The Great Palace of Tsarskoye Selo (the Catherine Palace)

The Great Palace of Tsarskoye Selo (the Catherine Palace)

The display of the Catherine Palace (known until 1910 as the Great Palace of Tsarskoye Selo) museum covers the almost 300-year history of this outstanding edifice and presents the work of architects involved in its construction and decoration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and also with the achievements of the restorers who returned the palace to life after the Second World War. Of the 58 halls destroyed during the war years, 32 have been recreated.

In 1717, while St Petersburg was being created on the banks of the Neva, the architect Johann Friedrich Braunstein started supervising the construction of the first masonry royal residence at Tsarskoye Selo that has gone down in history as “the stone chambers” of Catherine I. During the reign of Empress Elizabeth (the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I) in late 1742 or early 1743 it was decided to enlarge the building. From late 1748 until 1756 the construction of the Tsarskoye Selo residence was directed by Bartolomeo Francesco  Rastrelli (1700–1771), the chief architect of the imperial court. On 10 May 1752 Empress Elizabeth signed a decree on the complete reconstruction of the old building and on 30 July 1756 Rastrelli was already presenting his new creation to his crowned mistress and foreign ambassadors.

The next stage in the decoration of the state rooms and living quarters came in the 1770s. The new mistress of the residence, Empress Catherine II, was fascinated with the art of the Ancient World and wanted to have her apartments finished in keeping with current tastes. She entrusted the task to the Scottish architect Charles Cameron (1743–1812), an expert on ancient architecture. The interiors that he created in the Zubov Wing and the North Part of the Palace are marked by refined beauty, austere decoration and especially exquisite finishing. In 1817, on the orders of Emperor Alexander I, the architect Vasily Stasov (1769–1848) created the State Study and a few adjoining rooms that are finished in a commons style – all these rooms were devoted to extolling the brilliant victories that the Russian army won against Napoleon in 1812 and afterwards.

The last note in the symphony of palace state rooms was struck by the new Main Staircase created in 1860–63 by Ippolito Monighetti (1819–1878) in the “Second Rococo” style.

The Catherine Park

The Catherine Park is made up of two parts: the Regular Park – Old Garden – and the Landscape (English) Park. The Old or Dutch Garden is said to have been begun by Peter I himself.

Whatever the truth of that, it was the Dutch master gardeners Jan Roosen and Johann Vocht who laid out the Old Garden in the 1720s on three terraces in front of the imperial palace. At that same time the Mirror Ponds were created on the third terrace and on the stream called Vangaza that flowed down the hill two more ponds: the Upper (Great) Pond and the Mill Pond (later incorporated into the system of Cascade or Lower Ponds).

In the middle of the eighteenth century the garden was enlarged, remodelled and decorated with sculpture by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who designed the Hermitage and Grotto, and also a Coasting Hill. The great pond with a Lusthaus (amusement pavilion) on an island within it was given a hexagonal shape and surrounded by paths. Finally in the 1770s Vasily Neyelov and his son Ilya constructed in the garden the Admiralty complex, the Hermitage Kitchen, the Upper and Lower Bathhouses. The Longitudinal (Cascade) Canal extended along the boundary of the garden right to the Lower Ponds, incorporating twelve weirs.

At that same time an English landscape park was laid out in the area to the south of the palace around the Great Pond. The work begun unde r the supervision of Vasily Neyelov and was completed by the English master gardener John Bush. Now part of the new park, the Great Pond was reshaped and turned into a lake; the rectangular lines of the Lower Ponds were also softened. The Crescent Ponds appeared on the third terrace, where they remained right up to the reconstruction of that part of the park in the 1960s. It was at this time that the bodies of water, which occupy a fifth of the area of the Catherine Park became an important element in its appearance. The natural slope of the terrain towards the north-east made it possible to link all the bodies of water into a single gravity-driven system and include some small, but boisterous waterfalls.

Catherine II hastened to show enlightened Europe a garden that was not only laid out in the latest style, but also decorated with monuments that extolled the greatness of her reign. In honour of Russian victories against Turkey, for example, in the 1770s and 1780s she had erected the Tower Ruin, the Chesme, Morea and Crimean Columns, the Kagul Obelisk, the Turkish Kiosk and Turkish Cascade.

The fine taste of the Empress – enlightener and legislator – was demonstrated by the Cold Baths pavilion with the Agate Rooms, the Cameron Gallery, the Concert Hall and other Classical structures. The construction of the cast-iron Gothic Gate and a large number of metal bridges testified to the high level that Russian industry had attained. In turn the varied design and artistic treatment of the park pavilions and summer houses were a reminder that the garden was made for pleasure and relaxation.

