Peterhof which in German means “Court of Peter”, is one of the palaces wanted by the Tsar and is located about 20 kilometers from St. Petersburg, on the shores of the Gulf of Finland.
This palace includes several and numerous palaces and covers an area of 607 hectares.
The first complex of the Palace was built in the style of Elizabethan Baroque, on the model of the Palace of Versailles: the main building immersed in the park had only two floors and did not exceed the width of the current Great Waterfall.
Work began in 1713 and was completed in the period 1745-1755. The works continued over the years at the behest of the subsequent Tsars, from Catherine the Great to Nicholas I, to meet the needs of expanding the Palace.
The Palace has a long history starting from Tsar Peter I to the October Revolution of 1918 where the palaces were transformed into museums.
In the Second World War the Peterhof complex was occupied by Nazi soldiers from 1941 to 1944, who stripped it of almost all the furnishings, finally the complex was almost completely destroyed by bombing and restored in 1952.
After the war the reconstruction of Peterhof began, which continues to this day and thanks to this commitment the complex is included in the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1990 and since 2008 is part of the Seven Wonders of Russia.
