snow and impossible to appreciate, but the white landscape made the yellow of the main building and the almost Pompeian red of the stables stand out even more.

 Rundale Side Facade

Stables facing the main entrance

Approaching the main gate

The Palace has had a very difficult history.  Built over a period of 30 years, starting in 1736 and ending in 1768, with a hiatus of 24 years from 1740 to 1764, it was damaged during World War I -- when it was occupied by the German army -- and the war for Latvian Independence in 1919.  In the years after World War II,  it was used for grain storage and as a gym for local schools -- and judging from photographs from the period it was in very poor shape.  Renovations began during the Soviet period, in 1972; and after Latvia regained independence in 1991 another major effort was begun.  The results are amazing.  A number of important rooms have been restored to look as they would have in the 18th century -- ceiling frescoes have been repaired to look as if nothing had every happened to them; floors have been laid where the original parquet had worn away; and ceramic stoves have been reconstructed to match the few remaining originals.

And the restoration continues.  Even while we were there, a man worked with a tiny paintbrush on the stucco roses decorating the walls of one of the State Rooms.

The State Rooms are impressive, but my favorite were the private rooms of the Duke and Duchess, including the bathrooms with ceramic washbasins and chamber pots!   Most of the art displayed in the rooms is reproduction -- the originals are long gone; some, including a Rembrandt, to museums in other parts of Europe.

Fantastic!  Love it!  Who Lived Here???

The Palace clearly had belonged to very wealthy and powerful people, so I was curious about these Dukes of Courland.  It turns out they have a very long history in the area and go back to the Livonian Order, a branch of the Teutonic Knights, who conducted crusades in this part of the world in the 13th century.  Livonia was an area roughly covering northern Latvia and Southern Estonia that was disputed in the Livonian Wars of the 16th century -- wars that involved everyone in the region: Russians, Swedes, Danish-Norwegians, Polish-Lithuanians, and of course, Livonians.  The wars did not go well for the Livonians, and parts of the old Livonian Confederation were given to a Baltic German nobleman who had been the last Master of the Order of Livonia, Gotthard Kettler.  So he became the first Duke of Courland and Semigallia -- an area stretching from the Daugava river to the Baltic Sea.

His descendants built the Duchy into a prosperous state, with a metal working industry, important ports at Ventspils and Liepaja, and trading relationships with the major powers of the time, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal.  The Duchy even had colonies in Africa and the West Indies -- turns out Tobago was Courlandish!!  (Couronian?)  Interesting, no?

But even these Dukes didn't build Rundale.  They owned the nearby Jelgava Palace -- so who built Rundale????? It turns out it was a very interesting character, who took over the title of Duke of Courland not by being born into it, but because of his friendships in high places -- one Ernst Johann Biron.  Biron was the son of a groom of the then-Duke of Courland, and he was quite the operator.  Through his sister, who was the favorite of a powerful minister in the Russian court, he ingratiated himself to Anna Ioannovna, a niece of Peter the Great.  By that time, Anna had married the next Duke of Courland -- who promptly died, making her the Duchess of Courland!  What timing....

And then another stroke of luck!  The young Czar -- a second cousin -- died, and Anna became ruler of Russia. She must have really liked Biron, and maybe he was also very clever at managing affairs of state, because she appointed him de facto administrator.  He turned out to be as effective at administration as at managing his enemies, who were dispatched unceremoniously, and gruesomely --(beheadings! the rack! Siberia!)

While administering Russia, and not coincidentally, Biron became richer and richer, and when the Kettler line of the Dukes of Courland became extinct, he was appointed the new ruler of Courland.  So, in 1736, he decided to give himself a summer palace and construction of Rundale began.

Unfortunately for Biron, Anna died a few years later and he fell out of favor, was briefly exiled to Siberia, and then lay low for the next 20 years, until another friendly Russian regent emerged.  He was then able to return to Courland -- and Rundale -- as Duke until he died.  (And this explains the lag time in building the Palace.)

Rundale did not stay in Biron's family.  When Catherine the Great took over Russia, she awarded Rundale to one of her favorites, and the Palace passed into the hands of Russian nobility until World War I.

What about that Biron, eh?