This building with the early Classical style facades, originally named “the bathing place for members of the Imperial family”, was built in 1777-1779 by the architect I.V. Neyelov. The location of the pavilion on the third upper terrace of the Old Garden let to include the pavilion in the panorama of the Mirror Pond and the Half-Moon Pond and the Cameron Gallery. The well-decorated interior was painted by the painter – decorator A.I. Belsky with fresco scenes of the attic myth about Phaethon and Helios. Engravings, based on the drawings of F. Smuglevich and V. Brenna which was done from Emperor Nero’s Golden House paintings in Rome, were used for frescos’ basis. Inside there was a cloakroom, sweating-room, bathroom, room of a boiler-man. All rooms were not large. The central octahedral hall was used for resting.
The first museum of Tsarskoye Selo was opened here in 1910 for the 200-years anniversary of Tsarskoye Selo. Since that year pavilion became to name the Upper Bath, it was likely considered more euphonic than “mylnya (wash-house)”. The building was burned during World War II and the fascists occupation of Pushkin Town in 1941-1944. The restoration and renewal were done in 1952-1954 to the design of the architect S.M. Novopolsky. The artist A.M. Treskin restored the lost painting of interiors. Belsky, Aleksey Ivanovich
Brenna, V.
Neelov Ilya Vasilievich
Novopolsky, S.M.
Novopoltsev, S.M.
Treskin, A.M.