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The Imperial Gardens of Russia

Exhibition-contest within the framework of "The Imperial Gardens of Russia" annual international festival initiated by the Russian Museum jointly with His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent Charitable Foundation and the Union of Gardeners of Russia was held in summer 2008. The event was dated to the 110th anniversary of the Russian Museum.

Such a grand scale event held under the patronage HRH Princess Michael of Kent, descendant of the ancient family of Medici and wife of Prince Michael of Kent, a relative by blood of the Romanovs certainly attracted numerous visitors and experts to the gardens of the Russian Museum and broaden the possibilities of fundraising for the preservation of the national landscape gardening monuments.

The main condition of the exhibition-contest was to create the compositions in a single style and on a certain set theme. The contributors from each organization (or country), who were invited to the festival, arranged the garden area allotted to them according to their own, previously designed project approved by the screening committee.

All kinds of experts (designers, decorators, botanists, architects, art historians, gardeners) contributed to the festival generating subjects for the compositions.

Exhibition-contest within the framework of "The Imperial Gardens of Russia" annual international festival was held on the territory of the Mikhailovsky Garden from 30 May to 3 June 2008.


Brief historical reference and reconstruction of the Mikhailovsky Garden

The Mikhailovsky Garden is one of the rarest landscape architecture monuments of the 18th and the first 30 years of the 19th centuries, it is a unique mix of two different styles of landscaping art in one place, the regular style (“French”) and the landscape style (“English”). Also it is an example of a magnificent coming together of the architecture of the Mikhailovsky Palace and the natural landscape of the Mikhailovsky Garden, which was designed by the architect K.I. Rossi. The Mikhailovsky Garden may be considered one of the brightest and most typical examples of the effect of the change of park and gardening style in landscape architecture.


The Mikhailovsky Garden is an integral part of the composition of the central St. Petersburg, which includes the Summer Garden and the Mars Field. During its long life the garden has changed its layout many times following new fashion trends and owners’ tastes.


At first, on the lands of the current Summer, Mikhailovsky, and Inzhenerny Gardens there were rural settlements, and the estate and hunting lands of Captain Konau, which is shown in a layout dated 1698. In 1716–1717, architect J.-B. Leblond made a general layout of the three Summer Gardens at the order of Peter I. The First and Second Gardens were on the land of the present Summer Gardens. The third garden was where, in the 17th century, there was the palace of Catherine I. The Mikhailovsky Garden was part of the Third Summer Garden and was called The Swedish Garden.


Approved by Peter the Great himself, Leblond’s plan was in fact a project of a united grand palace and park estate. Read more...