Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo: Blue, Gold, and the Lost Amber Room

Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo (now the city of Pushkin) is 25km south of St. Petersburg and is, by a reasonable measure, the most extravagant building in Russia. The 300-metre-long baroque facade is painted blue and white with gilded ornament applied in such quantity that restoring it after World War II required importing Italian craftsmen for decades. Empress Elizabeth commissioned the current building in 1752 to designs by Bartolomeo Rastrelli; the interiors were later reworked by Charles Cameron under Catherine the Great.

The palace was stripped and severely damaged by German forces during the occupation of Pushkin (1941-1944). The restoration, begun after the war, is still not complete. The Amber Room was disassembled and removed by German forces in 1941; its whereabouts are unknown. A full reconstruction using documentary photographs and surviving fragments was completed in 2003 and is what visitors see today.

The Visit

The palace is open daily except Tuesday. Entry for foreign nationals (pre-2022 pricing as a reference) was approximately 950 RUB; pricing and access policies have changed significantly since the war in Ukraine began, and current conditions should be verified before planning. Online booking is advisable regardless of nationality to avoid queues.

The Great Hall (also called the Light Gallery) is the first major interior: 47 metres long with 10 pairs of gilded caryatids supporting the ceiling and amber-coloured glass windows creating warm interior light. Overwhelming is an accurate description.

The Amber Room reconstruction takes about 30 minutes to view properly. The panels are all original materials (over 6 tonnes of amber, backed with foil for reflectivity) recreated from historical documentation. It is smaller than many visitors expect, but the density of worked amber in a single room is unlike anything else.

Catherine’s private apartments, redesigned by Charles Cameron in the 1780s, are the more restrained and aesthetically satisfying spaces: Wedgwood blue decoration, understated proportions, rooms that feel lived-in rather than ceremonial.

The Park

The Catherine Park surrounding the palace covers 567 hectares with formal French garden sections near the palace and an English-style landscape garden extending to a large lake further out. The Hermitage, a small banqueting pavilion, and the Marble Bridge over the canal are the main park features worth locating. Allow 2 hours in the park after the palace.

The Alexander Palace, a more modest neoclassical building 15 minutes’ walk through the park, was the preferred residence of Nicholas II and Alexandra. It was recently restored and reopened as a museum focused on the last Romanovs; this context makes the rooms more pointed than the ceremonial excess of Catherine Palace.

Getting There from St. Petersburg

The most common route is the suburban train from Vitebsky Station to Detskoe Selo station (30 minutes, approximately 90 RUB); marshrutka (minibus) K-286 from Moskovskaya metro station also connects directly to the palace gates. From Detskoe Selo station, it’s a 15-minute walk or short taxi to the palace entrance.

From St. Petersburg city centre, the full day trip takes: travel + palace interior (2 hours minimum) + park (2 hours) + lunch = comfortably 7-8 hours.

Café Admiralty in the park serves adequate Russian lunch food (borscht, pelmeni, salads) for around 600-900 RUB per main: not outstanding, but appropriate for the location.