Vlad usually had a horse attached to each of the victim’s legs and a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the victims body. The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp, else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the buttocks and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other body orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother’s chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake.

Vlad Tepes often had the stakes arranged in various geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring of concentric circles in the outskirts of a city that was his target. The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The decaying corpses were often left up for months. It was once reported that an invading Turkish army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the Danube.

In 1461 Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, a man not noted for his squeamishness, returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of twenty thousand impaled Turkish prisoners outside of the city of Tirgoviste. This gruesome sight is remembered in history as “the Forest of the Impaled.”

Thousands were often impaled at a single time. Ten thousand were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in 1460. In 1459, on St. Bartholomew Day, Vlad III had thirty thousand of the merchants and boyars of the Transylvanian city of Brasov impaled. One of the most famous woodcuts of the period shows Vlad Dracula feasting amongst a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside Brasov while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims.

Although impalement was Vlad Dracula’s favorite method of torture, it was by no means his only method. The list of tortures employed by this cruel prince reads like an inventory of hell’s tools: nails in heads, cutting off of limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off of noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to wild animals, and burning alive.

No one was immune to Vlad’s attentions. His victims included women and children, peasants and great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants. However, the vast majority of his victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and his own Wallachia.

Many have attempted to justify Vlad Dracula’s actions on the basis of nascent nationalism and political necessity. Many of the merchants in Transylvania and Wallachia were German Saxons who were seen as parasites, preying upon Romanian natives of Wallachia. The wealthy land owning boyars exerted their own often capricious and unfaithful influence over the reigning princes. Vlad’s own father and older brother were murdered by unfaithful boyars. However, many of Vlad Dracula’s victims were also Wallachians, and few deny that he derived a perverted pleasure from his actions.

Vlad Dracula began his reign of terror almost as soon as he came to power. His first significant act of cruelty may have been motivated by a desire for revenge as well as a need to solidify his power. Early in his main reign he gave a feast for his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter. Vlad was well aware that many of these same nobles were part of the conspiracy that led to his father’s assassination and the burying alive of his elder brother, Mircea. Many had also played a role in the overthrow of numerous Wallachian princes. During the feast Vlad asked his noble guests how many princes had ruled during their lifetimes. All of the nobles present had outlived several princes. None had seen less than seven reigns. Vlad immediately had all the assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars and their families were impaled on the spot. The younger and healthier nobles and their families were marched north from Tirgoviste to the ruins of his castle in the mountains above the Arges River. The enslaved boyars and their families were forced to labor for months rebuilding the old castle with materials from a nearby ruin. According to the reports they labored until the clothes fell off their bodies and then were forced to continue working naked. Very few survived this ordeal.
Throughout his reign Vlad continued to systematically eradicate the old boyar class of Wallachia. Apparently Vlad was determined that his own power be on a modern and thoroughly secure footing. In the place of the executed boyars Vlad promoted new men from among the free peasantry and middle class; men who would be loyal only to their prince.

Vlad Tepes’ atrocities against the people of Wallachia were usually attempts to enforce his own moral code upon his country. He appears to have been particularly concerned with female chastity. Maidens who lost their virginity, adulterous wives and unchaste widows were all targets of Vlad’s cruelty. Such women often had their sexual organs cut out or their breasts cut off, and were often impaled through the vagina on red-hot stakes. One report tells of the execution of an unfaithful wife. Vlad had the woman’s breasts cut off, then she was skinned and impaled in a square in Tirgoviste with her skin lying on a nearby table. Vlad also insisted that his people be honest and hard working. Merchants who cheated their customers were likely to find themselves mounted on a stake beside common thieves.

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Historians don’t know much about his early years. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome. His early education was left in the hands of his mother, a Transylvanian noblewoman, and her family. His real education began in 1436 after his father succeeded in claiming the Wallachian throne by killing his Danesti rival. His training was typical to that of the sons of nobility throughout Europe. His first tutor in his apprenticeship to knighthood was an elderly boyar who had fought against the Turks at the battle of Nicolopolis. Vlad learned all the skills of war and peace that were deemed necessary for a Christian knight.

At the age of thirteen, young Vlad and his brother Radu were sent to Adrianople as hostages. He remained there until 1448, at which time he was released by the Turks, who supported him as their candidate for the Wallachian throne. Vlad’s younger brother apparently chose to remain in Turkey, where he had grown up.

