Two rows of freshly painted Corinthian columns cut across the central colonnade connecting the east and west wings of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Photograph © Paul Gilbert (2012)

My first visit to the Alexander Palace was on September 5th, 1997. I have returned every year to discover new aquisitions, speak with the curators and staff, and to soak up the ambiance of this historic residence, its adjoining park and numerous pavilions. In the past few years my interest has been piqued even further with interesting new exhibitions and the initiation of long awaited restoration work on the palace.

After the departure of the Russian navy in 2009 the palace was officially handed over to the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve. The palace's new custodians wasted no time implenting their plans to convert the neglected monument into a multi-use museum and exhibition complex. They restored the 3 State Rooms in six months, and turned the former children's rooms of Tsar Nicholas II into exhibition rooms. This was only the beginning!

My Russia is a series of articles which I write for Royal Russia, a unique publication that celebrates the Romanov dynasty and Imperial Russia in words and photographs. In the current issue I write about the history of the Alexander Palace as a museum since 1917, including restorations since World War II. Further, I provide details on the restorations which will continue through to 2018. I also offer a two-page study of the Restoration of the Alexander Palace Master Plan by Studio 44, the architectural studio in charge of the restoration of the Alexander Palace.

My Russia: The Rebirth of the Alexander Palace appears in Royal Russia Annual No. 3 (2013). The article is 11 pages in length and illustrated with numerous black and white photographs which I took myself during my visit to the Alexander Palace last summer. It is one of nine articles on the Romanovs, monarchy and Imperial Russia that appear in this issue.

The Alexander Palace captures the interest and imagination of Russophiles and Romanovphiles around the world. My article is the most current and up-to-date on the restoration and future of the last residence of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

||| Click Here to Order Your Copy of Royal Russia No. 3 (2013) |||

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 16 March, 2013

Note: please allow 15 seconds for the video to begin 

The Russian Travel Guide in association with the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum Preserve have produced a new documentary on the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. The 27 minute documentary was filmed in the autumn of 2012, it is directed by Evgeny Belov and hosted/narrated in Russian by Eugenia Altfeld. 

The Alexander Palace was the beloved home of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. It was here that the last tsar was born in 1868, and it was from here that he was sent into exile and murdered along with his family and faithful retainers  at Ekaterinburg on July 17th, 1918.

The first part of the documentary explores the Alexander Park, its buildings and pavilions, including: Armoury, Chinese Village, White Tower, Children's Island, and Equine Cemetary.

The second part explores some of the historical interiors of the Alexander Palace which are currently open to the public, including the recently restored State Rooms.

This video is only available in Russian. If you do not understand Russian, do not allow that to deter you from watching and enjoying this stunning visual tour of the Alexander Palace and park.

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 17 January, 2013

Four millennia of universal history in four charts; for use at colleges and for history devotees, with a brief history of the Enlightenment by V.V.I. Schmidt – a St Petersburg-published book of 1823 which title page still bears the Tsarkskoye Selo Imperial Library stamp – has returned to the Alexander Palace reserve collection after the book left it over eighty years ago.

The book came back as a gift from Captain Peter Sarandinaki, the President and founder of the group called S.E.A.R.C.H. Foundation, Inc. with a mission to search for and recover the remains of two Romanov children. Mr Sarandinaki and other members of the group have done and will conduct more expeditions to the site of the murder of the Tsar’s family.

His grandfather, Colonel Kiril Naryshkin, was married to Anna Rozanova, the daughter of Lieutenant General Sergei Rozanov who was in charge of Admiral Kolchak’s White Russian troops that liberated Ekaterinburg from the Bolsheviks six days after the Romanov Imperial Family and their faithful servants were murdered. Rozanov and Naryshkin, the General’s adjutant, were among the first to enter the Ipatiev House.

The book Peter Sarandinaki together with his wife and two children brought back to the Museum was bought by his father in the 1930s at an American warehouse selling off unbidden auction items at nominal rates. The book graced their family collection for years. But as soon as Mr Sarandinaki found out the stamp on it was that of the Imperial Library, he contacted Tsarskoye Selo.

Our Museum is sincerely grateful to Captain Peter Sarandinaki and his family for their priceless gift.

© Tsarskoye Selo Palace-Museum Preserve. 29 August, 2012

The following 16-minute video (with musical accompaniment)  takes us through the State Rooms of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.

The restoration of the Portrait, Semi-Circular and Marble Halls were completed in 2010, marking the 300th anniversary of Tsarskoye Selo.

It was from the Semi-Circular Hall that Tsar Nicholas II, his family and retinue departed the Alexander Palace for the last time on August 1, 1917. From here they were taken to the Alexandrovsky Station, and taken by train into exile to Siberia.

© Royal Russia. 25 August, 2012

The restoration of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo will drag on for years as the Ministry of Culture is unlikely to provide the necessary funding to carry out the restoration work before 2018.

Despite this setback, work is “ongoing though far from complete,” according to Nikita Yavein, of Studio 44, the firm who are carrying out the restoration of the palace. The ground (basement) floor of the building is currently being renovated.

To date, the palace facades and roof have been repaired. In 2010, the three State Halls were restored and opened to the public. Once the restoration is complete, the Alexander Palace will rank among the most important museums to visit in the St. Petersburg region.

