Babolovo or Babolovka was a dacha (''myza'') of

Prince Potemkin Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (, also , ;, rus, Князь Григо́рий Алекса́ндрович Потёмкин-Таври́ческий, Knjaz' Grigórij Aleksándrovich Potjómkin-Tavrícheskij, ɡrʲɪˈɡ ...

in Tsarskoe Selo. It was in 1780 that

Catherine II of Russia , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

presented the grounds adjoining the

Catherine Park The Catherine Park (russian: Екатерининский парк) is the large landscaped area to the south of the Catherine Palace, located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 25 km south-east of St. Petersburg, Russia. The park has t ...

and the Alexander Park to her then-favourite, Potemkin. A temporary wooden

palace A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

was built to house the lovers' trysts. It was rebuilt in stone to a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

design by Ilya Neyelov between 1782 and 1785. The Babolovsky Palace was essentially a summerhouse with seven rooms giving on to a park, a quaint octagonal tower and no second floor. Alexander I of Russia used the palace for his furtive rendezvous with Sophia Velho, a court banker's daughter. He commissioned Vasily Stasov to redesign the palace. The tower was replaced with a huge

bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

hewn from a red granite monolith. Engineer Agustín de Betancourt had it placed within the room before the walls were constructed. The bath weighed 48 tons and was 196 cm high. The palace fell into disrepair after the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...

and currently stands in ruins. The granite bath mentioned in one of Pushkin's first poems is still ''in situ''. Other structures in the Babolovsky Park (which covers some 300 ha) have disappeared, apart from an aqueduct from the 1770s and Adam Menelaws' gate separating the two parks.

Architectural features

A stone building was erected to replace the wooden five-room house located at the edge of the forest near the village of Babolovo. The construction began on November 2, 1782, the author of the project was architect Neelov. Asymmetrical in the plan, the one-storey structure was erected on a hill on the bank of the Silver Pond. The two main buildings, converging at an angle, were connected by an octagonal tower covered with a hipped roof. The façades were designed in the neo-Gothic style, with parapets in the form of battlements. The walls made of red bricks were plastered on the outside (excluding the anteroom and the bathroom pavilion), painted white and decorated with rustication. The plinth of the palace and its cornices are made of light Putilov stone. The cornices are decorated with light modules. The door and window platbands had two different designs - the plastered ones were painted white or the platbands were decorated with details of light Pudost stone.

References

Derelict palace with the famed “Tsar Bath”
{{Imperial palaces in Russia Gothic Revival architecture in Russia Houses completed in 1785 Ruins in Russia Vasily Stasov buildings and structures Dachas Ruined palaces Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg