The Gates to Nature
Post-production in photoshop - color correction, contrast, light and shadows. Sony XA-1 Ultra, single exposure, HDR.
In 1707, four years after Peter the Great founded Saint Petersburg, he gave the grounds near the seaside to his right-hand man, Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov. Menshikov commissioned the architects Giovanni Maria Fontana and Gottfried Schädel, who built his residence, the Grand Menshikov Palace from 1710 to 1727 (not to be confused with Menshikov Palace in Saint Petersburg, built by the same architects around the same time). Menshikov was deposed shortly after Peter's death, and died in exile, and the palace passed out of his family. In 1743, Oranienbaum became the summer residence of Grand Duke Pyotr Fyodorovich, the heir of Empress Elizabeth (the future Emperor Peter III). From 1756 to 1762, the architect Antonio Rinaldi built the Peterstadt Fortress ensemble on the bank of the Karost River for Grand Duke Peter Fedorovitch.
From the outside, the palace is a relatively simple building, single-storey except for the small central pavilion, painted in a mellow combination of ochre and yellow. The Upper Park was laid out from 1750 to 1770.