For more information on the master plan to restore the Alexander Palace, please refer to the following link;

||| The Revival of the Alexander Palace |||

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 07 July, 2012

Today marks the birthday of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (nee Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine) who was born on June 6th, 1872.

During her life, she had a great love of flowers, particularly lilacs which often filled the rooms of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.

This year, in honour of the Empress' birthday, the former rooms of the Empress at the Alexander Palace will be adorned with the fragrance of her favourite blossoms. In keeping with tradition, the Mauve Boudoir and two adjoining drawing-rooms will be decorated with lilacs which are now in full bloom throughout Russia.

Alexandra loved all shades of the colour mauve, which is why the Mauve Boudoir (or Lilac Study) became her favourite room in the palace. Each spring, and on the Empress' birthday, vases full of lilacs and lily-of-the-valley would fill this room. Her other rooms would be decorated with flowers year round. The Maple and Palisander Drawing-Rooms were decorated with gorgeous bouquets of lilacs grown in the nearby greenhouses at Tsarskoye Selo or Livadia in the Crimea.

Note: I have only just returned from St. Petersburg where I spent an entire day at Tsarskoye Selo. I was overwhelmed by the abundance of lilacs growing wild in the parks surrounding the palaces. I counted four shades in the Alexander Park including lavender, dark purple, white and pink. No matter where I stood in the park, the gentle breezes continually carried the fragrance of these beautiful flowers.

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 06 June, 2012

From May 16 to September 16, 2012, the second floor halls of the Alexander Palace will house two exhibitions marking the 200th anniversary of the Russian Patriotic War of 1812, also known as the French invasion of Russia.

Tsarskoye Selo was one of the favourite residences of Emperor Alexander I, whose personal determination and integrity ensured that Russia and her people – of all social classes together – were victorious in the war against Napoleon. Alexander I commemorated the victory with a triumphal To-my-Dear-Comrades-in-Arms Gate built in the Catherine Park in 1817.

The exhibition Alexander I and Napoleon: Peace Before War  will show items from the Tsarskoye Selo collections related to the calm years in French-Russian relations between 1805 and 1809 and, for the first time in 70 years, the painting Napoleon’s Army entering Munich on 24 October 1805 by François Dubois (1790–1871), which disappeared from Tsarskoye Selo during World War II. It was returned in 1948 and then stored in the reserve collection of the museum as an unknown artist’s work until its recent successful restoration and attribution.

The exhibition Year 1812 in Works from Private Collections of Moscow and St. Petersburg,  curated by the collector and art historian Sergei Podstanitsky, will present over 300 works of painting and applied decorative arts from nine private collections of Moscow and St Petersburg.

The exhibitions will run May 16 through September 16, 2012, in the 2nd floor halls of the Alexander Palace, 10.00–18.00 (last entry 17.00) daily except Tuesdays and the last Wednesday of each month.

© Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve. 14 May, 2012

For those of you who have never had the opportunity of visiting the Alexander Palace, I am pleased to present the following video created by Polzovtelya Channel of St. Petersburg.

The video will take you through the Alexander Palace providing a glimpse of all the rooms currently open to the public, including the recently restored State Rooms.

Please keep in mind that many of the historical interiors of the Alexander Palace were destroyed during the Second World War. The Soviets chose not to reconstruct them when they restored the palace after the war. The rooms in which the historical interiors have not been preserved are highlighted by enormous photographs on the walls of these rooms showing how each room looked before the Revolution. As part of an exhaustive restoration plan, six of these rooms, including the Maple, Pallisander and Mauve rooms will be restored to their historical originals over the next four years. These rooms are scheduled to be open to the public by 2016.

Also, many pieces of furniture on view in the rooms are original. Others are reproductions which have been carefully recreated from vintage photographs and drawings in the palace archives. They were made specially for a Russian film about the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra some years back in which a number of scenes were shot on location at the Alexander Palace. It is also interesting to note that a considerable number of items from the Alexander Palace (an estimated 5,615 items)  are currently on display or in storage at Pavlovsk. They had been moved  there in 1957, after the Alexander Palace had been taken over by the military six years prior.

In August 1997, I offered a unique tour to Russia,  The World of Nicholas and Alexandra. It was during this tour that I was  given the  honour of offering the first visit by a group to the Alexander Palace. Since then, I have returned many times and I am so pleased to see the palace coming back to life as the last home of Emperor Nicholas II and his family. 

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 05 May, 2012

The exhibit, In the Children's Rooms at the Alexander Palace has officially closed.

The exhibit which originally opened in June 2011 was set out in the former rooms of the children of Tsar Nicholas II on the second floor of the Alexander Palace. It was the first time in more than 80 years that visitors to the palace had access to these rooms.

The exhibit focused on the life of the Imperial children from the 19th to the early 20th century. Most of the exhibit, however, was devoted to the children of Tsar Nicholas II: the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, as well as the Tsarevich Alexei.

The exhibit included more than 200 items: paintings and graphic portraits, photographs, uniforms and dresses, books, toys, porcelain and furniture. Many of the items on display were being exhibited for the first time making this a truly unique exhibit.

For more news, articles, videos and photographs about this exhibit, click on the Alexander Palace in the Directory on the right-hand side of this page.