Tsarskoe Selo
Coordinates: 59°43′24″N 30°24′57″E / 59.72333°N 30.41583°E
Tsarskoye Selo (Russian: Ца́рское Село́; IPA: [ˈtsarskəɪ sʲɪˈlo]; "Tsar's Village") was the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located 24 kilometers (15 mi) south from the center of Saint Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin. Tsarskoye Selo forms one of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. During the Soviet times it was known as Detskoye Selo.
In the 17th century, the estate belonged to a Swedish noble. Its original Finnish name is usually translated as "a higher ground". Max Vasmer, on the other hand, derives this toponym from the Finnish word for island, "saari": "Saaren kylä" = "Island village". By the 18th-century at the latest, it was called "Tsarskoye Selo" (Russian, "the Czar's village").
In 1708, Peter the Great gave the estate to his wife, the future Empress Catherine I, as a present. She founded the Blagoveschensky (Annunciation) church there in 1724, and changed the name of the settlement to Blagoveschenskoye, but this did not stand the test of time and quickly went out of use.
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