Gatchina parks and palaces (photo)

The famous palace and park Gatchina, which form a single ensemble, was formed in the XVII - XIX centuries. It is located between the Black, White and Silver Lakes.

Sights of Gatchina

Undoubtedly, the main attraction of the city is a luxurious ensemble of palaces and parks. He is known far beyond our homeland. Tourists from all over the world come here to see this miracle with their own eyes. The Gatchina Palace and the park amaze with its splendor, the photo of which can be seen not only in Russian, but also in foreign publications. This ensemble was created throughout the century by different architects who used different styles. But all this is surprisingly combined, forming a harmonious composition.

Gatchina Parks never get bored. You can walk for hours, and surprisingly, but you will always find something new for yourself. Those who wish can rent a boat, swim in the White Lake, see its picturesque shores, the Grand Terrace pier, the Venus Pavilion, the Chesme Obelisk.

Gatchina Palace and the park

The construction of the Grand Palace in Gatchina was started in 1766. In those days, the owner of the estate was Count Grigory Orlov. The author of the project was the famous architect Antonio Rinaldi. He decided to build a palace that would resemble a hunting castle with an underground passage and towers.

Construction of the palace lasted 15 years and was completed in 1781. Later, he was rebuilt several times, but never radically changed his original appearance. The main building of the palace is connected by semicircular galleries with two household quads - stables and kitchen.

In the central part of the palace there were ceremonial halls, and quads performed, as intended, an auxiliary function. Rinaldi laid in the palace project a secret underground passage so that it was possible to leave the palace unnoticeably and quickly. I must say that the palace has a lot of secret doors, rooms, corridors and stairs. Some of them lead to the underground passage, others allow you to quickly get from one end of the estate to another, the third were just office space. Today visitors can get to the secret part of the palace only with the help of a guide.

Gatchina with Paul I

After Grigory Orlov died (1783), Gatchina was bought from his heirs by Catherine II. The Empress presented the estate with the palace to her son Pavel Petrovich. He very much loved this place, and soon moved here, having arranged here a personal residence. I must say that before that, Paul traveled extensively throughout Europe and was impressed by what he saw. Some of his buildings were especially inspired, and he decided to build something like this in Gatchina.

For example, the pavilion of Venus was a copy of the original to our time from the Chantilly castle in France. The future emperor decided to slightly modify the palace and the Gatchina park. There were bastions with guns, lifting bridges and ditches.

The reconstruction of the palace and park complex was led by Vincenzo Brenna, a well-known architect at that time. He closely cooperated with the no less famous master of his craft - VI Bazhenov. The Grand Palace had gardens with a regular layout - the Upper and Lower Dutch gardens, Native, and a little further - Sylvia. They began to be created in 1790. Was dug a wide channel, ending with an octagonal pool. It once bred carp, so it was called Karpin.

Pavel Petrovich ascended the throne in 1796, and Gatchina became the residence of the emperor. After his death, construction work in the park and the palace were completed. In 1851, before the Great Palace, a monument to Paul I was erected on the parade ground. Its author was the sculptor IP Vitali. In 1880, Alexander III lived with his family in the Gatchina Palace.

A park

The Gatchina Palace Park began to be created together with the palace. It became the first landscape park in Russia. To create it, the famous Italian master Johann Busch was invited.

Gatchina Park is designed in English style. There is no strict orderliness, the creators only emphasized natural natural beauty. Gardeners achieved an amazing effect, planting plants with different in color foliage and needles.

Gatchina Park, whose photo you see in our article, has a composition center, which is the White Lake. Here there are numerous architectural structures - bridges, pavilions, pavilions, etc. The Chesme Obelisk, created by Rinaldi's project, was one of the first. It is dedicated to the victory of the Russian fleet over the Turks in Chesma Bay (1770).

Gatchina Park is of great interest to specialists. Some of its buildings (portal Mask and Birch House) are priceless monuments of architecture. Portal The mask is made of stone, and the log cabin is decorated with birch logs. It looks pretty simple, but at the same time very picturesque. In appearance, it resembles a wood log. But behind the apparent simplicity lies the expensive interior decoration. Similar buildings were distributed at the end of the XVIII century. They were executed in the form of a hut or hut, but inside they were decorated with palace luxury. They were intended for recreation of companies walking in the garden. Other park buildings are no less interesting. For example, the Echo grotto, the amphitheater, the Admiralty gates, the Eagle Pavilion and others.

Dutch garden in Gatchina Park

In fact, there are two such gardens - Upper and Lower. They are broken on the loose terraces. Together with his own garden, which is located nearby on a retaining high terrace, they formed an amazing ensemble of the Priadvortsovy Gardens.

Lower Garden

This is a parterre garden, planned in a regular style, having a rectangular shape and somewhat elongated relative to the central axis of the Palace gardens. It covers an area of about 0.6 hectares. Here are created flower beds, the original form of lawns and straight, sprinkled with gravel and pounded brick track. In the places of their crossing round platforms were created.

In the lower garden there are seven stone staircases. Three of them are located on the north-eastern slope. Two stairs - in the south-west slope. One more staircase is on the north-western and south-eastern slopes. All these ladders are viewports. Each of them opens an amazing view.

Upper Dutch Garden

It occupies a large territory - about 2.5 hectares. Like the Lower Garden, it is clearly planned. Eight paths diverge from the oval platform, which is the compositional center of the garden. The avenue, which runs through the center of the garden, ends with a steeply descending wide granite staircase of two spans. Such complex stellar compositions, which are created in the Dutch gardens, are quite typical for regular gardens. They, undoubtedly, adorn the Gatchina Park. Upper and Lower Dutch gardens, resemble gardens in Italian villas, and are rare in Russian park construction.

Priory Palace

During the reign of Paul I the territory of the park was significantly expanded. It was joined by the Priory Park, the area of which is 154 hectares. Its main attraction is the magnificent Priory Palace, which was built by the famous architect NA Lvov in the form of a small knight's castle.

The palace is on the shore of the Black Lake. Quite interesting is the technique of building this structure. The walls of the palace were built of treated land, which was moistened with a special solution. Nikolay Lvov actively used this technique. From the French language "prior" is translated as "a small monastery". Now the museum of local lore is located in this building.

Gatchina after WWII

Before the onset of the fascist troops, an urgent evacuation of the artistic values of the Gatchina Palace began. 12 thousand items were taken out. This made up only 20% of the entire collection. In 1941 the city was occupied by fascists. They cut down a lot of trees in the park. During their retreat, the Germans set fire to the Grand Palace. Gatchina was released in early 1944.

Almost immediately after the victory in the city, work began on restoring the historic complex. And only in 1985 Gatchina Palace and the park received its first visitors.