In the early nineteenth century the number of monuments to martial glory increased with the “To My Dear Comrades” gate dedicated to the victory over Napoleon and in the middle of the century the Catherine Park ensemble was completed with the Turkish Bath pavilion. Finally, in 1865, on the lawn in front of the south façade of the Zubov Wing the Private Garden was laid out with a marble fountain and a pergola-veranda in the Italian style.

The Regular Park

The oldest, regular part of the Catherine Park was created in the first half of the eighteenth century in the Dutch style as a place for the crowned owners to relax and recuperate from the heavy burden of affairs of state. The small orchard that existed at Sarskaya Myza in the first years after it was given to Catherine I was replanned in the 1720s by the master gardeners Roosen and Vogt.

In the reign of Empress Elizabeth, during the reconstruction of the entire Tsarskoye Selo ensemble that began in 1743, the territory of the Old Garden was significantly enlarged. The work to create a new regular park involved the architects Kvasov, Chevakinsky and Rastrelli  to whose designs and under whose supervision the construction of the Great Palace was proceeding.

In the middle of the eighteenth Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli designed the Hermitage and Grotto pavilions, and also a Coasting Hill. In the 1770s Vasily Neyelov and his son Ilya constructed in the garden the Admiralty complex, the Hermitage Kitchen, the Upper and Lower Bathhouses.

The compositional arrangement of the regular park is based upon the symmetrical organization of the space around the palace, the strict, systematic placement of alleys, open areas, pavilions and park sculptures. Trees and shrubs were used in the regular park as a kind of building material; by giving them the shape of spheres, niches, arches and so on the gardeners skilfully turned the alleys into open-air green galleries and halls. The same sort of strict rules were followed in the selection and planting of trees, shrubs and flowers. Among the neatly trimmed foliage of the alleys rose amusement pavilions and sculpture that was placed in accordance with a graphic programme that sometimes conveyed an educational or moralistic “message”.

Some features of the Old Garden can sill be detected in the formal part of the Catherine Park that was recreated in the post-war years to a plan drawn up by the architect N.Ye. Tumanova on the basis of surviving drawings and documents left by Kvasov, Chevakinsky and Rastrelli.

At present the regular part of the Catherine Park occupies the area between the Catherine Palace, the Cascade Ponds and the Great Pond. The central alley of the Old Garden – the main compositional axis of the entire palace-and-park ensemble – connects the palace with the Hermitage pavilion. From in front of the palace you can clearly see the division of the area into two parts: the upper section (in front of the Catherine Palace) with descending terraces connected by flights of stone steps, and the lower section.

On the terrace that runs parallel to the façade of the Catherine Palace visitors’ attention is drawn to patterned parterre that resembles the parquet floors inside the palace. Such areas decorated with a sort of mosaic made up of crushed brick, coal, broken glass and sand of different shades were a typical feature of regular parks in the eighteenth century. The famous A. Akhmatova glorified the beauty of Tsarskoye Selo lime-trees in her poems.      
 

The Park Sculpture

For more than two centuries the regular part of the Catherine Park has been adorned by marble statues and busts created by Venetian sculptors of the early eighteenth century – Giovanni Bonazza, Pietro Baratta, Alvise Tagliapietra, Bartolomeo Modolo, Giuseppe Zeminiani, Giovanni Zorzoni and Antonio Tarsia.

The sculpture to beautify the reworked garden in front of the Catherine Palace – the Regular Park -- was brought to Tsarskoye Selo in the mid-1700s from St Petersburg, chiefly from the Summer Garden. It came from the collection that had been acquired in Peter the Great’s time.

The statues of mythological personages (Perseus and Andromeda, Hercules, Mars and others), allegories (Military Valour; Patriotism; Wisdom trampling on Vice; Magnificence; Peace; the months and seasons) were commissioned by Peter to glorify Russia’s victories and to instruct and educate his subjects, but acquired a purely decorative role in the garden of his daughter, Empress Elizabeth.

Nowadays works of Venetaian sculptors can be seen by the main and garden entrances to the Catherine Palace and also along the chief alley of the Old Garden.

