The Great Catherine Palace with its surrounding parks, like a century ago, serves as a stable symbol that shapes the modern image of the city of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo). The name of the palace is inextricably linked with the name of the first owner of Tsarskoe Selo - Catherine I, which is still reminiscent of the monogram and cartouche with a crown on the main pediment of the palace. The main façade of the Catherine Palace is oriented towards the Alexander Park, the opposite one is facing south and faces the Catherine Park. From the city side, the church and grand ducal (Imperial Lyceum) outbuildings are clearly visible, while the Zubovsky building and the Cameron Baths are hidden from the park side.
CATHERINE'S PALACE IN TSARSKOYE SELO. HISTORY, OPENING MODE, TICKETS.
The construction of the palace did not begin from scratch. In the place of the arch connecting the current church wing with the lyceum, at the beginning of the 18th century there stood a dilapidated manor house belonging to an unknown Swedish feudal lord. Catherine I, to whom Peter I gave Tsarskoye Selo (then Sarskaya Manor), more than once received guests in this house, renovated and furnished.
After the death of Catherine I, the Tsarskoye Selo estate passed to the future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Under her, Tsarskoe Selo turned into one of the main summer imperial residences, where great attention was paid to construction.
From 1752 to 1756 The almost completed building began to be rebuilt according to the design of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, appointed chief architect. It was he who was the author of the rich decoration of the palace in the style of magnificent Elizabethan Baroque with an abundance of gilded details.
After the death of Catherine I, the Tsarskoye Selo estate passed to the future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Under her, Tsarskoe Selo turned into one of the main summer imperial residences, where great attention was paid to construction.
The expansion of the palace began according to the design of the architect M. Zemtsov, but was suspended due to his death. The architects who replaced him, A. Kvasov and S. Chevakinsky, from 1744 to 1752, expanded the “stone chambers” and erected new wings. They were connected to each other by galleries with hanging gardens.
On the flanks of the building there was a palace church and a greenhouse outbuilding with a grand staircase on the west side. In front of the main façade, an extensive Main Courtyard was built with service wings enclosing it - Circumferences (one-story buildings of the right and left semi-circles).
Contemporaries were literally blinded by the luxury of the palace's decoration, and people said that the palace even had a golden roof (in fact, white, tinned iron). So, when Elizabeth arrived with the court and foreign ambassadors to inspect the completed palace, everyone was in a hurry to express their delight and surprise to the empress, only the French ambassador did not say a word. The Empress, noticing his silence, wanted to know the reason for it and received in response that he did not see the most important thing here:
“a case for this jewel.”
The palace was rebuilt throughout the reign of Elizabeth. Later, Catherine II said in her notes:
“The palace here was being built then, but it was the work of Penelope:
tomorrow they would break what they did today. This house was destroyed to the ground six times and rebuilt again before it was brought to the state in which it is now...”
Catherine II herself also made a significant contribution to the formation of the external appearance of the palace. During her reign, two side wings were built on, the palace and semicircles lost decorations on the roofs, the main staircase was moved to the center of the palace, entrances were added, the shapes of the church domes were changed and the dome with a multi-pointed star over the southwestern wing of the palace was destroyed, the flashy gilding and white shiny roof... All proportions have changed, but despite this, especially in bright sunlight, the Grand Palace fascinates and delights.
Subsequently, the interiors of the palace did not change radically. In the first quarter of the 19th century, in honor of the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, new personal apartments for Alexander I appeared in the palace, designed by the architect V.P. Stasov in the Empire style and late classicism. The last major work in the palace was the reconstruction of the Grand Staircase in marble, which was done in the Rococo style according to the design of I. A. Monighetti in 1860-1863.
After the nationalization of imperial property in 1918, a museum was organized on the basis of the Catherine Palace and Park Ensemble, now the Tsarskoe Selo State Museum.
The Catherine Palace received severe damage from bombings and fires; the central part of the palace with the Great Hall suffered the most. The palace was destroyed so badly that after the war, at first it was even planned not to restore it, but to adapt it as a recreation center.
PALACE OPENING MODE
Opening hours of the Catherine Palace
(Sadovaya st., 7):
In the “low season” the museum is open from 10-00 to 18-00 (ticket office until 16-45);
In May and September the museum is open until 19-00 (ticket office from 12-00 to 17-45);
from June to August the museum is open until 20-00 (box office from 12-00 to 19-00), on Monday and Wednesday ticket sales are from 12:00 to 20:00.
Closed: Tuesday (throughout the year) and the last Monday of the month (except from May to September).
The current schedule of the Catherine Palace and museum exhibitions can be found on the official website
"GMZ Tsarskoe Selo"
. You can find out about the work of the Catherine Palace by calling:
7 812 465 20 24
(answering machine).
During the high season, the route of the sightseeing tour of the Catherine Palace is divided into two shortened routes I and II with separate entrances to the palace. Route No. II has a traditionally shorter queue; the Amber Room is included in both routes. Opened in June 2019 after restoration, the Lyon Hall is included in route No. II.
TICKET PRICES TO CATHERINE'S PALACE AND PARK
Ticket prices to the Catherine Palace in 2022:
In the summer (usual) time, large queues line up at the ticket office of the Catherine Palace, in which you can lose from one to five hours. Therefore, if you don’t want to wait in lines, sometimes it’s easier to use the services of travel companies and book a bus tour to Pushkin with a visit to the Catherine Palace and the Amber Room from St. Petersburg. In Pushkin itself, group excursions to the palace are not sold. The cost of excursions varies seasonally; in summer it is traditionally higher for all travel agencies.
Since April 12, 2019, after a long restoration in the Catherine Palace, the Palace (Resurrection) Church has been open to the public. A visit to the church is included in a separate itinerary with a separate ticket, which also includes the following halls of the palace: Pre-Horn, Chinese Blue Living Room, State Blue Living Room, Sculpture and Picturesque Rooms, Bedchamber, Jungfer Chamber and Small Passage Room. These same rooms are now excluded from the main tour of the palace.
We invite you to take a fascinating bus tour to the brilliant suburb of St. Petersburg - the city of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoe Selo). You will have an excursion to the Catherine Palace with the famous Amber Room and a tour of the beautiful Catherine Park, which stretches in front of the palace and occupies more than 100 hectares. You can also choose an excursion to Pushkin with a visit to the famous Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, where A.S. Pushkin and many other famous cultural figures studied.
The duration of the excursion to Pushkin is about 5 hours. Excursion buses to Tsarskoe Selo depart from the Gostiny Dvor metro station (Nevsky Prospect 35) - the very center of St. Petersburg. The excursion includes tickets to the Catherine Palace and Catherine Park, as well as the Lyceum Museum. An excursion to Pushkin will save you from wasting precious time in giant queues, which are getting longer every year.
You can buy tickets with a significant discount for the most popular excursions to Pushkin and Pavlovsk from our website partners, who provide a wide range of excursions around St. Petersburg, including various excursions to Pushkin, Pavlovsk, Gatchina and other suburbs of St. Petersburg, as well as individual excursions.
Have a pleasant and educational excursion to Pushkin with our website!
