voilà:
CITATION(National Geographic @ 09/11/2005 - 21:21) [snapback]586992[/snapback]
From the cold grandeur of the Winter Palace, Catherine [empress of Russia from 1762-1796] oversaw the expansion of her empire through wars with the Ottoman Empire and seizures of Polish land. To 19th-century revolutionary Alexander Herzen the palace perfectly symbolized the Russian state: ‘Like a ship floating on the surface, it had no real connection with the inhabitants of the ocean, beyond that of eating them.