ALEXANDER II (1818-1881, St. Petersburg), Emperor (since 1855). He was a son of Emperor Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. Tsarevitch (from 1831), General of Infantry (1847), Honorary Member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1826). His first marriage was to the Princess of Hesse and Rhine, who took the name of Maria Alexandrovna; his second (morganatic) marriage to Princess E.M. Dolgorukova (1880), who received the title of Princess Yuryevskaya. He was a member of the Committee for the Neva Bridge Construction (1841), and the head of the Committee of the St. Petersburg - Moscow Railway Construction (1842). From 1849, he commanded the Guard and Grenadier Corps, was the head of the Main Military Schools (until 1860), and Trustee of the Chesme Military Hospital. In the 1860-70s, he carried out various reforms, such as peasant (abolishment serfdom, 1861), judicial (1864), land (1865), city (see City reform 1870), and military (the 1860-70s) reforms, all of which came to be known in Russian history as the Great Reforms of Alexander II. Many people had considerable influence on state affairs and government throughout different periods of his reign, including his brother Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolaevich, aunt Grand Princess Elena Pavlovna, P.D. Kiselev, Y.I. Rostovtsev, P.A. Valuev, D.A. Milyutin, A.M. Gorchakov, P.A. Shuvalov (see the Shuvalovs), and M.T. Loris-Melikov. In 1866-81, members of secret revolutionary societies made a number of attempts on Alexander II's life, some of them in St. Petersburg. In 1866, D.V. Karakozov shot at the Tsar through the ironwork of the Summer Garden (a chapel was built on the place of attempt; not preserved), in 1879, A.K. Solovyev made an attempt on Palace Square; in 1880, S.N. Khalturin planted an explosive in the Winter Palace. On 1 March 1881, Alexander II was fatally wounded on the Catherine Canal Embankment (today Griboedova Canal) as a result of a terrorist attack by members of the group Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), and died several hours later in the Winter Palace. He was buried in the SS. Peter&Paul Cathedral. The Holy Resurrection Cathedral was built on site of the assassination. Before taking the crown, Alexander II lived in Anichkov Palace, then in the Winter Palace. In summertime he preferred the Tsarskoe Selo (particularly the Zubov Wing of the Catherine Palace), and the Farmer Palace in Alexandria. He owned Petrovsky Island, Anichkov Palace, a cottage, a personal dacha in Peterhof (1843), the Ropsha grange in the Peterhof District, and the city of Gatchina.

References: Александр II и его эпоха: К 140-летию со дня восшествия на престол: Тез. докл. конф. СПб., 1995; Захарова Л. Г. Александр II // Романовы: Ист. портреты, 1762-1917. М., 1997. Кн. 2. С. 404-490; Толмачев Е. П. Александр II и его время: В 2 кн. М., 1998; Александр II и Царское Село: Кат. выст. / Гос. музей-заповедник "Царское Село". СПб., 2000.

Y. A. Kuzmin.

A pavilion with the Late Classicism style facades was constructed in 1827-1830 to the design of V.M. Gornostayev . At first it was intended for summer pastime of children of Emperor Nicholas I: the Heir and Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolayevich, the future Emperor Alexander II, and Olga, Maria, Alexandra, three his sisters. A lounge, located in the center of the house, was used for joint games. Four small rooms, for the each of the children, were located on every lounge sides. Wooden partitions between rooms could be slid apart. Interiors with small children’s furniture were decorated with modeling, plafonds were covered with the fancy painting in Louis XIV style. Children’s House was located in the terrace of the artificial Children Island in the center of the Children’s Pond. Ferries carrying people to Children’s House went across the pond between granite piers. The house and island were the favourite place for games of children of Alexander III and Nicholas II . There was an original “children’s ground” with the landscape planning, toys and garden tools, a ”cape of kind Sasha”, a grove, planted by emperor’s children, marble busts of teachers of Alexander II, the poet V.A. Zhukovsky and K.K. Merder. Alexander II, Emperor
Alexander III, Emperor
Gornostaev Vasily Maximovich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Zhukovsky Vasily Andreevich

