The small local history museum of Pavlovsk is between the Mariental Park and the entrance to the Pavlovsk Palace. The museum collection is very small, but it may be of interest for the lovers of history.
It will be especially interesting to look at the old photos and maps of Pavlovsk in the period of its prosperity related to the construction of the Russia`s first railway, which connected St. Petersburg and Pavlovsk in 1838. Tsarskoye Selo was the main destination of the line while the terminal station was at Pavlovsk.
As it was the first railroad in Russia, technical specialists didn’t know how to maintain it and the emperor rather rarely went to Tsarskoye Selo, so railmen were faced with the task to create a regular communication with big passenger traffic on Petersburg-Pavlovsk line.
A solution was found. At Pavlovsk a musical railway station with a restaurant was built where concerts were held every evening, and the best cooks worked at the restaurant. This railway station was at the Pavlovsk Park itself, not far from the palace. Eventually it became so popular that people every day tried to go there from Petersburg and spend there an evening.
In 1844 the Pavlovsk railway station was burnt but this allowed to rebuild and considerably enlarge it. The Pavlovsk railway station was especially popular in the period of 1856-1865 when every summer, 11 years on end, it was visited by the famous Austrian composer Johann Strauss, which was called the «king of waltz». His dance parties were attended by all high society of Petersburg. The Pavlovsk Theatre was built near the railway station. One can say with certainty that absolutely all well-known people of that time, and not only from Russia but also from Europe, have been to the Pavlovsk evenings.
During the war the railway station, the theatre and all adjoining buildings were ruined, and the new railway station was built on the western side of the park, as in those years Pavlovsk was not the terminal station attracting all beau monde of Petersburg, but a regular railway station of a small provincial town.
