Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 1
1782-10-27
This morning I went with Mr. Artaud to Mr. Rimberts and from thence we set out, eight in one large carriage and two other gentlemen in another small one for Czarsko-Zelo her Majesty's ordinary residence in the summer.1 Before we had got half ways the small carriage's axletree broke and we were obliged to take the two other gentlemen in; so that we went all ten in the same carriage. We arrived there at about 12 o'clock and went directly to see the palace the inside of which is not yet wholly finished. After having seen the palace we return'd into the city and arriv'd at about half past seven o'clock; and returned to our sev-153eral destinations. Czarsko-Zelo is distant from Petersbourg 22 wersts.
The famous summer residence of Catherine the Great at Tsarkoe Selo (renamed Pushkin),
located about fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg, was originally a residence of
Catherine I. About 1750 it was enlarged and embellished for the Empress Elizabeth in
baroque style by the Italian architect Bartolommeo Rastrelli (1700–1771), but its
completion and redecoration in neoclassical style was done for Catherine II by the Scottish
architect Charles Cameron in the latter part of the century (Storch, Picture of Petersburg,
p.
74–78; John Parkinson, A Tour of Russia, Siberia and the Crimea
1792–1794, ed. William Collier, London, 1971, p. 253).