Gatchina is the odd one out among the imperial residences around Saint Petersburg. Designed by Antonio Rinaldi for Count Grigory Orlov, it later passed to Paul I, who made it his preferred retreat and gave it the character of a military domain: a parade ground before the entrance, a moat, an atmosphere closer to a castle than to a pleasure palace. The long facades are faced in local stone rather than the coloured stucco of Tsarskoye Selo or Peterhof, and their restraint is deliberate. Behind the palace stretches one of the largest landscape parks in the region, with lakes, islands, bridges and pavilions. Filmed in 4K, the programme moves from the parade front to the state rooms and the underground passage to the lake, then out into the park across the seasons, restoring Gatchina's singular register within the imperial constellation.
