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T R E A S U R E S O F T H E
R U S S I A N E M P I R E
Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Katherine the Great, stars of the Romanov
Dynasty, were able, brilliant, brutal, loving and creative to glittering and
superlative effect. In the early eighteenth century, Peter the Great rejected the
Eastern fashions of his peoples and led them to the heights of European elegance.
He even conceived and built a fantastical city far away from Moscow on the
marsh lands bordering the Baltic Sea – St. Petersburg, the Russians new capital.
Over the centuries, the Romanov Czars created a magnificent display of gilded
palaces furnished with the works of the world’s greatest painters, cabinet makers
and craftsmen. The Hermitage, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Orianenbaum and Tsarskoye
Selo are just a few of the glittering Royal palaces in and around St. Petersburg.
They are said to “beckon the soul” with their searing panache.