Under Catherine II bronze busts and statues were placed on the Cameron Gallery, the portico of the Agate Rooms, the Ramp and in the Hanging Garden. These were copies of the most outstanding (by the standards of the time) works of ancient sculpture produced in the 1780s and 1790s mainly from models and casts brought from Italy by Ivan Shuvalov and Nikolai Yusupov. The casting was done in the Imperial Academy of Arts by the master-founders Gastecloux and Mozhalov under the supervision of the sculpture professor Fiodor Gordeyev. Besides that bronze copies were made of four allegorical busts by Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and of Canova’s Genius of Death and casts made of portraits of the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov (by Fedot Shubin) and the British statesman Charles James Fox (by Nollekens). Among the mythological personages, ancient generals, poets, philosophers and Roman emperors Catherine placed two likenesses of her own contemporaries, thus granting them a special honour. On the Cameron Gallery there are also busts cast by V. Yekimov in the 1790s from models by Concesio Albani.

In the 1930s works by the mid-nineteenth-century Russian sculptors Brodzsky and Zabello were set up in the Private Garden of the Catherine Park along with a copy of Canova’s Dancers.

Mention should be made of the losses of the Second World War: at that time Tsarskoye Selo was deprived of colossal bronze statues of Niobe and her daughter and a sleeping Ariadne from the Flower Garden by the Cameron Gallery and also of a bust of Emperor Titus and a statue of Catherine II in the guise of Ceres.

The Hermitage

Pavilions like this with a name taken from the French language were a common feature of regular gardens in the eighteenth century. They were intended to enable the owner of the estate to rest and dine in the company of a select few and were located in the “wild” area of the park. In order to avoid the inhibiting presence of servants, such pavilions were usually fitted with mechanisms that enabled the tables to be raised and lowered.

The Hermitage pavilion in the Regular Park (the Catherine Park) at Tsarskoye Selo was originally designed by Mikhail Zemtsov. The laying of the foundations began in the spring of 1744 and was completed by autumn that same year. In 1749, however, the facades of the pavilion that was by that time built were reconstructed in accordance with a new project devised by Rastrelli. The unique signature of Empress Elizabeth’s chief architect is present in the exceptionally complex aspects that the building presents to the viewer when seen from close by.

Two years later, in keeping with Rastrelli’s concept, the master stucco-workers Giovanni Battista Giani and G.-F. Partier installed 68 large and small capitals on the columns of the Hermitage and 28 more on the pilasters. The architect also included sculpture in the external decoration of the pavilion: eight statues stood on the pedestals of the balustrade at the base of the octagonal dome, while four others crowned the roofs of the cabinets. The central dome was topped by a sculptural group depicting The Rape of Proserpine. The building was further adorned by sixteen statues placed between the groups of columns on the facades of the cabinets. These stood on pedestals embellished with rocailles and, judging by what can be seen on drawings and engravings, they were all different. Statues of Glory on large pediments supported a magnificent cartouche containing the Empress’s monogram.

In 1753 the stuccowork was covered in gilding and the facades were painted: the white columns and architraves, the golden mouldings and sculpture were strikingly set off by the blue-green “salady” colour of the walls. The roof, originally green, was painted white in 1755 and the statues and garlands adorning it glistened with gold. The decoration of the facades of the Hermitage was completed at the same time as its interior decoration, which was begun in 1748.

Placed on a terrace paved with black and white marble slabs, the pavilion was encircled by an elaborately shaped moat with two small bridges. The moat was bordered by a balustrade that was also decorated with statues and vases. The moat and the wild grove were intended to inspire a mood of melancholy solitude, put people in a contemplative frame of mind and inspire recollections. In the words of Christian Hirschfeld, an expert on the theory of park design, “the mysterious gloom and darkness of a spot, deep solitude and solemn silence, the magnificent features of nature will not fail to invest the mind with a certain feeling and oblige it to serious refelction.” The moat, however, was never filled with water, of which there was a constant shortage in Tsarskoye Selo (this fact is borne out by archive documents and archaeological research carried out in 2006) and in 1777 it was filled in on the orders of Catherine II, the new mistress of the residence.

The Hermitage pavilion was never reconstructed after the mid-eighteenth century and so its interior decoration has come down to us practically unaltered. The rectangular central hall is connected by four galleries leading diagonally from it to four “cabinets” with square floor-plans. The décor of the Hermitage’s main hall, created by Rastrelli, is particularly interesting. Thanks to the wide windows that also served as doors to the balconies, the hall is transfused with light. Between the windows Rastrelli placed mirrors in carved and gilded frames that merge with the surrounds of the painted dessus-de-portes. Originally the hall contained dining-tables with hoists. The purpose of the hall was indicated by the subject of Giuseppe Valeriani’s ceiling painting – Jupiter and Juno invite the celestials to a table laid and set with luxurious tableware. Valeriani took the subjects for the painted panels above the mirrors in the central hall from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Bacchus and Ariadne, Apollo Pursuing Daphne, Bacchus Crowning Daphne with a Crown of Stars and The Rape of Europa.

