A long building is the compositional key point in the layout of the imperial estate and the central part of the town, it occupies the plot between Pevchesky (now it is Litseysky) Lane and Leontyevskaya Street. It is one of the oldest buildings in Tsarskoye Selo. The building was built in 1744 to the design of the architect S.I. Chevakinsky. An estate office and building office of Tsarskoye Selo, palace cellars with ice-rooms, apartments of courtiers, guard-masters chambers, store-rooms were placed in this building. The Srefnyaya Street direction was fixed by its façade place. Later on, a part of the office building was demolished during the laying of Leontyevskaya Street according to V.I. Geste’s project.
In 1810 V.I. Geste partly rebuilt the south-eastern wing of the office building and built a portico with pediment at the main façade, belonged to the best samples of the architect creativity. The building composition is close to the standard design of government and administrative buildings of the Alexander classicism epoch. The pediment tympanum was decorated by a bas-relief with the Tsarskoye Selo Emblem, the architrave was decorated by the metal plaque with the inscription “The Palace Board”. Over the entrance in the portico deep there was a bas-relief with the date “1817” meant the year when the Office of the Chief Governor of the palace board and Tsarskoye Selo Town was established. The palace board office was placed here until 1917.
The north-western wing from the side of Pevchesky Lane was reconstructed according to the design of the architect V.P. Stasov in 1825 for the needs of archives, an exerzier-room for keeping the ammunition, the repair of the cellars with ice-rooms was made. Later this wing was overbuilt with the second floor, at that the architectural design of S.I. Chevakinsky was used in the design of the façade. As the result of reconstructions the single whole building looks like one consisted of three adjoining each other buildings.
Until 1917 tickets for visiting the Tsarskoye Selo Palace and parks were given in the palace board office. After the nationalization of the imperial property in 1918 the Tsarskoye Selo Board was liquidated, its archive was transferred into the state depository: the Russian State Historic Archives. Office and archive rooms, enlarged from the side of the yard, were occupied by a town library, other parts of the buildings were used as apartments and a printing-house. The Tsarskoye Selo Emblem placed on the pediment was knocked down. At the present time rooms were used by many organizations. Chevakinsky Savva Ivanovich
Hastie Vasily Ivanovich (William)
Stasov Vasily Petrovich
Leontievskaya Street/Pushkin, town
Litseisky Lane/Pushkin, town
Srednaya Street/Pushkin, town