Vlad’s initial reign was quite short (two months). He return at the throne of Wallachia in 1456 with the support of Hunyadi and the Kingdom of Hungary. He established Tirgoviste as his capitol city, and began to build his castle some distance away in the mountains near the Arges River. Most of the atrocities associated with Vlad III took place during this time.

More than anything else the historical Dracula is known for his inhuman cruelty. Impalement was Vlad III’s preferred method of torture and execution. Impalement was and is one of the most gruesome ways of dying imaginable, as it was typically slow and painful. About more details of Vlad’s atrocities we’ll write another articles.

Although Vlad III experienced some success in fending off the Turks, his accomplishments were relatively short-lived. He received little support from his titular overlord, Matthius Corvinus, King of Hungary (son of John Hunyadi) and Wallachian resources were too limited to achieve any lasting success against the powerful Turks.

In 1462 the Turks succeeded in forcing Vlad to flee to Transylvania. His first wife committed suicide by leaping from the towers of Vlad’s castle into the waters of the Arges River rather than surrender to the Turks. Vlad escaped through a secret passage and fled across the mountains into Transylvania and appealed to Matthias Corvinus for aid. The king immediately had Vlad arrested and imprisoned in a royal tower.

There is some debate as to the exact length of Vlad’s confinement. The Russian pamphlets indicate that he was a prisoner from 1462 until 1474. However, during this period he was able to gradually win his way back into the graces of Matthias Corvinus and ultimately met and married a member of the royal family (possibly the sister of Corvinus) and fathered two sons. It is unlikely that a prisoner would be allowed to marry a member of the royal family. As the eldest son was about 10 years old at the point Vlad regained the Wallachian throne in 1476, his release probably occurred around 1466.

Another possible reason for Vlad’s rehabilitation was that the new successor to the Wallachian throne, Vlad’s own brother, Radu the Handsome, had instituted a very pro-Turkish policy. The Hungarian king may have viewed Dracula as a possible candidate to retake the throne. The fact that Vlad renounced the Orthodox faith and adopted Catholicism was also surely meant to appease his Hungarian captor.

In 1476 Vlad was again ready to make a bid for power. Vlad Dracula and Prince Stephen Bathory of Transylvania invaded Wallachia with a mixed contingent of forces. Vlad’s brother, Radu, had by then already died and was replaced by Basarab the Old, a member of the Danesti clan. At the approach of Vlad’s army Basarab and his cohorts fled. However, shortly after retaking the throne, Prince Bathory and most of Vlad’s forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a vulnerable position. Before he was able to gather support, a large Turkish army entered Wallachia. Vlad was forced to march and meet the Turks with less than four thousand men.

Vlad Dracula was killed in battle against the Turks near the town of Bucharest in December of 1476. Some reports indicate that he was assassinated by disloyal Wallachian boyars just as he was about to sweep the Turks from the field. Other accounts have him falling in defeat, surrounded by the ranks of his loyal Moldavian bodyguard. Still other reports claim that Vlad, at the moment of victory, was accidentally struck down by one of his own men.

The one undisputed fact is that ultimately his body was decapitated by the Turks and his head sent to Constantinople where the sultan had it displayed on a stake as proof that the horrible Impaler was finally dead. He was reportedly buried at Snagov, an island monastery located near Bucharest.

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Walking near Prague Castle and Royal Garden we arrived to Prague wine harvesting festival (vinobrani) and we decided to stay and check it out. Our participation consisted in tasting of young fermenting wine and purchase of some old wine for later.

Throughout southern Moravia local ‘vinobrani’ (wine festivals) celebrate the arrival of ‘Burcak’, the new, semi-fermented wine, in late August and early September. Visitors can also expect to be entertained by costumed jugglers, sword fighters and dancers. The weekend presents a full program, beginning with an evening costume procession. Other events and attractions include a knights’ tournament, an historical market, medieval music, dances, theater performances and plenty of opportunities to try the celebrated burcak. The grand finale comes with a display of fireworks.

The tasting and drinking of burcak has been part of Czech fall since old times. Tasting this young wine bring back so many memories from childhood, when this was only “alcohol” we have been allowed to drink.

Burcak is very young grape juice that is just starting fermenting. It is high in sugar and low in alcohol, but throughout fermentation the ratio between them is changing in favor of alcohol and wine is being born. We are not wine experts, but in our travels we learn little about flavor, color and taste.