The Grotto

A grotto pavilion decorated inside with seashells and tufa (porous limestone) was an invariably feature in Western European regular parks of the eighteenth century.

The project for the construction of the Grotto on the bank of the Great Pond in the Catherine Park was drawn up by the architect Rastrelli. Most of the work to construct it was carried out in 1755–56 under Empress Elizabeth, but it was completed in the 1760s under Catherine II. 
Both the ground plan and the treatment of volumes – with rounded corners, niches for statues and large semicircular exedrae forming projections on the end walls – are typical of Baroque architecture. The rich opulence of the Baroque also characterizes the facades that are decorated with elaborately grouped columns supporting broken pediments. Rising above the central part of the pavilion is a dome with four lucarne windows that used to be topped by pyramidical figured pediments made of wood (the carving, produced by Okhta craftsmen, has survived and is in the stores of the museum-preserve). Masks of Neptune on the keystones of the windows, capitals with dolphins instead of volutes and figures of tritons underline the pavilion’s link to the watery element. But Rastrelli’s plan to decorate the interior of the Grotto with seashells and tufa was not implemented.

In 1771 a new project for the interior decoration of the pavilion was drawn up by the architect Antonio Rinaldi (1709–1794). The lightweight exquisitely drawn décor of the walls that was done to his designs has survived down to the present. In 1792 wrought-iron grilles embellished with ornament made of gilded sheet copper were installed on the windows and doors of the Grotto.

After it was decorated, in the 1780s, the pavilion became known as the Morning Hall. At that time, in accordance with Catherine II’s wishes, ancient sculptures and vases made of coloured stone were installed here, as well as Houdon’s statue of Voltaire that is now on display in the Hermitage. 

This pavilion was glorified by the Russian poet G. Derjavin in the 18th century.

The landing-stage in front of the Grotto was reconstructed in 1830 and 1872. During the Second World War it was almost completely destroyed and it was rebuilt in granite in 1971–72 to a new design.

The Morea Column

The Morea (or Small Rostral) Column was set up at the junction of three alleys in the regular part of the Catherine Park, by the cascade between the first and second Lower Ponds as a monument to successes in the Russo-Turkish Wars. The column was erected in 1771, on the orders of Empress Catherine II, to mark in particular the Russian victory won under the command of Count Fiodor Orlov at the Morea peninsula in the Mediterranean.

The relatively short (7-metre) column is impressive from a distance. Its pedestal stands on a square plinth raised slightly above the ground. The material for the pedestal and the shaft of the column is grey Siberian marble with white veins, while white Carrara marble was used for the capital and base. The column is topped with a small cone-shaped obelisk of pink Tivdiya marble embellished with the stylized prows of ships (rostra in Latin) as a reminder that the victory involved the navy.

A bronze plaque attached to the pedestal bears an inscription telling of the heroic battle: “On 17 February 1771, Count Fiodor Orlov approached the Morea peninsula in the Mediterranean by the port of Vitulo with two Russian ships, discharged land troops and himself proceeded to Modon to link up with Christians of that country. Captain Barkov with the Spartan Eastern Legion took Passava, Berdoni and Sparta. Captain Prince Dolgoruky and the Spartan Western Legion conquered Kalamata, Leoktari and Arcadia. The fortress of Navarino surrendered to Brigadier Hannibal. The Russian forces numbered six hundred men. They did not ask if the enemy were many, but where they were. Six thousand Turks were taken prisoner.” Ivan Abramovich Hannibal mentioned in the inscription was the grandfather of the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

The name of the person who designed the Morea Column has not been established for certain. It is likely to have been Rinaldi as is suggested by the parallels between the column and the Kagul Obelisk: the elegant shape of both monuments, the similarity of the stylistic devices and materials used. 
 

The Landscape Park

The landscape part of the Catherine Park begins immediately behind Cameron’s ensemble and extends between the Ramp Alley and the road that runs beneath the Caprice to the Vittolovo Pond, along the south side of the Great Pond and across the land to the west of it. The park has an area of 70 hectares.

The creation of the landscape park began in the 1760s, but the bulk of the work on it was carried out in the 1770s and 1780s during the reign of Catherine II. The original plan was implemented by the architect Vasily Neyelov, assisted by his two sons Ilya and Piotr and also by the master gardener Trifon Ilyin.

To enable him to create the landscape area of the Catherine Park Neyelov senior was sent to England where he studied the latest examples of the art of parks, the chief characteristic of which was the imitation of natural landscapes. An analysis of engraved depictions of English country estates shows that the creators of the landscape park at the Tsarskoye Selo residence were inspired by many of them.

