Sheremetev Palace

Peter the Great awarded a plot of land for a country residence on the bank of the Anonymous Creek to Count Boris Sheremetev (1712). A timber-frame house was built for his son Count Pyotr Sheremetev (mid-1710s) and replaced by a two-storey stone building in the Baroque style with an attic and lavish moulding, possibly designed by Savva Chevakinsky (late 1740s). Fyodor Argunov created a regular garden with a Grotto, Hermitage Pavilion and Chinese Summerhouse behind the palace (1750s–60s). The interiors were designed by Ivan Starov (1795–96), Giacomo Quarenghi and Andrei Voronikhin (1798–1801) and Geronimo Corsini (1830s). Corsini designed the traced iron railings on the river embankment (1838). Nicolas Benois added a single-storey wing with the Sheremetev coat of arms over the gates (1867). Hosted the first ever indoor tennis tournament in Russia at the Sheremetev Manège (1902). Also known as the Fountain House.