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THE UNKNOWN PETERHOFF: THE COTTAGE PALACE & FARM PALACE
Duration: 5 hours “Most tourists are taken to the Great Palace and miss the Cottage, which is hidden in the trees and reached by an unmade track. They miss a treasure.” (Charlotte Zeepvat “Romanov Autumn”). We offer our guests a chance to have a glance at the private life of the Russian Imperial families in the middle of XIX-the start of XX centuries. In 1825 Emperor Alexander I presented the land located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland adjoining the Lower Park of Peterhoff to his younger brother, Grand Duke Nicolay. The estate built there was presented to and named after Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra. The Cottage Palace of Alexandria is built in the popular at the time Gothic style by the English architect Adam Menelaws, a well-known Scottish architect from Edinburgh. He designed both the palace and landscape park. The Cottage was designed to resemble the country houses of the English aristocracy and to be a private house rather than a state formal residence. In 1828-30 Adam Menelaws built the Farm, a single-storey structure in a “rural” style. It had rooms for shepherds, kitchens and store rooms. The Farm was intended for the heir to the throne Grand Duke Alexander. Between 1838 and 1859 Andrey Stakenschneider redesigned the Farm into the extensive two-storey Farm Palace of Emperor Alexander II and his family. Both buildings suffered considerably during the time of the Nazi occupation. The interior dйcor of the Farm Palace was completely destroyed and the museum opened its doors to the visitors only in autumn of 2010. The Cottage was luckier than the others of the Peterhoff museum complex. The Nazis turned it into an army hospital during the occupation and it was not exploded when Nazis were retreating. By now 20 out of the original 30 rooms have been restored. During this tour we will also visit the church of Alexander Nevsky, commonly known as the Gothic Chapel because of its distinctly medieval architectural design. The Gothic Church used to be a domestic church of the Imperial family.
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