But the main plan that the workers followed at Tsarskoye Selo was devised by John Bush. On the whole his project followed Neyelov’s, but one senses in it the hand of an experienced master of landscape design. In 1771 Bush was placed in charge of all work in the parks and he remained so until his departure from Russia in 1789. His son, Joseph Bush, continued the work in the parks until 1810.

During the creation of the landscape park many water courses were dug out, hills and hillocks were piled up and thousands of trees of different species were planted. The Great Pond became the centre of the park. Organically incorporated into the park’s picturesque landscapes were exotic pavilions in the form of ancient ruins, “Gothic” and “Turkish” edifices, “Chinese” summer-houses, all sorts of bridges and columns, created by a range of architects – Cameron, Quarenghi, all three Neyelovs, Rinaldi, and Velten, and also a whole and alscycle of monuments to Russian victories over the Ottoman Empire. But, as Dmitry Likhachev pointed out, “the ‘Turkish’ structures in the Tsarskoye Selo park were not connected only with the wars against Turkey. They are not so much celebrations of victories as … a stylistic characteristic of Romanticism – to make a garden exotic and varied in national flavour.”

By the end of the eighteenth century the Catherine Park had in the main acquired its final appearance. In the nineteenth century it was only enriched by a few pavilions and works of sculpture. 
 

The Admiralty

The complex of three pavilions that has long been known as the Admiralty was erected to the design of the architect Vasily Neyelov on the bank of the Great Pond in the Landscape Park (the Catherine Park) in place of a wooden boat-shed. The ensemble was built in the summer of 1773 and the rooms inside were decorated in 1774–75.

The lower floor of the central block was used for the storage of the boats on which courtiers took trips on the Great Pond. It was this that gave the building its name. In the nineteenth century it contained a collection of rowing vessels from different countries of the world, including Catherine II’s barges and Nicholas I’s Turkish kayik (a gift from the Sultan). This tradition was passed on to Tsarskoye Selo from Peter the Great’s amusement fleet that once existed on the ponds of the Moscow Kremlin. A ride on the richly decorated vessels, brightly illuminated with lamps, was an invariable part of festive evenings. This unique collection associated with the history of the Russian Navy perished during the Second World War.

The towers of the central block contain staircases leading to a large, bright hall in the second storey. During Catherine II’s boat trips on the lake an orchestra would play here. The walls were hung with English prints of landscape parks that were acquired in Britain in the 1770s. In 1901 the celebrated Gottorp Globe was installed here. This globe, with a diameter of more than three metres, was constructed in the German duchy of Gottorp between 1654 and 1664 and given to Peter I as a present in 1713. It was removed to Germany during the war, but later recovered. The Gottorp Globe can now be seen in the Kunstkammer in St Petersburg.

Flanking the central pavilion are two blocks known as the Birdhouses or Aviaries. Various kinds of water birds (ducks and swans) used to be kept in them, as well as pheasants and peafowl. The main building and two wings are linked by a railing produced at the St Petersburg Mint. In the eighteenth century there were little gardens and two round ponds.

The architectural complex of the Admiralty also included the Sailors’ House, located to the right of one of the Birdhouses. This was the living quarters of the oarsmen who in the eighteenth century provided boat trips and ferried people across to the island in the Great Pond. 
At present the central block of the Admiralty complex is used for temporary exhibitions, while a restaurant named The Admiralty works in one of the Birdhouses.   

The Chesme Column

The Chesme Column was erected in 1774–78 in the Landscape Park (the Catherine Park) to the design of Antonio Rinaldi to celebrate Russian naval victories in the recent war against Turkey (1768–74). 
On 24 June 1770 ten Russian battleships and seven frigates under the command of Count Alexei Orlov and Admiral Grigory Spiridov defeated and put to flight a Turkish fleet of sixteen battleships and more than 100 frigates, galleys, brigantines and lesser vessels. This encounter took place in the Chios Strait and was a prelude to the Battle of Chesme on 26 June, when Russians under the command of Rear Admiral Samuel Greig set fire to the entire Turkish fleet.

In November 1770 a Russian detachment operating in the Mediterranean took the island of Mytilene (Lesbos) with naval support. The enemy was put to flight and the remnants of Turkey’s naval forces destroyed. It was to these three great victories that Catherine II dedicated the monument at Tsarskoye Selo. The Cheseme Column thus commemorates three battles: Chios, Chesme and Mytilene.

