Farm Palace, Peterhof

The palace stands as a two-storey building with a small mansard, mansard (an attic storey set into a steeply sloping roof). Internal accounts describe the house as having either 45 principal rooms or, by another reckoning, fifty-five rooms, reflecting changes over successive enlargements. Much of the exterior reads as a picturesque rural palace: projecting bays rise from the main face and are crowned by low battlement-like parapets, shield reliefs appear on the elevation and the municipal coat of arms of Alexandria is displayed on the front.

The eastern wing is noticeably larger than the western and the eastern elevation projects terraces and balconies with cast-iron railings worked in a Gothic pattern. That same façade often shows tall pointed windows, pointed windows (lancet windows) meaning narrow, vertically emphasised openings with a pointed top. Between the two wings a courtyard opens; in front of the eastern front there is the estate’s small formal garden, originally centered on a rectangular fountain that was later reshaped to an oval basin. The fountain contains the bronze figure “Night,” a cast taken from a marble original by Joseph Pollé, and other garden sculptures, and the plot is enclosed on three sides by a pergola.

Interior appointments preserve a range of original materials and fittings. On the courtyard side, columns fashioned from birch trunks remain in place, while polished oak panels and doors line many rooms and marble fireplaces punctuate principal chambers. In the bathroom used by Empress Maria Alexandrovna a carved marble bathing tub survives. Details noted from the earliest pavilion include painted vestibules and a service pantry finished in a rusticated manner, stucco ornament executed in a Gothic manner, and period furniture supplied by a noted furniture maker; some reception rooms retain oak parquet flooring. The original pavilion’s plan included entrance vestibules, an attic room under the mansard, a pantry, a drawing room, a kitchen and a dairy, and later equipment installed in the building included an elevator, an internal water supply system and modern lavatory fittings.

Outbuildings arranged around the palace reflect the estate’s role as a place for children’s activities and education. A small children’s farm with a vegetable plot, a children’s rural house, a tiny mill and a children’s fortress were all part of the complex; the Kitchen Corps, the former service wing, still stands. Among the ancillary structures a restored Fire Tower survives complete with its bell and a set of firefighting tools. The main house and many of these surviving features were repaired after wartime damage, and restoration work completed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has returned much of the palace and its auxiliary buildings to visible condition.