Chinese Village (Tsarskoe Selo)

The Chinese Village in the Alexander Park of Tsarskoye Selo, Russia was Catherine the Great's attempt to follow the 18th-century fashion for the Chinoiserie.

[1] Probably inspired by a similar project in Drottningholm, Catherine ordered Antonio Rinaldi and Charles Cameron to model the village after a contemporary Chinese engraving from her personal collection.

After Catherine failed in her ambition to procure a genuine Chinese architect, the Russian ambassador in London was instructed to obtain a replica of William Chambers's Great Pagoda in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for Tsarskoye Selo, a central structure of the Chinoiserie architecture.

It was not until 1818 that tsar Alexander I of Russia asked the famous architect Vasily Stasov to overhaul the village in order to provide accommodation for his guests.

Although much of the original orientalizing decor was lost as a result, the renovated village provided habitation for such eminent visitors as Nikolai Karamzin who worked on his History of the Russian State in one of the houses between 1822 and 1825.