The Doric column hewn from three pieces of white and pink Olonets marble is decorated with rostra (ships’ prows) and crowned by an eagle trampling a crescent moon. On three sides of the grey marble pedestal are bronze bas-reliefs depicting the sea battles, while a marble plaque attached to the south side of the pedestal tells the story of the victories. The monument stands on a granite stylobate in the form of a truncated pyramid that rises straight out of the water. A grilled arch in the centre of the pyramid gives access to a flight of stone steps that lead up to the pedestal of the column.

The Chesme Column was glorified by Alexander Pushkin in his “Memories at Tsarskoye Selo”. 
The Chesme Column was damaged considerably during the Second World War. The original bronze bas-reliefs were lost. In 1994–96 the reliefs were recreated to a project drawn up by the architect Alexander Kedrinsky, and in June 1996, to mark the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy, they were installed in their former places.  

The Marble Bridge

In the Landscape Park (the Catherine Park), near the Great Pond, stand the Marble or Palladian Bridge, also known as the Siberian Marble Gallery. The bridge spans the narrow water course that links the Great Pond with several others dug in 1769–70. There was an archipelago of seven man-made islets here on which swans lived in small houses that were painted after drawings by Rinaldi. These islands and ponds bear the name “Swan” to this day.

The prototypes for the Marble Bridge, which was built from a model made by Vasily Neyelov, were bridges in the English parks of Stowe and Wilton that followed a famous design of the celebrated architect Andrea Palladio.

In the early 1770s craftsmen at the Yekaterinburg Lapidary Works under the supervision of Valerio Tortori cut from local blue-grey Gornoshitsky and white Stanovsky marble columns, capitals, pedestals, balusters and other elements to the patterns provided. The panels to face the abutments of the bridge were made from grey-pink granite.

The foundations for the Marble Bridge were laid in 1773. In 1774 the bridge was assembled on site by Valerio Tortori and his assistants Ivanov, Grigoryev, Petrovsky and Shakhurin.

The Marble Bridge takes the form of a colonnade set on a granite base approached by flights of steps at either end. The large, shallow central arch of the bridge is flanked by small semicircular arches. The upper part consists of two square-based pavilions placed above the arched spans. The pavilions are linked by a colonnade of light, slender Ionic columns. The spaces between their pedestals are filled with balustrades with attractive balusters. 
There is a splendid view of the Turkish Bath, the Pyramid and the Red Cascade from the bridge.

The Pyramid

The Pyramid – one of the first pavilions in the Landscape Park (the Catherine Park) – was constructed in 1770–72 to the design of Vasily Neyelov. It was dismantled as early as 1774 and rebuilt in 1782–83 by Charles Cameron. The green, moss-covered surface of what is a typical construction for parks in the late eighteenth-century Romantic era gives it the look of an ancient mausoleum. The Pyramid was deliberately placed aside from the main path, so that strollers lulled by the quiet of the shady park might come upon it unexpectedly and inspired to a rush of reminiscences.

The Pyramid is made of brick and faced with trimmed granite. One side is pierced by the entrance. Four columns hewn from grey Urals marble once stood on pedestals at the corners. The room inside the pavilion is covered by a hemispherical vault with an opening in the centre. The walls contain niches for the storage of urns.

Behind the Pyramid, opposite the entrance, three of Catherine II’s favourite dogs were buried: Tom Anderson, Zemira and Duchesse. The graves were once marked by white marble stones with engraved epitaphs but those have not survived. 

The Girl-with-a-Pitcher Fountain

The Milkmaid fountain that has become widely known simply as the Tsarskoye Selo Statue or The Girl with a Pitcher occupies a special place among the park sculpture of the former imperial residence: it is the only sculpture that was created specially for the Catherine Park.

In 1808–10, on Emperor Alexander I’s instructions, the gardener John Bush and the architect Luigi Rusca supervised work to improve the area of the former Coasting Hill. The slope between the Granite Terrace and the Great Pond was turned into a series of green steps; new paths were laid from the terrace to the pond and the outlet of the little canal to which the waters of a local spring, covered by the man-made hill, had been diverted was turned into a fountain constructed to the design of the engineer Augustin Bethencourt. At that time there was already an idea to decorate this part of the Catherine Park with sculptures, but the figure of the Milkmaid only appeared here in the summer of 1816.

The statue was created by the eminent sculptor Pavel Sokolov on the subject of La Fontaine’s fable The Milkmaid, or the Pitcher of Milk and cast in bronze in the workshop of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Alexander Pushkin glorified the fountain in his poem “The Tsarskoe Selo Statue”. 
A granite rock serves as a pedestal for the bronze sculpture of a girl. A jet of spring water flows from the broken pitcher lying at her feet to collect in the adjoining basin. Originally this basin was made in the form of a grotto entered by steps of Pudost stone. The grotto only existed until the middle of the nineteenth century.

