Tsarskoe Selo Imperial Residence

This place is better known as Catherine Park, due the splendour of the Catherine Palace it surrounds, which was the summer residence of three Russian Empresses: Catherine I, Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II. It is located on the edge of a city once called Tsarskoe Selo, giving the residence its official name, but which was subsequently renamed Pushkin. The senior architect and builder of the palace complex was Bartolomeo Rastrelli. His typical style is recognisable everywhere, even today. After Elizabeth Petrovna came to power the palace was reconstructed and increased in magnificence. Many of our contemporaries connect this palace closely to Catherine

II, known as Catherine the Great, the greatest Empress of the Russian Empire. However, she considered it old-fashioned and frivolous.

If in Peterhof you can feel a man’s hand everywhere, in Catherine Park you can feel the invisible presence of a woman. Winding paths lined with luxuriant foliage, playful, glowing flowerbeds, elegant arbours to drink tea in and, of course, the main palace itself, which looks like exactly the sort of place where aristocratic ladies would have wanted to pass the time. Inside the palace is the world-famous Amber Room, in the park there is a unique cold bathhouse with its Agate Rooms, as well as the Cameron Gallery, the Hermitage Pavilion (not to be confused with the one in the Winter Palace) and other beautiful buildings, follies and pavilions.