Ropsha

The palace and park ensemble of Ropsha are included in the UNESCO World Heritage list as a constituent of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.

Upon hearing about the curative properties of Ropsha's mineral springs, the tsar planned to make it his summer retreat; a timber palace and small church were built there.

Being in charge of Peter's secret police, he would bring political prisoners to a torture chamber arranged in Ropsha Palace and their screams would spook the neighbourhood.

Despite macabre stories of his cruelty and misdeeds, a neighbour, Chancellor Golovkin, found it prudent to arrange the marriage of his son to Romodanovsky's daughter.

In connection with the Lopukhina Conspiracy, the Golovkins fell into disgrace and their possessions were seized by Empress Elizabeth, who asked a court architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, to prepare plans for a new palace at Ropsha.

[3] Later the same year, Catherine the Great resolved that "Ropsha is not to be mentioned again"[citation needed] and presented the ill-famed place to her lover, Count Grigory Orlov.

Isaac Oldaker (1772 – c.1852), who was born in Marston Montgomery, Derbyshire, was 'Gardener to his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias,' in charge of the gardens at Ropsha Palace from 1804 to 1812, when he retired on pension because of ill health, returned to England, and subsequently worked for the notable botanist Sir Joseph Banks at Spring Grove House at Isleworth in London.

During World War II, from 1941 to 1944, Ropsha was mentioned in the Nazi military reports to Adolf Hitler's office as an important commanding hill with a strategic artillery post having unobstructed direct view on central Leningrad.

During that time, the Germans robbed and vandalized the imperial estate; a special unit looted the palace and moved its valuable art collection to Nazi Germany.