Catherine II walking along the Taitsi water supply system noticed a nice hill on the Kuzminka River right bank. It was situated near the village of Babolovo aside of the Babolovo cutting. In 1780 a wooden house with outbuildings were built there. A stone building with the bathing hall and marble bath was built in 1783-1785 at this place by the architect I.V. Neyelov, the author of bath pavilions in the Catherine Park. The main interiors for resting were painted by F.D. Danilov. Iogann (John) Bush laid out a small landscape garden. In the 1810-1820s the palace and garden were included in the landscape composition of the Babolovo Park newly-created by F.F. Lyamin. In 1824-1829 the bathing hall was rebuilt to the design of V.P. Stasov and under the direction of V.M. Gornostayev for installing the huge bath which was cut out of Serdobolsky granite by the stonemason S.K. Sukhanov’s team. Emperors Alexander I, Alexander II , Nicholas II liked to include the Babolovo palace and park in their walking tours. During the war the palace was destroyed with a fire and has not been restored yet. The bathroom hall with the bricked vault and Sukhanov’s bath have been survived. Alexander I, Emperor
Alexander II, Emperor
Bush Iogann
Catherine II, Empress
Gornostaev Vasily Maximovich
Lyamin, F.F.
Neelov Ilya Vasilievich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Stasov Vasily Petrovich
Sukhanov Samson Xenofontovich

Alexander I was the author of the original architectural idea and customer of Kochubey’s country-house. The work with the project was begun in 1816 from a draft developed by the emperor himself with the help of the architect P.V. Neyelov, the final design was completed by V.P. Stasov. A semicircular terrace with columns and spherical dome, oriented to the “To my dear comrades” Gate in the Catherine Park and developed the architectural motifs of the Alexander Palace and the Concert Hall pavilion designed by G. Quarenghi, was successfully planned by the monarch-architect. The gift certificate was drawn up in April 1817 in the name of Princess M.V. Kochubey. The building was constructed in 1817-1818, the garden planning and building works were completed by 1824. During 1835-1857 it was the Tsarskoye Selo country-house of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich, who was born in Tsarskoye Selo. By his full age the mansion was rebuilt in 1856-1857 to the design of the architect I.I. Charlemagne, but after the finishing of building the Grand Duke refused the country-house. The project of Charlemagne was high appreciated and the architect became an academician of architecture, but his architect career was interrupted in view of fault-finding of the owner. The spectacular terrace with two stairs and sculptures of the Italian marble lions at the eastern façade of the building remembers about Charlemagne’s work. In 1859 Alexaner II ordered to name the country-house as the Reserved Palace.
In 1895 The Reserved Palace was transferred to Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich. In 1876-1878 the architect A.F. Vidov built three cavalier’s houses for the Grand Duke retinue, wings for servants and later a garage and ice-house was built. In 1882 Alexander III considered necessary to register officially the transferring of the Reserved Palace to Vladimir Aleksandrovich under the ownership in right of primogeniture with especial conditions. Further attempts of the Grand Duke and his heirs to get the unlimited rights of ownership for the palace remained unsuccessful. After the Grand Duke’s dearth, the palace, which came into the ownership of the widow Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (Senior), was renamed the Vladimirsky Palace (in 1910), according to the Emperor’s order. In troubled 1917 during short-time the Vladimirsky Palace was used by the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies and Soviet authorities, a school- colony for juvenile delinquents, then here there was a School of VKP(b) (Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)) for the Communist Party activists of agricultural establishments. During the Nazi occupation of Pushkin Town in 1941-1943 the palace burned and was highly damaged, so the question about its restoration for placing the dormitory of the School of the Communist Party Education did not solve for a long time. In 1948 Doctor of Architecture, professor V.I. Yakovlev and B.L. Vasilyev, an architect of the State Inspectorate for Monuments Protection, disputed this idea of the palace using and recommended to use the palace for a culture-educational establishment (a theatre, club). Restoration and recovery work was done according to the design of the architect-restorer M.I. Tolstov in 1955-1958 for using the palace as the Palace of Pioneers. At the present time the most luxurious Palace of Wedding is placed here. Cavaliers’ houses and wings are occupied by the Cadet Corps of the Federal Frontier Service. Alexander I, Emperor
Alexander II, Emperor
Alexander III, Emperor
Kochubey Viktor Sergeevich, Duke
Nikolay Nikolaevich (Sr.), Grand Prince
Quarenghi Giacomo
Stasov Vasily Petrovich
Tolstov M.I.
Vidov Alexander Fomich
Vladimir Alexandrovich, Grand Prince
Vladimir Alexandrovich, Grand Prince
Yakovlev, V.I.
Sadovaya Street/Pushkin, town, house 22

