Pavlovsk

Palace-park ensemble created over fifty years on the banks of the River Slavyanka in Pavlovsk. One of the largest landscape parks in Europe. Catherine the Great presented four hundred hectares of land with “forests, pastures and two small villages with peasants” to her son Paul on the occasion of the birth of his first son, the future Alexander I (1777). Two small hunting lodges – Krik and Krak – were fitted out for the young family. Paul and his wife Maria Fyodorovna personally chose the site for construction of a wooden palace called Paullust on a slope surrounded by birches (1778). Vincenzo Brenna created the small Bip Fortress and the Marienthal Park (1795–97). Construction of a new stone palace and a landscape park began on the site of Paullust (25 May 1782). Work was headed by Charles Cameron (from 1782) and Vincenzo Brenna (from 1786). After Paul’s accession, Pavlovsk became the imperial country residence (1796). Vincenzo Brenna considerably expanded the palace (1790s). After Paul’s murder, Pavlovsk was inherited by Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna (1801). Work on the exterior and interior decor was headed by Giacomo Quarenghi (1801), Andrei Voronikhin (1803–04) and Carlo Rossi (1822–24). Maria Fyodorovna bequeathed Pavlovsk to her youngest son, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich (1828). After his death, it was inherited by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich and his family (1849).