13/08/2026
In 1774, Empress Catherine II ordered the construction of this palace so the imperial court could make comfortable short stops on the road between St. Petersburg and Tsar Village. The architect, Yuri Felten, designed it to look like a noble knight’s castle — something romantic and unusual for the Russian countryside.
Originally, the palace had a very curious name: Kekirikexen. In Finnish it means “frog swamp,” which perfectly described the marshy landscape that surrounded this area at the time.
And there’s a beautiful legend tied to this spot. It says that Catherine the Great was right here when she received the news of the Russian fleet’s victory over the Turks in Chesme Bay in 1770. To honor that triumph, both the palace and the nearby church were renamed Chesme on June 27, 1780 — exactly ten years after the victory.
When Catherine II commissioned a special earthenware service for her new palace, she wanted every piece to be decorated with the palace’s own coat of arms. But since the palace didn’t have one, she simply invented it — and chose a cheerful green frog as its symbol. That whimsical idea gave the service its famous name: the Green Frog Service. Today the famous service is displayed in the Hermitage’s English collection 🐸🐸🐸
