Tsarkoye Selo

The Tsar's Village (Pushkin) and Catherine Palace: Peter the Great's wife, Catherine the first, chose the site for a stone country house built as a surprise for her husband while he was away in Poland. It seems to be the fate of each royal palace to be altered by successive monarchs and Peter's daughter, the Empress Elizabeth, decided to build a new and more opulent palace here in 1741. She asked the architect Rastrelli to model it on Versailles. In 1754 the Amber Room was mounted in the palace.