From a wine producer we wound some interesting facts about the Czech wine production. The most productive part of the Czech Republic is the southeast part of Moravia. They have some vineyards in Bohemia and Prague, but Moravia with its plentiful sunshine, fertile soil and the right amount of rain gives grapes an excellent color, flavor and taste that give the wine the best quality that can be compared to quality of French and Italian wine.

We know that in north America it would be hard to find this wines, but if you look after small Czech, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Romanian store you could find them or you could order them. The California’s wine can’t even compare with the sweetness of this wines. You have to trust us by word.

While tasting the burcak you can listen some folk music or watch some folk dancing. It is a very popular event and you are surrounded all time by people all drinking burcak.

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The Prague Zoo is located in Troja, a border city quarter, but it is well accessible from the center. From the underground station on route C – Nadrazi Holesovice, take a bus number 112, leaving many times per hour, but it is often very full. Romantic souls can reach the Zoo by the steam boat leaving from the waterfront (Rasinovo nabrezi).

The Zoo is opened from 9 AM to 6 PM during the fall. The entrance fee is 70 Czk for an adult, 50 Czk reduced (children, students, seniors), but if you planning to stay in Prague for some time and you really are into animals, it is much better bargain to buy a permanent ticket for 500 Czk which is valid for one year. Children up to 3 years have a free entrance. In the Zoo there is a lift railway and a small train. These are both paid separately. For the pet owners there is an option to take your dog with you.

At the Zoo entrance we found out some interesting info. The Prague Zoo belongs to Czech most beautiful and biggest gardens, there were visitors already in 1931. First inhabitant of the Zoo was the wolf Lotty. During the whole twentieth century new occupiers from animal kingdom were increasing. In 2002 a big disaster hit the garden – flash flood which washed down more than half of the garden. Thanks to sponsors and donators things are now working as they should.

At this moment thousands of mammals are sheltered here, as well as over 1300 birds and almost 800 reptiles. They also fish, amphibians, shells and insects. It is not possible to write out all, come to see and you sure won´t be disappointed.
The Zoo is offering an interesting program to adopt one animal for one year. You become adoptive parent and a label with your name will be placed next to the animal´s location.

The most appreciated pavilions are the Indonesian Jungle and the Monkey Island where you can have a look at the luxuriant flora and fauna of the jungle or practically play with the cute lemurs.

After visiting the lower part of the Zoo we took the lift railway to the top part of the Zoo. From the chair you have a good view of the bird’s habitat.

On the top side of the Zoo you can take a brake and have a beer and a great sausage. To be honest was one of the best we eat in some time. The beer costs around 25 Czk and 20 Czk for a sausage.

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The fountains are one of Russia’s most famous tourist attractions, drawing millions of visitors every year. Fountains were intrinsic to Peter the Great’s original plans for Peterhof – it was the impossibility of engineering sufficiently powerful jets of water that prompted him to move his attentions from the Strelna site to Peterhof – and subsequent generations competed with their predecessors to add grander and ever more ingenious water features to the parkland surrounding the Grand Palace.

The most famous ensemble of fountains, the Grand Cascade, which runs from the northern facade of the Grand Palace to the Marine Canal, comprises 64 different fountains, and over 200 bronze statues, basoreliefs, and other decorations. At the center stands Rastrelli’s spectacular statue of Samson wrestling the jaws of a lion. The vista of the Grand Cascade with the Grand Palace behind it, the first sight to great visitors who arrive in Peterhof by sea, is truly breathtaking. The Grotto behind the Grand Cascade, which was once used for small parties, contains the enormous pipes, originally wooden, that feed the fountains.

Everywhere in the park we can find many fountains, the range and diversity is astounding, from a monumental ensembly like the Chess Cascade and the Pyramid Fountain, to the ever-popular Joke Fountains, including one which sprays unwary passers-by who step on a particular paving stone. The Joke Fountain is not that funny in a cold day.

From an official we found out that the official opening of the fountains, which usually takes place at the end of May, is an all-day festival, with classical music, fireworks and other performances, as each section of the park’s fountains is turned on one by one.

