Tsarskoye Selo ; "Tsar's Village" is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located 24 kilometres south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. In the 17th century, the estate belonged to a Swedish noble. Its original Finnish name is usually translated as "a higher ground". Max Vasmer, on the other hand, derives this toponym from the Finnish word for island, "saari". In any case, the Finnish name came to be pronounced by... the 18th-century Russians as "Sarskoye Selo", later changed to "Tsarskoye Selo" . In 1708, Peter the Great gave the estate to his wife, the future Empress Catherine I, as a present. She founded the Blagoveschensky church there in 1724, and changed the name of the settlement to Blagoveschenskoye, but this did not stand the test of time and quickly went out of use. It was Catherine I who started to develop the place as a royal country residence.
more
| City: | Pushkin |
| Latitude: | 59.7233 |
| Longitude: | 30.4158 |
| Also Known As: | Tsarskoye Selo, Pushkin |