The palace is today the palace of culture and education of workers, but i heard that it was a kind of private organization. It´s opened as a museum, and you have to pay separately for the suite of rooms you want to see. From my own experience i think they are trying to make as much money as possible from the palace. I´ll never forget the last time i was there. Our guide had to face with an old lady(may be the subdirector?), beacause that old lady said we have to go out of the palace. There was a group of tourist that had paid an enormous sum for visiting the palace privately and everyone should be out at that time. I sat in Felix and Irina´s ballroom in the ground floor, in one of the typical golden chairs, and watched the scene(my friend even took a photo of them, while pretending to be very interested on the room...). It was threatical. At last our guide won the battle and told us we could see the so called "Rasputin´s rooms", but that we must do it quickly. We four had to go down the narrow staircase at express speed(yes, the same staircase that Felix went up and down so many times that terrible night of December) and run through the room with the wax figures. It was crazy. I still laugh to this day when remembering that. Well,other than the funny story, the fact is that we felt as if they were getting rid of us!
I only hope that my awful english grammar did not spoil the understanding...
