Summer Palace
Summer Palace		In 1710, in the northeastern corner of the Summer Garden,Domenico Trezzini began working on a Summer Palace for Peter the Great. A modest two-story building of bricks and stucco - one of the first such structures in the city - the new palace was really only a small step up from the wooden cottage in which Peter had previously lived on the other side of the river. Its position, at the point where the Fontanka joins the Neva, suited Peter's maritime bent; the seating area with benches, now laid out to the south side of the palace, was originally a small harbor.
		Rooms within Summer Palace
Bedroom		The palace rooms were divided equally between husband and wife: Peter occupied the first floor, while Catherine took over the top floor. Information on each room is posted in English and Russian and the decor, though not original, has been faithfully reproduced. The tzar's bedroom (left) is typically modest; his four-poster bed is significantly shorter than he was, for in those days the aristocracy slept propped half upright on pillows. Next door to the bedroom is Peter's Turnery, where he would don a leather apron and spend hours bent over his mechanical lathes, presses and instruments; he also liked to receive important guest here. The room is dominated by a huge meteorological device (below left), which is connected to the palace weather van and measures the strength and direction of the wind. Another source of price, along with the turnery, was the palaces' Kitchen (below right), which was unusually modern for its day, plumbed with running water from the nearby fountains, and - most importantly - opening directly onto the dining room.
Huge Meteorological Device		Kitchen
		Summer Garden
Summer Garden		The Summer Garden is the city's most treasured public garden. Less than a year after founding the city in 1704, Peter the Great employed a Frenchman, Le Blond, to design a formal garden in the style of Versailles, with intricate parterres of flowers, shrubs and gravel, a glass conservatory, and orange and lemon trees. Unfortunately, a disastrous flood in 1777 wrecked the garden, uprooting trees and destroying fountains. Reconstruction took place under Catherine the Great, who preferred the less formal, less spectacular, English-style garden that survives today.