Bablovo Palace.

Just beyond the Orlov Water Tower on the other side of the broadway, opposite the palisade of the Old Park, stands a large three-storied brick building erected in 1906 by Danini in the style of a North-German Country House of the end of the 19th century. It was opened in the presence of the Emperor in December 1906 and is the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna's Crippled Veteran's Home.

The aim of this building, which owes its being to an idea of Her Majesty, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, is to provide a temporary home for crippled soldiers, who have not lost the power of working; to teach them a trade and give them the possibility of earning their bread when they leave the home. It was built for 150 men but the church, the workshops, the dining hall, the kitchen, the bath house, etc., were planned for 250 men, in case the number of inmates' should increase. There are instructors in various trades such as tailors, hatters, knitters, carpenters, upholsterers, basket makers and shoe-makers. Besides these, the invalids are taught washing in the steam laundry, which is attached to the home. After finishing a course of training in the works, they are given an outfit of tools and a free journey home.

The building was, erected at a cost of 376,000 rubles by the Chapter of Orders and is supported by grants from the same source. Behind the palisades, which are between the Stolbovaya Road and that part of the Bablovo Park, which belongs to the Crippled Vetrean's Home, surrounded with beautiful pines, stands a small but graceful column monolith of blue marble with white veins. It was placed here in commemoration of the conquest of the Crimea. The Countess Golovina's description, of how the column was brought to Tsarskoe Selo, was published in No. 27 of the newspaper "Moskovskaya Viedomosti" in 1777:

"The column was brought from Siberia, and at the command of Her Imperial Majesty was taken to, the building works of the Isaac Cathedral, to be finished there under the direction of General-in-Chief and Knight, His Excellence Count Iakov Alexandrovich Brus. This column was placed on a sledge made of beams 16 arshins long. The weight of the column is 1,950 poods; 120 horses drew the sledge from the place where the column was worked, leaving at 8.15 in the morning, and reaching Tsarskoe Selo at 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day. When the column was being brought past the palace, Her Imperial Majesty and their Imperial Highnesses were graciously pleased to inspect it, and as a mark of her favor, Her Imperial Majesty was pleased to give to the masters and workmen in attendance 800 rubles, while to Counselor of State, Somichev, who had brought this huge load to Tsarskoe Selo without ever stopping, she was pleased to give a gold snuff-box with brilliants. During the time when the column was being brought through the town the streets were filled with spectators, who greatly wondered at such a huge weight being moved with so little difficulty and especially at this proof of the Great Catherine's indefatigable solicitude for the glory of her subjects, since she was not satisfied merely at the doing of great deeds, but also endeavored to preserve them forever in the memory of our happy descendants."

In 1785 the column was crowned with armors of Mohammedan warriors cast in copper. This column is known under the name, Column of Siberia. On the spot, where the Invalid's Home now rises, during Catherine's reign stood the Palace store yard. Near the column a small brick house is occupied by two crippled soldiers and their families.

A few steps along the Stolbovaya Road brings one to a small open space near the Rose Guard House. It is cut by Stolbovaya Road, and by the continuance of Volkonskaya Street, which serves as a boundary between the Alexander and Bablovo Parks. Here begins the beautiful Vista of Bablovo, the continuance of the Podkaprizovaya Road, which begins at the half-circle of the Great Palace. Also from here a road leads to the Alexander Park past the Chapel and past the Upper Hot Houses, which is known as the Lilac Avenue.

Straight as an arrow the broad carriage road goes from the open space at the Pink Guard House westward, cutting through Bablovo Park. This is the Bablovo Vista. To the left of it lies the part of the park which has been given to the Invalid's Home, and beyond the hedge is the School Garden Establishment, or park nurseries, with their hot houses and conservatories, where summer flowers are prepared for the beds in the parks. The nurseries and hot houses were constructed here at the request of Gardener Liamin, and the house for the master was built in 1826 by the architect Geste. To the right of the vista in a small wood stands a building of concrete erected by Engineer Griboyedov in 1909 as a model of cheap fireproof dwelling for a small artisan's family. The dwelling is occupied by one of the invalids from the Home with their family.

A little farther on in the depths of the park behind a huge hay shed stands another wooden guard house for park rangers. On both sides of the vista stretches the magnificent Bablovo Park with its meadows, woods, endless drives and footpaths as far as the eye can see. In the centre of the vista near the guard house which stands at the issue of the park on the broadway of Krasnoe Selo the road crosses a bridge over the Bauer Canal one of the open ditches of the old Taitsy Water Works. The canal begins a little to the right of the vista and of the Bablovo Palace and follows the park boundaries, entering the town between the barracks of the Life-Guard 2nd Regiment of Rifles, and the Invalid's Home, near the Orlov Water Tower. In the middle of its course, before it reaches the Garden School Academy, opposite a wide meadow, called the Field of Turf, the canal passes through a grotto, in which there used used to stand a marble statue, representing a hermit, sitting at a table and reading the Holy Scriptures.

