An excursion to Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin) can be considered one of the have-to-visit places of St. Petersburg. Pushkin is 40 kilometers south of the city. For more than two centuries it was the summer capital of the Russian Empire.
Surely, the main purpose of the trip to Tsarskoye Selo is to visit the Catherine Palace. Often people come there to see the world masterpiece, the famous Amber Room, although the palace itself is very beautiful. After a visit to the palace you certainly should have a walk in the Catherine Park, see the Cameron Gallery, the Hermitage Pavilion and many other pavilions of the park.
Alexander Park is opposite the main entrance to the Catherine Palace. A small part of it has a regular layout while most of it are forest lands intended for hunting. The Alexander Palace is in the Alexander Park. After the revolution of 1905 it was there that the family of Tsar Nicholas II constantly lived until 1917.
The Alexander Park has two interesting pavilions, the White Tower and the Arsenal. The children of the tsar were trained in the White Tower. In the Arsenal there is an interesting collection of medieval weapons and knight armor.
The Ratna Chamber is a kilometer from the Alexander Palace on the Farm Road. Its construction was started in 1913. It was planned to house the Museum of the History of Russian Weapons there but in 1917 the Museum of World War I was opened there instead. Almost at once, in 1918, the museum was closed. It was reopened only in 2014. Now there are over fifteen thematic expositions devoted to World War I at the museum.
The fans of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin must visit Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum where an interesting exhibition devoted to the young years of the great Russian poet is held. Also near the palace, on the corner of the Palace and Pushkin streets, there is a museum – Pushkin`s dacha, where he spent the first happiest months after his marriage to Natalia Goncharova.