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If you arrive in Peterhof by boat, Monplaisir is one of the first sights to greet you. Sitting in the eastern corner of the Lower Park, right on the shoreline of the Gulf of Finland, Monplaisir vaguely resembles a Dutch Colonial mansion, with its high gabled roof over the central corpus and narrow rectangular windows to keep out the wintry north wind. The facade on the opposite side of the palace is quite different, with long single-storey galleries topped by a balustraded terrace and supported by slender columns. Here, large French windows allow natural light to pour into the rooms, giving the whole building a summery, almost tropical feel.

Monplaisir was completed by 1723, and became Peter’s preferred retreat, where he entertained only his closest friends and advisors. The rooms inside are almost entirely paneled in oak, and contain an interesting collection of 17th century art, much of which comes from Peter’s own collection. Among the highlights inside is the delightful Lacquered Gallery, the creation of which required Russian icon-painters to spend months studying Chinese lacquering. The result is an extraordinary mixture of black, gold and red panels with a distinctly Russian accent. The Assembly Hall, which was the main reception room, used for riotous banquets in Peter’s time, is decorated with latticed panels representing Africa, America, and Asia, and intricate rocaille coving.

Typically for Peter, Monplaisir displays an intriguing mixture of grandeur and homely comfort, with its pretty Dutch-tiled pantry, where Peter’s wife Catherine would herself cook for guests, and the cozy Maritime Study, with tiles representing 13 different types of ship. From the windows, the view across the Gulf to Kronshtadt on one side and St. Petersburg on the other is particularly fine.
Added later to Monplaisir are the Bathhouse Wing and Kitchen Block, ordered by Catherine after Peter’s death, and the Catherine Wing, which was originally built for Empress Elizabeth, but adapted by Quarenghi for Catherine the Great, who lived at Monplaisir during the last years of her marriage to Peter III. It was here that she heard the news of the coup against her husband that would eventually make her Empress of All the Russias. Inside the Catherine Wing, there are more relics of Alexander I than of Catherine, including his study and bedroom, with an extraordinary boat-shaped bed.

Opening Hours: June to September, daily from 10.30am to 5pm, closed on Wednesdays. For the Catherine Wing: May to September, daily from 10.30 am to 5pm, closed Thursdays, October to April, weekends only from 10.30am to 5pm.

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The first areas of land to be developed at Peterhof were the formal gardens around Monplaisir and Marly, part of the Lower Park. The earth excavated to create the Marly Ponds was used to build a rampart against the sea winds that, along with a 3-meter-high stone wall, surrounds the Garden of Venus, Peter’s orchard, with cherry and apple trees, and several charming statues. The garden was created simultaneously with Marly, and completed in 1724. Adjoining the Garden of Venus, the Garden of Bacchus was also begun during Peter’s reign, although additions were made to its statuary and fountains throughout the 18th century. The same is true of the gardens around Monplaisir.

Also during Peter’s reign, and then under Empress Elizabeth, who continued her father’s work at Peterhof after over a decade of neglect, the Upper Gardens south of the Grand Palace, which great most visitors to Peterhof beyond the entrance to the park, were laid out, mostly by Jean Leblond and Nicola Michetti. Here, three alleys lead to the Palace, surrounded by formal flowerbeds and low, clipped hedges.

Catherine the Great oversaw the creation of the first landscape garden at Peterhof, the English Park, which was designed jointly by English landscaper James Meders and the great Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi. The park was once the setting for Quarenghi’s English Palace, considered one of the finest works of Russian classicism, which was later used as a guesthouse for foreign visitors, and then destroyed by artillery fire in the Second World War.

The grounds were again extended considerably during the reign of Nicholas I, who not only commissioned the Alexandria Park, but also added large sections of landscaped gardens around the original Lower Park.

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The palace and park at Peterhof (also known as Petrodvorets) is one of St. Petersburg’s most famous and popular visitor attractions. Often they are referred to as “the Russian Versaille”, but we think that the comparison does a disservice to the grandeur and scope of this majestic estate.

However, from the historian tales, Versailles was the inspiration for Peter the Great’s desire to build an imperial palace in the suburbs of his new city. Peterhof – which means “Peter’s Court” in German – became the site for the Tsar’s Monplaisir Palace, and then of the original Grand Palace. The estate was equally popular with Peter’s granddaughter, Empress Elizabeth, who ordered the expansion of the Grand Palace and greatly extended the park and the famous system of fountains, including the truly spectacular Grand Cascade.

