Summer Palace of Peter the Great

The palace was designed by the Swiss Italian architect Domenico Trezzini, who elaborated on the Petrine Baroque style of Russian architecture with a two-story stone building with four-slope roofing.

It has a charming exterior and utilitarian rich interior, comparatively a small double storeyed stone building built to the liking of Peter the Great at St.

During its construction, the Summer Palace was decorated with friezes of 28 bas-reliefs by the German baroque sculptor and architect Andreas Schlüter depicting scenes from ancient myths and victorious Russian battles in the Great Northern War.

Most of the rooms had walls of red and green and oak panels, and an innovative central heating system that featured solid fuel burning boilers with elaborate blue and white porcelain ductwork.

[4] The Palace was built around the Summer Gardens (established in 1704 [2]), which have been beautified with rennaisance era statues made of marble which were brought from Italy by Peter the Great.

This garden, enclosed by a wrought iron fence was built before the palace as a celebration to mark the victory of Russia over Sweden, and is credited to architects, Ivan Matveev-Ugryumov and Jan Baptiste Le Blond.

[9] After Peter the Great's death, the Summer Palace once held a Supreme Privy Council meeting but was otherwise occupied for several years by members of the imperial family and their courtiers.

[12] In the early 1960s, the Summer Palace was fully restored, including its interiors, the carved oak panels in the lower lobby with images of Minerva, the unique Dutch tiles for its heating system, and the fireplaces with stucco decorations.

[12] The current Summer Palace of Peter the Great Museum gives visitors an opportunity to see Russian imperial court life from 300 years ago.