Gatchina: Palace Ensemble, Parks and Museums

Gatchina combines a palace and park ensemble with museums covering the city’s history, architecture and technology. The Gatchina Museum Reserve comprises the Gatchina Palace, the Priory Palace, the Palace Park and the Zverinets Park. Alongside the history of the palaces, the museums explore other subjects, from the daily lives of the city’s residents and architecture to historic aircraft and gramophones.

City History and Museum Life

The permanent exhibition of the Gatchina City Museum occupies five rooms in the historic building of the former Gatchina Girls’ Gymnasium. It explores the lives and everyday routines of the city’s residents in different historical periods. The “Old Gatchina” exhibition focuses specifically on the city’s founding at the end of the 18th century, as well as its development and urban planning in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Military Hall explores a different historical subject: the combat service of Gatchina’s defenders and liberators, and the lives of residents during the occupation.

The city museum also offers temporary exhibitions, lectures, concerts and museum events. Bus-and-walking tours and walking tours are organized. The subjects therefore extend beyond the exhibitions and include different ways of exploring the city’s history.

Architecture and Technology

The Priory Palace was built at the end of the 18th century to a design by architect N. A. Lvov for Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, later Emperor Paul I. The Shcherbov Estate offers a later architectural highlight: it was built in 1911 to a design by Stepan Samoilovich Krichinsky (1874–1923) and is one of the best-known examples of Russian Northern Art Nouveau.

The history of technology is also represented in several collections. The Gatchina Museum of Military Aviation History displays historic aircraft and helicopters, including the MiG-19 and Mi-2. The Aviation Museum in Gatchina displays researchers’ manuscripts, cosmonauts’ autographs and original documents belonging to aviators. Another technical collection is devoted to sound: the Museum of the Gatchina Gramophone has numerous working portable gramophones made by the Grammofon factory. They were manufactured in Krasnogvardeysk (Gatchina) from 1931 to 1941.

More to Explore in the Wider Destination of Gatchinsky District

In the wider destination of Gatchinsky District, the Suyda Estate tells a story of its own. Abram Petrovich Gannibal, A. S. Pushkin’s great-grandfather, bought it in 1759. He laid out a formal garden, a landscape park and an artificial water system there. After retiring in 1762, he planned and built new manor houses. The surviving features of the estate include a stable building, the ruins of an orangery and Gannibal’s stone sofa.

The landscape park at the Druzhnoselye Estate in Gatchinsky District was also laid out with a maze of paths and avenues, as well as a system of canals and ponds. The natural monument “Devonian Outcrops on the Oredezh near Belogorka” is also located in Gatchina District. It includes parts of the villages of Belogorka and Novosiverskaya, as well as the settlement of Siversky.

When choosing a holiday apartment, it helps to decide in advance what you want to focus on: will your trip be mainly about the palace ensemble, city history and museums in Gatchina, or would you also like to explore the distinctive estate histories and landscape attractions of the wider destination of Gatchinsky District?

Discover More Destinations

Discover more destinations: Baranovo, Annino, Losevo, Belichye, Roshchino, Zaborye, Pikalyovo and Pulkovo.

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