- •The way to pushkin
- •In front of the building there is a monument to Georgi Plekhanov. The founder of the social democratic movement in Russia.
- •Pushkin
- •The catherine palace
- •Exhibition room - history of the palace construction.
- •In the corner there is a stove of Delft tiles; the restored paintings on the stove represent people of different strata in the 18th century.
- •In the corners there are two big floor lamps made of blue glass and crystal and decorated with "biscuit" figures, produced at the Imperial Glass Works In St.Petersburg in the late 18th century.
Pushkin
INTRODUCTION
The Catherine palace is one of the earliest architectural ensembles created In the suburbs of St.Petersburg. It dates from the early 18th century. It lies some і '> miles down south, deep inland, on a very picturesque site, in a town called Pushkln (former Tsarskoe Selo), and is one of the most spectacular former Imperial country residencies. The palace was turned into a museum after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
During WWII the town was under Nazi occupation for 28 months and was almost completely obliterated for it lay just behind the front line: the palace was completely gutted by fire (only the shell of the original building remained); the parks and garden pavilions were severely damaged; thousands of trees were МЫ for the mere sake of destruction.
Restoration works started in 1957 and are still in progress. Fortunately, оте 20,000 pieces of the original art collection had been evacuated to the rear of the country before the Nazi moved in, so they are now being restored to where I hey belong. But many valuables are irrevocably lost.
The Egyptian Gate was built in 1829-30 in the pseudo-Egyptian style from sketches by the architect Adam Menelaws, to mark the town boundaries and to make an entrance gate into the town. Formerly, one of the three main checking stations set up on the way from St.Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo was situated here.
The iron gate and the cast iron columns and plates are covered with hieroglyphics stylized in the fashion of the time. The bas-reliefs were modeled by the sculptor Demut-Malinovsky.
Almost next to the Egyptian Gate is a statue of the great 19th century poet Alux.inder Pushkin (1911, sculptor Bernstam). During WWII the Nazi turned it Into a training target and it received 150 bullet holes.
The Alexander palace designed by Quarenghi was commissioned by Catherine II in 1770 for her favourite grandson, the future Emperor Alexander I. I lie palace was constructed between 1792 and 1796. It is one of the most .successful classical structures which blends beautifully with the natural surroundings of the Alexander Park laid out in the typical English style of a landscape park.
The colonnade of the palace is decorated with two bronze statues which represent players of the two ancient Russian games, "babki" and "svaika" (sculptors Pimenov and Loganovsky). In 1836, they were exhibited at the Fine Arts Academy and gained a great renown.
The interior of the palace was decorated in Classical style and the palace W(v. luxuriously furnished, From 1905, the palace was used by Nicholas II who stayed there after his abdication. The palace had a good library with some 7,000 volumes of books in Russian, English, and German. The whole collection was gone during the war.
Another monument to Alexander Pushkin, one of the finest of its kind, is the work of Robert Bach. The poet is represented as a student of the Lyceum (a special privileged school for the boys of nobility set up in Tsarskoe Selo in 1810),
seated on a bench. The expenses for the monument were entirely covered by the subscription of the residents of the town. The foundation stone of the monument was laid in 1899 to mark the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth. It was finally unveiled in 1900. The statue was cast in bronze at St.Petersburg shops. On the granite plinth, a line from a poem by Pushkin is carved in gold letters: "The whole world is a foreign land to us, but Tsarskoe Selo is our home".
Next to the monument is an old church built between 1734 and 1747, which is the oldest building still standing in Pushkin.
Next to the church is the four-storey building of the Lyceum. It was founded with the object of educating boys of the noble families who would afterwards occupy important posts in the Imperial service. Originally the building was a detached house (architect Neyolov, 1791) intended for the grandsons of Catherine II. But one of those, Alexander I, gave the building over to the Lyceum, so it was re-designed by Vasily Stasov and on October 19, 1811 the Lyceum was officially opened. In 1843, the Lyceum was removed to St.Petersburg.
Alexander Pushkin spent five years of his life (from 1811 to 1817) in the Lyceum. The beautiful parks of Tsarskoe Selo inspired him in the creation of his most poetic verses. The Lyceum is kept as a museum now.