Catherine Palace

The Catherine Palace (Russian: Екатерининский дворец) is a Neoclassical residence of Catherine II of Russia on the bank of the Yauza River in Lefortovo, Moscow. It should not be confused with the much more famous Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo.

The residence is also known as the Golovin Palace, after its first owner, Count Fyodor Golovin, the first Chancellor of the Russian Empire. After his death Empress Anna commissioned Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to replace the Golovin Palace with a Baroque residence known as Annenhof. This was Anna's preferred residence. It consisted of two wooden two-storey buildings, the Summer Palace and the Winter Palace.

Annenhof was abandoned after a fire in 1746. Catherine II, who found both edifices rather old-fashioned and dilapidated, ordered their demolition in the 1760s. After 1773 Karl Blank, Giacomo Quarenghi and Francesco Camporesi were the architects employed to supervise the construction of a Neoclassical residence in Lefortovo. Emperor Paul, known for his dislike of his mother's palaces, converted the residence into barracks.

Text adapted from “Catherine Palace (Moscow)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Catherine Palace ranks #1,961 of 3,691 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #55 of the 66 mapped in Russia. Founded 1797, it is older than 14% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 238 atlas entries founded in the 18th century. See how Russia compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