On the interior wall of the grotto a marble stab bears the inscription:

In the happy reign of Catherine II pure water was brought to Tsarskoe Selo, Which it had not before, by the zealous work of Lieutenent-General von Bauer.

1774.

Feliciter. imperante. Catharina II. Quae. deerat. villae. Sarskiae. Abducta. est. aqua. Industria. Baweri. Ducis. exerciti. MDCCLXXIV.

In the town and beyond the park boundaries as far as the Kurgolovsky Cave (1583 sadjen from the Babolov Palace) water passes through stone pipes, laid down by Engineer Tol during the years 1795 and 1800 after it had been found that the wooden pipes laid down in 1774, had become rotten. The water works with their 15 verst of pipes were finished in the summer of 1774, and were constructed from plans by the celebrated hydraulic General Quartermaster Bauer and by the Engineer Colonel Gerard. The Empress personally, with all her court, inspected the water works a few days before they were opened.

"On the 3rd of June 1774", records the Harbinger of the Chamber's journal,"at about 7, o'clock, Her Imperial Majesty was pleased to drive in a phaeton, while her Maids-of-Honour and her knights' followed in "tarataiki" to the mines or springs of Taitsy, from whence water has been brought to Tsarskoe Selo by General Bauer. On arriving there, General Bauer showed the machinery at work".

To the right of the vista after five minutes' walk along the canal of Bauer one arrives at Bablovo Palace. It stands at the very edge of the park close to the village of Bablovo on the banks of a small river Kuzminka, which has been converted here into a small lake by means of a dam.

The pond behind the palace is fed by water from Taitsy Springs, while the lake between the palace and the servants-block, is the supplied by the Kuzminka River.

The palace was built in 1754 probably by Nilov in the English style, on the spot of an old wooden house, and was given to Prince Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin.

The palace is not large, it covers an area of only 15 sadjen (105ft) by 51/2 sadjen (38 1/2ft). It is one story high and has but seven rooms. In one of them there used to stand before 1824 a round marble bath which the Emperor Alexander I had replaced by a granite one.

The palace of Bablovo contains a hall of charming proportions with white furniture, a drawing room, a study, a reception room, :and a dressing-room, with, a few mahogany chairs and tables of the period of Nicholas 1, land a spacious bath-room, in the centre of which stands the huge granite bath, just mentioned. All the rooms have a direct communication with the park.

On the other side of the lake near the issue from the park to the village of Sobolevo stands a stone kitchen, servants quarters and a guard house. The Empress Catherine ordered an English Garden to be laid out round the palace and the servants' quarters as far as the vista. The rest of the park was left covered with trees and grass and had no roads, except that, which runs from the Orlov Gate along the canal of Bauer. Not till 1858 did the Emperor Alexander II have riding roads laid down and put this park in as perfect order as the others. For this purpose a decorative gardener, Rondi by name, was invited to come from Paris. He drew plans and presented them at the building office of the Ministry of the Court. But the office did not approve of them and reported that Rondi was an ignorant man with knowledge no better than that possessed by an ordinary gardener and recommended him to be sent back to Paris. Hence the roads were laid down by Russian gardeners belonging to the Tsarskoe Selo Palace Administration.

A carriage drive, which begins at the Orlovsky water tower, runs along the canal of Bauer and past Bablovo Palace to the Alexander Gate of Stolbovaya Road, thus forming an immense arc, of which the Stolbovaya Road is the chord.

Five minutes walk from the Bablovo Palace, along this circular road, brings one to the spot, where the Novo-Babolovskaya Road branches off near the summer pastures for calves, which belongs to the Imperial Farm. A little farther on, this road splits into two, one of them, the Novo-Babolovskaya, brings you to the Stolbovaya Road near the stone guard house; while the other, the Prodolnaya, leads to the hay shed, near the Pink Guard House, and joins in the Park, the carriage drive which leads from the kitchen block of the Bablovo Palace.

At about 10 minutes' walk from Bablovo Palace the round road traverses Staro-Krasnoselskaia Road, which runs straight as an arrow from the same stone guard house to the closely shut Staro-Krasnoselsky Gate, which was erected in 1846. A road formerly led through this gate to Krasnoe Selo, but beyond the park boundaries it has now fallen into decay - its bridges have been removed, and the communication with Krasnoe Selo may be kept up by the highway which is the, continuance of the vista. At the Staro-Krasnoselsky gate, stands a wooden house for the park keepers. Fifteen minutes' walk from this gate along the round road brings one to the Stolbovaya Road, where it leaves the park through the Alexander Gate, brought here in 1846 from the Llama House.