During the 18th and 19th century’s improvements to the park continued. Catherine the Great moved the court to Pushkin, but Peterhof once again became the official Imperial Residence in the reign of Nicholas I, who ordered the building of the modest Cottage Palace in 1826.

In the Second World War, Peterhof was ravaged by German troops. However, it was one of the first to be resurrected and, thanks to the work of military engineers and over 1,000 volunteers; most of the estate’s major structures had been fully restored by 1947. The name was also de-Germanized after the war, becoming Petrodvorets, the name under which the surrounding town is still known.

The palace and park are once again known as Peterhof.

As you enter the estate we pass a beautiful park and some fountains.

In front, between trees, you can see the grand palace. The Grand Palace at Peterhof was designed to be the centerpiece of Peter the Great’s “Russian Versaille”. Around 1720, the Tsar gave up on attempts to establish his court at Strelna, mainly because the boggy ground proved entirely unsuitable for the canals and fountains that he envisioned. Moving his attentions further east to Peterhof, the Tsar began to draw up his own plans for the grounds and palace. Work had already begun on a modest palace, designed by Jean-Baptiste Le Blond, in 1714, and that building was completed in 1721.

Meanwhile, fired by Peter’s untiring enthusiasm, a massive amount of work had been completed around the palace, including the landscaping of the Lower Park, the digging of the Sea Canal, and the building of Monplaisir, Marly Palace, and most of the Hermitage. The original Higher Palace was somewhat inadequate for its surrounding splendors, and Peter instructed Le Blond and his pupil, Johann Braunstein, to expand the building.

Work was halted after Peter’s death in 1725, and Peterhof was almost abandoned until Peter’s daughter Elizabeth came to the throne in 1740. Elizabeth commissioned Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who had already completed the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg, to build a genuinely regal palace. Rastrelli chose to retain the original building within his design, and the result is supremely elegant and surprisingly restrained. The long, narrow palace, which was built in the last decade before baroque made way for neoclassicism, has minimal decoration, and Rastrelli’s chief stylistic flourishes are the two white pavilions with gilded cupolas at the end of the wings. Beige and white, the palace is majestic without being overwhelming, and provides a perfect backdrop both to the elegantly formal Upper Garden, and to the spectacular Grand Cascade.

Unfortunate we came in a day when we couldn’t visit the inside part of the castle. Maybe we’ll have better luck next time.

Opening Hours: Daily, 10.30am to 5pm. Closed Mondays and the last Tuesday of each month.

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Sankt Petersburg is the northernmost major city of the world and one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Peter has all the ingredients for an unforgettable travel experience: high art, lavish architecture, wild nightlife, an extraordinary history and rich cultural traditions that have inspired and nurtured some of the modern world’s greatest literature, music, and visual art.

Due to the city’s northern position it enjoys the phenomenon of the “white nights”, lasting from May 25-26 till July 16-17. July 22, the Solstice Day is the longest day (18 hours 53 minutes); the shortest day is December 22 (5 hours 52 minutes).
The Neva River is the city’s main waterway. The name of the river derives from the ancient name of Lake Ladoga, the Neva where it begins. In the delta, the Neva splits into three main branches: the Bolshaya Neva, the Malaya Neva and the Bolshaya Nevka. The city is located on 44 islands formed by the Neva River and 90 more rivers and canals.

The abundance of islands has led to the construction of a multitude of bridges. The longest bridge across the Neva is the Alexander Nevsky Bridge (909 meters with runways), the widest bridge is the Siniy Bridge on the Moika River (99.5 meters).

Floods occur frequently in the city. Most often they happen in autumn due to strong westerly winds. In the history of the city the Neva has risen above ordinary level more than 300 times.

A water-meter was built near the Mining Institute in 1877. A flood is registered if the water rises 180 cm above the normal level. The biggest flood was on November 7 1824 when the water rose 4.1 meters above the ordinary level.
Because of the floods some of the metro stations have anti flood doors. If you are claustrophobic is not best place to be. But after couple of times you are getting used to it. I know I did.

But enough with the history; let’s get on with the story.

We left Moscow with one of the night trains, around midnight. The midnight train is best because of the arrival in Peter at early hour. Incredible, but the train was full. A huge number of teenagers are going to have fun and enjoy the white nights.

Our hotel “Gostevoy Dom” is located near Proletarskaya metro station which is fifth metro station from train station. The hotel is a brand new and somehow hard to find. We check in fast and after a short shower we left to explore the city.

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