Tsarskoye Selo: Elizaveta Petrovna “has created the exclusively upscale world, challenging Versailles”

2017 marks 307 years since the establishing of Tsarskoye Selo. To this memorable day, the Presidential Library presents rare materials about the uptown residence of Russian tsars, which since 1990 has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The electronic copies of rare editions from the Presidential Library contain a detailed history of the creation of the suburban residence of Russian tsars, which was visited at various times by the heads of leading European states, diplomats, world-famous figures of culture. So, for example, in the of 1910 year’s guidebook of the same name Tsarskoye Selo by S. Vilchkovsky the history of the outskirts is described in detail. In June 24 (July 5), 1710, Catherine I, the future wife of Emperor Peter the Great, received as a gift a small manor called “Sarskaya Myza,” (a freestanding on elevated place farmstead). This date is considered the day of founding of Tsarskoye Selo.

The construction of a palace, later named Catherine's, at the top of the hill began in 1717. However, the entire complex of buildings in the first period of its existence was not literally a palace, but rather an ordinary estate of the Russian patrimony with all the peculiarities of the ancient Russian way of life. This is well illustrated in a book by A. Uspensky entitled Historical panorama of St. Petersburg with its outskirts. Tsarskoye Selo, available on the Presidential Library website.

“There are often some records in the documents of the former Tsarskoye Selo Archives, like the following: “November 22, 1735, the flunkey of His Highness’s court asks a millet for the birds that are in the bedroom of the Empress.” Her Majesty the Empress also loved a special herb with a cucumber smell, which she ordered for her bedroom.”

The depiction changes dramatically when the daughter of Peter the First and Catherine, Elizabeth, enters the throne. “Gradually, in a few years, - Uspensky writes, - from the modest Petrovsky Palace Elizaveta Petrovna created an entirely whimsical and luxurious world, competing with Versailles.”

For the years of Her Majesty’s reign, Tsarskoye Selo is experiencing its highest flowering, turning into a large palace and park complex in the style of Russian Baroque. At this time, the new Alexander Palace is being constructed, the Great (Catherine's) Palace is being expanded, being enlarged with such annexes as the Agate Rooms, the Cameron Gallery, the Hermitage, and the superstructure of the Church facility. Three magnificent parks, occupying 600 hectares, surround the palaces and garden monuments.

Catherine II changes the layout of the Catherine Garden: laying-out of the first landscape park in Russia begins on the territory of Tsarskoye Selo in 1768. Later, some monuments in honor of the victories of Russian weapons in course of the Russo-Turkish wars were erected in the park: the Chesme Column, the Cagul Obelisk, the Tower-ruin and the Turkish Bath, which architect Ippolit Monighetti designed to imitate the Turkish mosque. The Presidential Library has images of these renowned monuments.

The library digitized the first photographs of St. Petersburg, taken in the middle of the XIX century by the Swiss Giovanni (Ivan) Bianchi: 20 works, miraculously survived in Switzerland, returned to Russia and became the public domain. Among them you can find pictures of Tsarskoye Selo: “Tsarskoye Selo. The Turkish Bath and the Chesme Column in the background, Tsarskoe Selo. Turkish Bath Pavilion, view from the lake, Tsarskoye Selo. The Turkish Bath Pavilion, and others.

By virtue of the efforts of Catherine II since 1741 Tsarskoye Selo became the official residence of Russian monarchs.

“This is how Countess Golovina describes in her notes, - according to Vilchkovsky's book, - one of the first days of her life in “the new,” i.e. Alexander’s Palace of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich and his wife: “The Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess were very pleased with their palace; my apartments were above the apartments of the Grand Duchess and, being in the middle of the building, projected from it in a semicircle. She could talk to me, standing at the last window near the corner. One afternoon she was sitting by her window, and I was at my own, and we talked for a long time. At the same time, the Grand Duke and my husband played the violin in my living room.””

Construction in Tsarskoe Selo continued under the rule of Alexander I and Nicholas I. In 1811 as per decision of Alexander I the Lyceum was opened, which will be lately, due to the genius of Alexander Pushkin, a student of the first lyceum class of graduates, a symbol of Tsarskoye Selo. There is a unique document entitled the Decree on the Lyceum of 1810, written in His Majesty the Emperor Alexander I own hand “To Mr. Minister of Education” in open access on the Presidential Library website. There is also another historical document, which is could be found in the Presidential Library stock - A memo on the organization of the Imperial Alexandrovsky Lyceum and its curriculum.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Tsarskoye Selo was one of the most comfortable cities of the Russian Empire. Gradually an entire “colony-settlement” of the leading Russian writers has arisen here: the poets Annensky, Gumilyov, Akhmatova, a writer Shishkov, a fantasy writer Belyaev lived and worked there. After the revolution, palaces and mansions of Tsarskoe Selo accommodated various institutions for kids, so the town became known as Detskoye Selo (the children's village). In 1937 it was renamed Pushkin in commemoration of the centenary of the death of the great Russian poet.