At the outbreak of war, before German units reached the town of Pushkin, the statue of the Milkmaid was buried in the ground and for that reason the statue was not damaged. Today the bronze original of The Girl with a Pitcher is kept in the stores of the museum-preserve (the sculptor’s plaster model is in the State Russian Museum) and a copy, cast in 1990, has been set up in the park.

The Alexander Palace

The Alexander Palace (New Tsarskoselsky) was presented as a gift by Catherine II to her eldest grandson, the future Emperor Alexander I, on the occasion of his marriage to Grand Duchess Elizaveta Alexeevna. According to the idea of the sovereign grandmother the palace had to be similar to the château at Ferney, where the great thinker of that time – Voltaire – lived. But in 1792 the architect G. Quarenghi presented another project to the Empress and could convinced her of its advantage. The palace construction was completed in May of 1796, and in June the Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, his spouse and his court moved into the New Palace.

The New Palace in the classical style is considered to be the pearl among the creations of Quarenghi and one of the main masterpieces in the world. The art-critic I.E.Grabar wrote that “there are palaces bigger and more regal, but there is no palace which architecture is more beautiful”. In the center of the main northern façade is a magnificent Corinthian colonnade passage consisting of two rows of columns. In 1838 two sculptures were placed in front of the colonnade: one represented a boy playing svaika (a big nail), another – a boy playing babkas (knuckle-bones). A.S. Pushkin immortalized these sculptures in his poems. During 150 years the owners reconstructed the palace several times, but its appearance did not change.

The Alexander Palace was a summer dacha for the Imperial Family in the 19th century, but it became a real home for the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna during the last 13 years of their reign. From this palace the family of Nicholas II was sent into exile in Tobolsk.

In 1918 the Alexander Palace was opened to visitors as a state museum. The display included the historical interiors in the central part of the building and the living apartments of the Romanov family in the east wing of the palace.

Later the left-hand wing was turned into a rest home for NKVD staff, while on the second storey of the right-hand wing the former secluded rooms of Nicholas II’s children became an orphanage named after the “Young Communards”.

In the first months after the Nazi invasion chandeliers, carpets, some items of furniture, eighteenth-century marble and porcelain articles were evacuated from the Alexander Palace. Most of the palace furnishings remained in the halls.

During the occupation of Pushkin the palace housed the German army staff and the Gestapo. The cellars became a prison and the square in front of the palace a cemetery for members of the SS.

At the end of the war conservation work was carried out in the palace and in 1946 it was handed over to the USSR Academy of Sciences for the storage of the collections of its Institute of Russian Literature and to house a display of the All-Union Pushkin Museum. As a consequence in 1947-51 refurbishment began in the palace, in the course of which it was intended to restore the surviving Quarenghi interiors and extant fragments of décor and also to recreate the interiors from the time of Nicholas I and Nicholas II. However, during the work many elements in the décor of Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna’s Maple and Palisander Drawing-Rooms, as well as Nicholas II’s (Moresque) Dressing-Room were actually destroyed. These rooms of the palace were recreated to a project by the architect L.M. Bezverkhny (1908–1963) “in accordance with the architectural norms of the time of Quarenghi and Pushkin”.

In 1951 a government decision handed the Alexander Palace to the Naval Department, while the palace’s stocks that were among the evacuated items in the Central Repository of Museum Stocks from the Suburban Palace-Museums passed to the Pavlovsk Palace Museum. In 1996 the World Monuments Fund awarded a grant for the restoration of the Alexander Palace and work on repairing the building’s roofs began. A year later, on the initiative of the military institute occupying the palace, a permanent exhibition was created in the right-hand wing of the palace, formerly the location of the private apartments of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fidorovna. It was entitled Reminiscences in the Alexander Palace and was prepared by the Tsarskoye Selo Museum-Preserve using items from the museum stocks.

This display, housed in partially preserved historical interiors and rooms that lost their decoration during the war, features furnishings from the apartments and personal possessions of the last Russian emperor and his family.

In late 2009, the palace recovered its museum status and restoration work started. In Tsarskoye Selo’s jubilee year of 2010, the first three state rooms – the Semi-Circular Hall, the Portrait Hall and the Marble Drawing-Room – have welcomed their first visitors.

The Alexander Park

The Alexander Park, with an area of around 200 hectares, adjoins the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace on the side of the parade ground (courtyard). The main entrance to the park is located opposite the Catherine Palace. The park can also be entered through the gate by the Alexander Palace or along the road that runs through the Large Caprice.

