Orlov Palace is a neo-Gothic palace that is part of the estate of the Orlov princes in Strelna, a suburb of Saint Petersburg. The palace was destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, but some buildings of the former estate have been preserved and are recognized as objects of Russia's cultural heritage. As of 2016, the estate includes: a tower-ruin, Gothic gates, a grotto, a gatekeeper's house, a well, a stable yard (gates, a building with an Ionic portico, two stables, a smithy, an icehouse, two greenhouses), the Tuff Bridge, and "Parnassus."

Around 1800, the first state-owned dacha with a main house and a wing was built in the Strelna settlement, which was purchased by a counselor of the Polish Chancellery, Kuder. In the 1820s, the estate belonged to Baroness Stroganova. At the beginning of the 1830s, Prince Alexei Orlov bought the land from her. Additional lands were granted to Orlov in 1834 by Emperor Nicholas I: the plots were settled, and due to this high imperial gift, the houses and buildings of the previous owners had to be relocated elsewhere.

The estate ensemble, designed by architects Joseph Charlemagne and Peter Sadovnikov, was formed between 1833 and 1839 and was executed in the then-fashionable Gothic style. It included a wooden two-story palace with wings, a tower, and an extensive landscape park. The two-story palace of Count Orlov, designed by Sadovnikov, was made of wood and faced the pond with its main facade. On the northern side, it had a four-story tower. Octagonal pilasters at the corners of the building, battlement parapets above the cornices, bay windows, and pointed gables gave the palace a picturesque appearance. In July 1834, the palace was solemnly opened in the presence of the entire court. According to a contemporary, three things impressed in it that were not found in any of the capital's houses:

First of all, the ceilings, crafted with exquisite care and elegance from white plaster with reliefs in the Moorish style — they are strikingly spectacular. Then the doors — in all rooms, they almost reach the ceiling, massive, carved, made of mahogany. They resemble the beautiful doors in Neapolitan palaces, which let in so much air! And the third of the beautiful things — pointed windows and mirrors in wooden frames, executed very skillfully. Countess Orlova herself supervised all the work in the house and proved that she had good taste.

The layout was simple — the central two-story volume was connected to two wings by one-story buildings. In the center of the main facade facing the pond stood a wide covered terrace with access to the park. Its porch was decorated on both sides with cast-iron eagles on spheres — the symbol of the Orlov family.

Near the terrace, on two high pedestals, stood bronze sculptures "Horse Tamers" by Klodt, an authorial repetition of those installed on the Anichkov Bridge. In 1854, artist Vasily Semyonovich Sadovnikov painted a watercolor depicting Orlov Palace and Klodt's sculptures; the painting is kept at the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. The sculptures from "Otrada" were dismantled and melted down during the Great Patriotic War "so that they would not fall into the enemy's hands."

From the 1840s to the 1850s, Sadovnikov worked on the landscape park and the estate grounds. According to his design, a Gothic well and a tower-ruin with a grotto were created in the southern part of the estate. An island called the "Island of Love" was built in the center of the pond, connected by the Tuff Bridge. The landscape park also featured a labyrinth "like the Minotaur's" with a small house in the center.

After the revolution, the estate was nationalized. Starting from 1920, it housed various institutions at different times: first a Summer Children's Colony, then an OSOAVIAKHIM school, a factory-apprenticeship school, and a film technical school. The park territory belonged to a tank regiment and was used as a vehicle parking area. In September 1941, the Orlov Palace was burned down by retreating Soviet troops. During World War II, the gatekeeper's house, which was significantly damaged during the war, was practically destroyed by fire in 1950. In 1951, an expert assessment of the estate was conducted, which concluded that the gatekeeper's house was 57% destroyed, the former guardhouse was decided to be converted into a library, and Orlov Park was to be turned into a public recreation area.

By the 2000s, the park with ponds and the tuff bridge, garden buildings, and ruins of the stable yard with the greenhouse complex had been preserved. The stable yard was transferred to a military motor depot. In 2009, the Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (KGIOP) recorded illegal construction of an attic on the gatekeeper's house, which violated the historical appearance of the building. In 2016, the grotto tower was conserved and subsequently restored.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Orlov's_Dacha