154. St. Petersburg Parks #7 - Tavricheskiy Garden & the Tauride Palace
Tavricheskiy Garden is the main park in the northern part of the city center. The park has a more "urban" feel than many other green spaces in St. Petersburg - there are no wooded areas, and it contains tennis courts, playgrounds, and jogging paths (runners are usually an otherwise rare sight in central St. Petersburg). A small lake sits on the eastern side of the park, and a stream winds around the grounds. It's a nice oasis in an otherwise mostly residential neighborhood. I've visited the park several times, once just to look around in the early summer, and a second time on my way to the Smolny Cathedral in autumn. The park was full of Russian families during both visits. One of my German expatriate colleagues who lived in this neighborhood told me he liked to go jogging here when the weather was nice.
The park sits on the former grounds of the Tauride Palace (better known to Russians as the Tavricheskiy Palace), which dominates the northern edge of the green space. The palace was originally built between 1783 and 1789 for Prince Grigory Potemkin, a lover and confidante of Catherine the Great and one of the most powerful political and military figures in Russia for three decades in the second half of the 18th century. It was subsequently used by Catherine as a summer home and by her son Paul I as the imperial stables. In 1906, the palace became the seat of the Imperial State Duma, Russia's first parliament. In 1917 it was briefly home to the Provisional Government and the Petersburg Soviet. During the Soviet era, the palace was the home of the All-Union Agricultural Communist University and then the Higher Party School, a college of further education for top-level Communist bureaucrats. The palace is currently used as a government building - the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States has met here for the last 20 years. This palace is technically open to tourists, but when I checked on the web site to see about visiting, their calendar indicated that a single tour was scheduled during the upcoming month, on a weekday afternoon. So for all intents and purposes, it's really not available for sightseeing.
May:
October:
The park sits on the former grounds of the Tauride Palace (better known to Russians as the Tavricheskiy Palace), which dominates the northern edge of the green space. The palace was originally built between 1783 and 1789 for Prince Grigory Potemkin, a lover and confidante of Catherine the Great and one of the most powerful political and military figures in Russia for three decades in the second half of the 18th century. It was subsequently used by Catherine as a summer home and by her son Paul I as the imperial stables. In 1906, the palace became the seat of the Imperial State Duma, Russia's first parliament. In 1917 it was briefly home to the Provisional Government and the Petersburg Soviet. During the Soviet era, the palace was the home of the All-Union Agricultural Communist University and then the Higher Party School, a college of further education for top-level Communist bureaucrats. The palace is currently used as a government building - the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States has met here for the last 20 years. This palace is technically open to tourists, but when I checked on the web site to see about visiting, their calendar indicated that a single tour was scheduled during the upcoming month, on a weekday afternoon. So for all intents and purposes, it's really not available for sightseeing.
May:
October:
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