Pavilion of the Sledding Hill

About museum

The Pavilion of the Sledding Hill, built to a design by Antonio Rinaldi for Empress Catherine II in the mid-18th century, was a grand complex that included the pavilion, a summer sledding hill, and covered gallery-colonnades stretching approximately 530 m. Today only one pavilion remains; it presents visitors with the state interiors: the Round Hall, the Stucco and Porcelain Cabinets, the staircase, and the vestibule. Italian craftsmen participated in the decoration of these rooms, and the artificial marble floors add great value to the pavilion. The Porcelain Cabinet houses unique porcelain groups created in 1772–1774. For the first time visitors can see an exhibition of the first-floor "kitchens" as well as the basement with fully exposed 18th-century historic masonry, where a model of the sledding hill and a small carriage reconstructed from Antonio Rinaldi's drawings are on display. The Pavilion of the Sledding Hill is the only example in Russia of an 18th-century architectural monument with such floor finishes.