Complete half-day tour of Pavlovsk
- Pavlovsk - Saint Petersburg
Pavlovsk (museum-reserve) is a monument of world architecture and palace and park art. It includes a palace and park ensemble of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries, the former suburban royal residence. Turned into a museum after nationalization in 1918. The museum-reserve received its current status in 1983.
The museum-reserve includes the following main places of interest:
Pavlovsky Park - one of the largest landscape parks in both Russia and Europe. The composition of the park includes 7 landscape areas: Pridvortsovy, Slavyanka River Valley, Big Star with a valley of ponds, Old Sylvia, New Sylvia, Parade Field and White Birch. The park is decorated with classic pavilions: the Temple of Friendship, the Colonnade of Apollo, the Aviary, the Cold Bath, the Round Hall, the Pink Pavilion; pastoral: Milkweed, Peel Tower; Memorial: Monument to parents, Mausoleum of the benefactor spouse, bridges over Slavyanka, marble and bronze sculpture. Palace rooms and park pavilions were built and designed taking into account the surrounding landscape.
Pavlovsky Palace - an architectural monument of Russian classicism, the center of the palace and park ensemble.
Church of Peter and Paul in the Pavlovsk Palace - a functioning Orthodox church.
Monument to Paul I is installed in front of the palace in the center of the parade ground. The emperor turned to face the entrance alley, "hosting guests" in his summer residence.
Private Garden - located under the windows of the "personal rooms" of the Empress. The garden is inextricably linked to the palace premises, balconies, terraces and stairs. Arranged in the character of small French-Dutch gardens, with a clear geometric layout, floral parterres resembling colorful carpets.
The Ceremonial Field - a picturesque area with a large pond and an island in the center.
30 kilometers, south of Saint Petersburg, there's a significant, fascinating palace that caught tourists' eyes.
In 1777, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia at the time, decided to give a palace to his son as a gift for him to live there. Since then, the palace and its territory are known as Pavlovsk. The Pavlovsk Palace, with its charming nature and fresh weather, was an amazing place for Tsars and their family to relax and hunt.
This golden Palace has seen lots of suffering and restoration in the past. The main architects of the palace were Scottish architect, Charles Cameron and Vincenzo Brenna from Italy, but Russia architect and painter, Andrey Voronikhin name was also mentioned as restoration architect. Fun fact about the palace form, from an aerial view, it looks like a horseshoe. The interior design of the palace, including offices, dining rooms, dance hall, and music hall, unlike its exterior, is noisy and antic. You would recognize Egyptian, Greek, or Romanian design in different rooms.
Without The Palace itself, there's an enormous park which attracts lots of tourists for its own in Saint Petersburg. The 600 hectares Pavlovsk Park is one of the largest public parks in the world. It splits into seven different segments with a different design on each one. You might notice a touch of Russian, Italian, British, or French design within the sections with the presence of ancient symbols and mythological figures everywhere.
Today, The Pavlovsk Palace which recognizes as one of the UNESCO's World Heritage Site has a quite differing usage from its history, like holding major classical performances or greeting tourists from all around the globe. The majority of these Classics are so high that some Russians define the Pavlovsk, the capital of classical music in Russia.
Sure Saint Petersburg has lots of attractions in it, but, The Pavlovsk Palace and the Park alone should be enough motivation for any tourist who had personal plans for traveling to Russia or desires to sign for a Russia tour to check out this marvelous place.
Pavlovsk just like Pushkin which is less than 10 kilometers away from the Pavlovsk complex is a suburb imperial state of St. Peterburg. Both of these places have their attractions for tourists and considered to be two of the three top St. Petersburg's suburb attractions. St. Petersburg has five of these suburb attractions including Gatchina, and the closest thing to a suburb imperial state you can find in Moscow would be the Kuskovo Palace which locates 20 kilometers away from the center of the city.
Unfortunately, many people don't know the Pavlovsk and its history and never visited it in their travel to St. Petersburg, but we at the Star Travel Group encourage people to visit more less-known places in their travel because the real joy in discovery is in the unknown. You can find more about places less famous than others in our blog.
Pavlovsk is a municipal town of the federal city of Saint Petersburg with the population about 16,000 people.
The town is a popular tourist attraction due to its former countryside residence of Russian royal family preserved till today. The palace was built in the 18th century in accordance with the direction of Catherine II the Great for her son Paul and this very building is present at the moment.
Also the original surrounding and the landscape (park, statues, bridges, etc) were planned and designed that days. The main idea of the exterior was the idea of English landscape garden decorated with picturesque elements in order to impress the viewers inspired by romanticized lanscape paintings.
The residence was the loveliest place of Paul (Pavel), Catherine's son, whose name the town bears till these days.