A part of the area of the closed Wall-paper Factory with a stone barrack for workers, belonged to the Banknote Factory since 1780, was given for building a public almshouse according to the Emperor’s order in 1859. The project of converting the barrack into the almshouse with a domestic church was developed by I.A. Monighetti. The construction was directed by A.F. Vidov in 1863-1865, but then building was stopped in connection with the money problems. In 1869 according to the Emperor’s order the building was allowed to rebuilt as a man gymnasium. The gymnasium was named after Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich and in the memory of dead Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, the inscription on the memorial plaque placed on the façade informed about it. The solemn ceremony of the opening of the Gymnasium took place in the presence of Alexander II and august persons on 8 September 1870 in the Town Council hall. The Gymnasium became famous for its teachers and pupils, among which there was the poet I.F. Annensky who headed the gymnasium and lived here since 1896 until 1905. N.N. Gumilyev, V.A. Komarovsky, V.A. Rozhdestvensky, N.N. Punin and many others were among pupils of the gymnasium. Alexander II, Emperor
Annensky Innokenty Fedorovich
Gumilyov, N.N.
Komarovsky, Vasily Alekseyevich, count
Monighetti Ippolito Antonovich
Nicholas I, Emperor
Punin Nikolay Nikolaevich
Rozhdestvensky Vsevolod Alexandrovich
Vidov Alexander Fomich
Naberezhnaya Street/Pushkin, town, house 12

Emperor Alexander II ordered to build different entertaining constructions for his children near his apartments in the Catherine Palace. The most famous construction was the Small Farm of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna. The Small Farm is often mistakenly connected with the Alexander Park, but in reality it was situated in the Private Garden of the Catherine Park not far from the Concert Hall. The miniature ensemble included two loghouses, a cow-shed, poultry-yard and ice –house. This pastoral park complex, a tiny copy of a real cattle – yard, was built by I. Monighetti in 1861 for Alexander II’s older daughter. Facades, interiors, furniture and utensils were made in Russian style with using folk ornamental motifs in the decoration. A toy railway , with tunnels and bridges, led to a port on the Upper Pond shore, was constructed near the Small Farm in the open air later. Then a bowling-alley and sport ground were built for Alexander’s children. The Small Farm pavilion was destroyed during the German occupation in 1941-1944. Alexander II, Emperor
Monighetti Ippolito Antonovich

Two first areas, laid out by A.F. Vidov in 1855 for six country plots on the Separated Park territory, were granted by Emperor Alexander II for building Princess Z.I. Yusupova’s villa. The villa was built for the owner’s money in 1856-1859 to the design of the architect I. Monighetti , that was partly changed during the works. The mansion, gardener’s house and the pond are survived until the present time in. Wrought iron wings of the gate on the villa’s territory from Pavlovsk Road were decorated with the monogram “Z Yu”. Later the most considerable works were done during the 1890s – 1910s, when the villa belonged to Countess Sumarokova-Elston Princess Z.N. Yusupova and was used the most actively. The architectural design of the mansion was made on motifs of Italian villas. Facades of the mansion were decorated in the Baroque style forms which remembered the decoration of the Hermitage pavilion in the Catherine Park. Placing a kitchen and rooms for servants in a wing, joining to the main house, was made like in the Babolovo Palace. Alexander II, Emperor
Monighetti Ippolito Antonovich
Vidov Alexander Fomich

Grand Duke Nikolai Aleksandrovich, heir of the throne, was born in the family of Heir Alexander Nikolayevich in Tsarskoye Selo; Grand Duke Nikolai Aleksandrovich died in 1865.

The electromagnetic telegraph, first in Russia, connecting Tsarskoye Selo with Saint Petersburg, was installed in the study of Nicholas I in the Alexander Palace.

22 October. The Tsarskoye Selo college for the church rank girls was opened. In 1847 architect D.E. Efimov reconstructed the house of Obolensky in Moskovskaya Street for the building of this college and in 1881 А.F. Vidov once again reconstructed and enlarged the building (now it's school no. 606 ). Alexander II, Emperor
Efimov Dmitry Egorovich
Nikolay Alexandrovich, Grand Prince
Vidov Alexander Fomich
Moskovskaya Street/Pushkin, town

25 May. The chapel located near the Railway Station Aleksandrovskaya and built in the honour of the miraculous escape of the Emperor's life, after making an attempt on his life by a Polish terrorist in Paris, was consecrated in the presence of Alexandr II. Alexander II, Emperor

28 November. Empress Maria Alexandrovna received Alexander II's message from Bulgaria about the capture of Plevna. Alexander II, Emperor
Maria Alexandrovna, Empress