Catherine II
After the owner's death several months later, Catherine II purchased his palace and ordered architect Fyodor Volkov to transform it into her summer townhouse. Volkov was responsible for many improvements in the grounds, including the construction of the theatre in the east wing and the church in the west wing. In the garden, he designed the Admiralty Pavilion, gardener house, orangery, glass-houses, bridges, and ironwork fences. The sculpture named the Venus Tauride (now in the Hermitage Museum) was kept in the palace from the end of the eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth, and derives its name from it.
The exterior appearance of the palace was rather plain and contrasted sharply with the riotous luxuriance of its interiors. The domed hall, one of the largest in Russia, was connected by a 75-meter-long columned gallery with a winter garden. The decoration of every major room – including the Chinese Hall and the Tapestry Parlour – was destroyed after 1799, when Emperor Paul, who detested all the things his mother liked, gave over the palace to his favourite cavalry regiment to be used as barracks.
Read more about this topic: Tauride Palace