The Alexander Park is made up of a regular area – the New Garden – and a landscape park.

The New Garden

The New Garden was laid out in the 1740s. It can be reached by way of the Large Chinese Bridge, from which the lime alley that forms the main axis of the garden begins. The intersection between this alley and a broad cutting forms a cross that divides the New Garden into four equal parterres, squares with 200-metre sides, that are the basis of its design.

The square to the left of the Chinese Bridge contains the “Mushroom” flowerbed. The original layout of the right-hand square has not survived: in the second half of the eighteenth century some picturesque ponds with headlands were created here. The centre of the third square is the artificial “Mount Parnasus”, while the compositional focus of the fourth is the Chinese Theatre. On all four sides the garden is enclosed by the Krestovy Canal that was dug out in 1748–49. Not far from the New Garden there are the Chinese Village and the Large and Small Caprices.

The New Garden was probably designed by the architect Nicolas Girard, but he was not involved in the actual construction. The work was overseen by the master-gardeners Cornelius Schreider and Mikhail Kondakov. At the end of the 1750s much that was planned for the New Garden had still not been started and soon, as regular gardens went out of vogue, the desire to complete the original concept in full measure faded away.

Over the years the layout of the New Garden was altered to some extent. Now in the place of neat rows of clipped limes (lindens) and broad views of parterres, freely growing trees rustle their leaves. Time is gradually erasing the boundary and distinctions between the regular and landscape areas of the Alexander Park.

In 1792 alongside the New Garden construction of the New Tsarskoye Selo (Alexander) Palace began under the supervision of Giacomo Quarenghi. At the same time more work was undertaken to remodel the garden along the lines of English landscape parks that had come into fashion in the later 1700s. The creation of the landscape area of the Alexander Park was to be the last major phase of work in the gardens of Tsarskoye Selo.

 
 The Large Chinese Bridge

The bridge was built from pink granite. Its parapet is formed by tall, elegant vases and decorative intertwined branches of red coral descending from them.

Apart from the granite vases and the coral, actually forged from iron, the Large Chinese Bridge was decorated with four figures of Chinamen seated on stone pedestals.

In the 1860s the painted limestone figures became completely dilapidated and were replaced by zinc ones, also brightly painted, that were produced at the Hencke, Pleske and Moran factory. This work was overseen by the court architect Ippolito Monighetti. The sculptures on this bridge, perished during the Second World War, were restored in June of 2010 for the 300th anniversary of Tsarskoye Selo.

The Krestovy Bridge

On 26 May 1776 Vasily Neyelov was instructed by the Empress Catherine II “to build at Tsarskoye Selo, in the New Garden and towards the Caprice a masonry Chinese summer-house on arches with four rises,” to be faced with crimson, yellow and pale blue brick. The architect borrowed the design for the bridge from an album popular at that time – Rural Architecture in ChineseTaste by the English architects William and John Halfpenny. Although the idea was not original, its detailed working-up and realization demanded great skill from those involved. Vaily Neyelov, who began construction, and his son Ilya, who completed it in 1779, coped brilliantly with this difficult task.

The Krestovy Bridge spans the Krestovy Canal in the Alexander Park. Despite its relatively small size, it seems monumental on account of its proportions and the originality of its forms: powerful, strongly curving crossed half-arches serve as the base for a platform bearing an octagonal pavilion faced with coloured glazed brick that was produced by the manufacturer Conradi. The walls of the pavilion are pierced by tall lancet arches. The curving “Chinese” roof is painted “in imitation of fish scales” and crowned by a spire onto which spheres are threaded. Broad flights of granite steps, twenty-three on each side, lead up to the pavilion. The round platforms at the bottom of each flight were paved with two-coloured marble slabs. The keystone of the arches hangs over the water and has been given the form of a pendant boss or “globe”, as they called it in the eighteenth century.

The Dragon Bridge

The fascination with China that characterized the period around the turn of the nineteenth century is reflected not only in the pavilions of the Alexander Park, but also in three bridges in the New Garden that span the Krestovy Canal – the Dragon, Large Chinese and Krestovy Bridges.

The Dragon Bridge, referred to in late eighteenth-century documents as “the bridge with monstrous figures”, was constructed close to the Chinese Theatre in 1785 to the design of Charles Cameron. It is adorned by four striking figures of winged dragons placed on granite pedestals. The dragons are highly expressive, with their paws stretched out in front and their tails twisted into tight loops. Originally, in Catherine II’s reign when the bridge was built, the figures were made from limestone; the present iron dragons were cast in 1860 from models made by the sculptor Johann Schwarz.