Petergof

Petergof (Петерго́ф), known as Petrodvorets (Петродворец) from 1944 to 1997, is a municipal town in Petrodvortsovy District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, located on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland. The town hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University and the Petrodvorets Watch Factory, one of the leading Russian watch manufactures. A series of palaces and gardens, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great and sometimes called the "Russian Versailles," is also situated there. The palace-ensemble along with the city center is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Petergof is named after the Peterhof Grand Palace, a sixteen-meter-high bluff lying less than a hundred meters from the shore. The so-called Lower Gardens (Nizhny Sad), at comprising the better part of the palace complex land area, are confined between this bluff and the shore, stretching east and west for roughly . The majority of Peterhof's fountains are contained here, as are several small palaces and outbuildings. East of the Lower Gardens lies the Alexandria Park with 19th-century Gothic Revival structures such as the Gothic Chapel. Atop the bluff, near the middle of the Lower Gardens, stands the Grand Palace (Bolshoy Dvorets). To the south of it are the comparatively small Upper Gardens (Verkhny Sad). Upon the bluff's face below the Palace is the Grand Cascade (Bolshoy Kaskad). This and the Grand Palace are the centerpiece of the entire complex. At its foot begins the Sea Channel (Morskoy Kanal), one of the most extensive waterworks of the Baroque period, which bisects the Lower Gardens. File:Peterhof summer.jpg|Grand Peterhof Palace and the Grand Cascade File:Коттедж 2007 05.jpg|"Cottage" built in 1829 in Alexandria Park in Peterhof was a summer residence of Russian Emperor [[Nicholas I of Russia|Nicholas I]] File:Gothic Chapel, Church of Saint Alexander Nevsky in Alexandria Park, Peterhof.