The Tsarskoye Selo palace and park ensemble (the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve) is a superb monument of world-ranking architecture and garden-and-park design dating from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries.
The compositional centre of the ensemble is the Great Tsarskoye Selo or Catherine Palace – a splendid example of the Russian Baroque. Visitors are enraptured by the sumptuous décor of the Great Hall and the Golden Enfilade of state rooms that includes the world-famous Amber Room. Today, as we enter the palace, we can sense the spirit of the times of Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II and admire unique works of fine and applied art.
Tsarskoye Selo is also home to one of the finest creations of Classicism in architecture – the Alexander Palace. Passing through the rooms of the living apartments you can get an idea of the aesthetic preferences of the last members of the Romanov dynasty and view the Emperor’s State Study that was decorated in the Moderne style.
More than a hundred historical monuments are scattered across the Catherine and Alexander Parks that have a joint area of 300 hectares: there are grand palaces and intimate pavilions, bridges and marble monuments, and also exotic structures imitating Gothic, Turkish and Chinese architecture.