Catherine Palace

Catherine Palace, just like Alexander Palace, was built in Pushkin, town named after the Russian poet in 1937. It is mostly known under the name it had until the Bolshevik Revolution: Tsarskoye Selo (the tsar’s village). This Palace was named after Catherine I who had this summer residence built. However her daughter Elizabeth I had it entirely rebuilt. She put architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli in charge of the project. In four years the largest palace around Saint Petersburg was erected. It was designed in baroque style and its main façade is 325 meters long. One of the most famous rooms of this palace is the “Amber Room”. It was created by German and Danish Masters for Prussian King Friedrich I. His son Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the cabinet to Tsar Peter the Great in 1717. Later Elizabeth I had it expanded and turn into the famous Amber Room. At the beginning of World War II, German soldiers looted Catherine Palace and stole the Amber Room. Since the end of the war it is considered that the room is lost. A workshop especially made for the reconstruction of the Amber Room was created in Tsarskoye Selo in 1979. The Amber Room was entirely reconstituted by masters of the art in honor of the 300 years of the former Russian capital. The interior of the palace went through several modifications as it changed owners. Catherine the Great asked British architect Charles Cameron to redecorate several rooms. He also added thermal baths inspired by those of antique Rome. The palace has a Dutch garden created in 1720 and with a few buildings: the high baths, the low baths, the hermitage and hermitage kitchen, Morieyskaya column, etc.