Farm Palace in Alexandria Park

Peterhof, Sankt-Peterburgsky pr. 5 (+7) 812 450 52 87 more than a year ago

The Farm Palace in Alexandria Park (www.peterhofmuseum.ru)

After The Cottage Palace was built, the family of the Emperor Nicholas I traditionally spent summer months in Alexandria. To further emphasize the idyllic character of the country residence, by the decree of the Emperor, in 1831, the main creator of the palace and park ensemble, the architect Adam Menelaws, constructed a Farm with a barn, rooms for the shepherds, kitchens and pantries. The purebred cows were ordered specially from England, that provided the family with dairy products, and even the shepherd was an Englishman. It was a modest rural house with the roof, painted in the colour of straw, and surrounded by galleries on pillars looking like birch trunks. Over the next two decades, the building was reconstructed several times under the supervision of the architect, Andrey Stackenshneider.

The design of the Farm palace interiors, just like the other constructions on the territory of Alexandria Park, is executed in neo-Gothic style. Some elements of its original finish have preserved: stucco works, the fragments of paintings on the walls and ceilings, fragments of the oak parquet floor, stoves, fireplaces and staircases.