[3] Originally intending it in 1709 for country habitation, Peter the Great sought to expand the property as a result of his visit to the French royal court in 1717,[3] inspiring the nickname of "The Russian Versailles".

The end of the Great Northern War resulted in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, ceding much of the Swedish Empire's claim to the Baltic Sea to the rising Tsardom of Russia.

Peter the Great already began construction of his new capital St Petersburg in 1703 after successfully capturing Swedish provinces on the eastern coast.

[7] This strategic location allowed Russian access to the Baltic Sea through the Neva River that flowed to the Gulf of Finland.

The island of Kotlin and its fortress Kronstadt west of St Petersburg provided a gateway and commercial harbor access owing to the shallowness of water closer to the city.

[8] Throughout the early 18th century, Peter the Great built and expanded the Peterhof Palace complex as a part of his goal to modernize and westernize Russia.

On the walls of this seacoast palace hung hundreds of paintings that Peter brought from Europe[12] and allowed to weather Russian winters and the dampness of the sea without heat.

In the seaward corner of his Monplaisir Palace, Peter made his Maritime Study, from which he could see Kronstadt Island to the left and St. Petersburg to the right.

At its foot begins the Sea Channel (Morskoi Kanal), one of the most extensive waterworks of the Baroque period, which bisects the Lower Gardens.

The Grand Cascade is modelled on one constructed for Louis XIV at his Château de Marly,[15] which is likewise memorialised in one of the park's outbuildings.

It depicts the moment when Samson tears open the jaws of a lion, representing Russia's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War, and is doubly symbolic.

[17] The lion is an element of the Swedish coat of arms, and one of the great victories of the war was won on St Sampson's Day.

Although many trees are overgrown, in recent years the formal clipping along the many allees has resumed in order to restore the original appearance of the garden.

The walls were decorated with imitation Oriental patterns by Russian craftsmen, and hung with Chinese landscape paintings in yellow and black lacquer.

510 marines of the Soviet Baltic Fleet landed on the beach of the neighboring park of Alexandria but faced a heavy fire from the Germans.

[21] The name was changed to "Petrodvorets" ("Peter's Palace") in 1944 as a result of wartime anti-German sentiment and propaganda, but the original name was restored in 1997 by the post-Soviet government of Russia.

The "purpose" of Peterhof was as a celebration and claim to access to the Baltic (while simultaneously, Peter the Great was also expanding on the Black Sea littoral).