One of the most magnificent Baroque palaces in history – the palace of Russian Empress Catherine II. Great near St. Petersburg was completed on July 30, 1756. This palace can still be seen ten kilometers south of the city, which was the imperial capital in the time of Catherine. At that time, it was a trend to build lavish summer residences outside the capitals, so that ruling families could stay in the city in the colder part of the year, and closer to nature in warmer weather.
The place where Katarina’s palace was built was called Carskoje Selo. During the USSR, the place was renamed Detskoje Selo (Croatian Children’s Village), and today it is called Pushkin, in honor of the famous poet Alexander Pushkin. Carskoje Selo was located in a location that could be reached by carriage relatively quickly from Petrograd.
Catherine’s Palace has a main facade about 325 meters long, and only about 100 kilograms of gold were used to gild the decorations. Later Russian tsars used the palace as a summer residence for some time, while in St. Petersburg they had the famous Winter Palace.
One of the greatest treasures inside the palace was the so-called Amber room. At one time, this room was called the Eighth Wonder of the World, and it was made of amber, gold and mirrors. When the Germans occupied the vicinity of Leningrad during World War II, they dismantled the Amber Room and sent it to the Third Reich. It is considered to be one of the most valuable individual treasures appropriated by Nazi Germany. The Amber Room was never found later, and its disappearance today is one of the greatest mysteries in history.
