Thanks so much for the picture BobG. The Palace has that wonderful Russian/neoclassic look and I believe it opens on to a square, so there must be an nice aesthetic distance from which to view it. The other interesting fact about this Palace is that it was proposed as the permanent residence for the Tsar and Empress for the during the duration of the Great War. It has a similar modesty that is characteristic of Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, but not the beauty or the country setting. The proposal was soon abandoned and as I said the Palace became one of the Empress' three Moscow hopitals. Matushka said that the building is part of the Academy of Sciences so I imagine the interior has been altered into classrooms, etc. It's public rooms may possibly still maintain original architectural features, however, I suppose it depends also on what the other occupants of the buiding did to it. However it is remarkable that all three of the Empress' hospitals, Petrovsky Palace, Poteshny Palace in the Kremlin, and Alexandrinskiy Palace at Neskutchnoe have all survived either destruction or Soviet renovations which was the apparent fate of many of the nine former Imperial residences in Moscow. Thanks again for the information.
