Pavlovsk Palace

Pavlovsk Palace (Russian: Павловский дворец) is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Catherine the Great for her son, Grand Duke Paul, in Pavlovsk, within Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna. The palace and the large English garden surrounding it are now a Russian state museum and public park.

In 1777, the Empress Catherine II of Russia gave a parcel of a thousand hectares of forest along the winding Slavyanka River, four kilometers from her residence at Tsarskoye Selo, to her son and heir Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna, to celebrate the birth of their first son, the future Alexander I of Russia.

At the time the land was given to Paul and Maria Feodorovna, there were two rustic log lodges called 'Krik' and 'Krak.' Paul and his wife spent the summers of 1777 to 1780 in Krik, while their new homes and the garden were being built.

They began by building two wooden buildings, one kilometer apart. Paul's house, a two-story house in the Dutch style, with small gardens, was called "Marienthal", or the "Valley of Maria." Maria's house was a small wooden house with a cupola, flower beds, named "Paullust", or "Paul's Joy." Paul and Maria Feodorovna began to create picturesque "ruins", a Chinese kiosk, Chinese bridges and classical temples in the English landscape garden style which had spread rapidly across Europe in the second half of the 18th century.

In 1780, Catherine the Great loaned her official architect, the Scotsman Charles Cameron, to design a palace on a hillside overlooking the Slavyanka River, near the site of Marienthal.

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