Saint-Petersburg Suburbs

We invite you to take a day trip to see St. Petersburg’s suburban palaces.

Pavlovsk

The Pavlovsk Palace located a few miles away from the Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin stands out from the other summer residences of the Russian monarchs. Unlike its stately counterparts, the Pavlovsk Palace does not feel official at all and has the aura of a country mansion. The interiors are lavishly decorated and a picturesque English park offers sights of astounding beauty.
The history of the Pavlovsk Palace dates back to 1777 when Catherine the Great presented the area to her son Paul to mark the birth of his heir, future Emperor Alexander I. Using the money that came along that gift, Paul and his young wife Maria traveled to Europe to purchase works of art for the decoration of the new palace. German-born Maria was a woman of many talents and she masterfully designed a number of palace interiors herself.
Following the Revolution of 1917, the Pavlovsk Palace was turned into a museum. The Nazis who seized the area during World War II destroyed the palace and looted its many treasures. It took over 20 years to recreate the beauty of the Pavlovsk complex following a painstaking reconstruction using original designs and broken fragments of works of art.
(Duration – 5 hours)

Peterhof

Peterhof is an immensely luxurious royal estate, lying on the shore of the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea), a combination of several palaces and parks, the “capital of Russian fountains” and “the Russian Versailles”. The estate was founded by Peter the Great and shortly after 1710 the tzar had a beautiful park with several palaces built.
The focal point of both the Lower Park and the Upper Garden is the magnificent Grand Palace (Bolshoi Dvorets) with the Grand Cascade (Bolshoi Kaskad) in front of it. The original palace was built for Peter the Great in 1714-25 and in 1745-55 was remodeled to its present baroque glory by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the architect of the Winter Palace in downtown St. Petersburg. Despite all the damage done to the Grand Palace during WWII, its interiors have been carefully restored and are truly breathtaking.
(Duration – 5 hours)

Tsarskoe selo (Pushkin)

The Tsarskoye selo State Museum is a brilliant monument of world architecture and park and garden artistry of the 18th-20th centuries. Like much of imperial St Petersburg, the estate is built in the Late Baroque style, designed by the Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli. While Peter the Great favoured Peterhof, west of St Petersburg, for his summer palace, his wife Empress Catherine I favoured the royal estate south at Pushkin. It became known as Tsarskoe Selo, or Emperor’s Village, nowadays the breathtaking Catherine Palace Museum. The compositional centre of the ensemble is the Catherine Palace, a magnificent baroque-style palace. The palace was quite impressive with its size, powerful spatial dynamics and picturesque decoration in the style of the Russian Baroque. The wide, light blue ribbon of the palace with its snow-white columns and gilt ornament looked quite festive. The northern wing was topped by the five golden domes of the Palace Chapel, and the southern wing, which contained the formal, state rooms, was topped off by a golden dome with a star on the spire. Approximately 100 kilograms of gold were used to gild the exterior and interior ornaments. At this time the formal yard was also designed, surrounded by the palace’s service buildings placed in a semi-circle around the “circumference” of the yard. The galleries of the palace’s facade consisted of windows and columns, each of which bore a wooden, gold-leafed statue or vase.
(Duration – 5 hours)

Gatchina

Catherine the Great took such a great liking of the Gatchina Palace and park, that at Orlov’s death in 1783, she bought it from his heirs and presented it to her son, the future Emperor Paul I.
Paul I was the owner of Gatchina for eighteen years. He invested much resource and used his experience from his travels around Europe to make Gatchina an exemplary palace and town . During the 1790s, Paul expanded and rebuilt much of the palace, and renovated interiors in the sumptuous Neoclassical style (illustration, left). Paul I graced the park with numerous additions, bridges, gates, and pavilions, such as “The Isle of Love” , “The Private garden”, “The Holland garden” and “The Labyrinth” among many other additions. In 1796, after the death of his mother, Catherine the Great, Paul became Emperor Paul I of Russia, and granted Gatchina the status of Imperial City ( official residence of the Russian Emperors.)
After Paul’s death the grand palace and park were owned by his widow, Maria Feodorovna, from 1801 to 1828. Then Emperor Nicholas I was the owner from 1828 to 1855. He made the most significant expansion of the palaces and parks, adding the Arcenal Halls to the main palace. The Arsenal Halls served as the summer residence of Tsar Nicholas I and his court. In 1851, Tsar Nicholas I opened the monument to his father, Paul I, in front of the Gatchina Palace. In 1854 the railroad between St. Petersburg and Gatchina was opened. At that time the city of Gatchina’s territory was expanded by incorporation of several villages and vicinity.
Maria Feodorovna, widow of Alexander III, was the patron of the city of Gatchina and Gatchina Palace and parks.
(Duration – 6 hours)

Strelna

Strelna, one of the oldest suburbs of Saint Petersburg, is situated 19 km from the town, on the south shore of the Finnish Gulf.
Under Peter the Great the former Sweden mansion of the so-called Strelina Myza was used as the royal resting palace. There the tsar used to stay on the way from Saint Petersburg to the fortress Kronstadt and Oranienbaum.
Inspired by the picturesque surroundings of Strelna, Peter the Great conceived the creation of an estate that was to surpass in its beauty and splendor the best residences of European monarchs. The tsar planned it to be the main naval residence and wanted to erect a magnificent palace, arrange beautiful cascades and grottos, and lay out a wonderful park. The projects of the future residence were worked out by the prominent architects – Leblon and Rastrelli. Peter the Great acquainted himself attentively with both and chose the fresher project of Leblon. The French architect fell to work immediately, but the sudden death of the architect prevented this project from being carried out to the full. Leblon was replaced by architect Nikolo Miketti, who in 1720 started the construction of the Strelninsky Palace. The construction was being carried out at a rapid pace for a year when the Emperor switched his attention to nearby Peterhof, which had a more advantageous location. In 1723 Miketti left Russia and the palace was finished by a group of Russian architects headed by M. Zemskov.
After Peter’s death Strelna was neglected and gradually went into a decline. In the duration of the 18th century it was used not as a royal residence but as utilities. The gardens and hothouses of Strelna supplied Russian emperors with the best fruits and vegetables and the giant vaults of the palace were used as wine-cellars.
The revival of the Strelna palace and park ensemble happened at the beginning of the 19th century when the Emperor Paul I presented it to his son, Grand Prince Konstantin. For the reconstruction of the Great Palace that was tremendously damaged by fires of the 1830s Konstantin invited prominent architects Voronikhin and Ruska. Then the construction of the Strelninsky palace that lasted for almost 85 years was complete.
In 1847 Strelna became a summer residence of another Grand Prince Konstantin, the son of Nicholas I, and since then the palace and the park were officially called Konstantinovsky.
After the October Revolution palaces and parks of Strelna were nationalized and the personal possessions of the august persons, books, documents, luxurious collection of paintings and pottery were dispersed to different museums of Petrograd. For a certain period palaces housed children labor school. During World War II the palace and park ensemble of Strelna was terrifically damaged. As a result of massive bombardment and fire, the buildings were almost razed to the ground.
For decades the park and the palace lay in ruins. But after the many years of neglect, when the former summer imperial residence was nearly to sink into oblivion the miracle happened and the architectural masterpiece included by UNESCO in the list of the monuments of world historical and cultural heritage was finally noticed by the authorities. The reconstruction of the palace began in November 2001, and by the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Saint Petersburg foundation the ensemble was totally restored and appeared before the public in all its glory. The former tsar’s residence obtained the status of the State Complex “Palace of Congresses” that is used as a State residence, museum and business center at the same time.
(Duration – 5 hours)

Oranienbaum