THE TAURIDE GARDENS AND PALACE

This palace belonged to Count Grigory Potemkin of Tauria (the old name for the Crimea), another of Catherine the Great's lovers and one of the richest men in the country. After both Potemkin and Catherine died, Paul I (who detested everything associated with his mother) turned the sumptious palace into a cavalry barracks and horse stables.

Following the October Manifesto in 1905, the palace was used for Duma sessions until the 1917 February Revolution when it was taken over by the Socialist Coalition of the Provisional Government. In 1918 the Constituent Assembly met here before being dissolved by armed Bolsheviks. The building was used during the soviet period by the Communist Party as the Higher Party School and occasionally for weddings by renegade mayors. Watch your step in the garden as it is where people take their doggies for walkies.

Metro: Chernyshevskaya and a five minute stroll to the east.