I suppose that the name of the restaurant is " Belaya Bashnya" - White Tower?
The restaurant is called "Staraya Bashnya" - "The Ancient Tower".
Yes, at first glance, the whole area does look abandoned, but besides the restaurant, which is in one of the courtyards, there is aalso a shelter for the poor elderly people inside the complex - inside the Maria/Anastasia hospital actually, which is run by the Feodorovsky Cathedral. The gate is closed off to outsiders, but you can look into the courtyard. Which is what I did yesterday evening, and a lady who works for the shelter asked me what I want. I talked to her for a little while and asked her what is inside some of the other buildings that are part of the complex. She told me that in addition to the rooms for the poor at the former hospital, in the building next to it there are rooms occupied by priests, seminarists - people who work for the cathedral.
There is a path which leads from the hospital to the Alexander Palace, and this is the path that the Grand Duchesses used to walk over to the hospital. You can still see traces of cobblestone along the path, which I suppose is from prerevolutionary times, but now it is mainly earth and mud. This path leads by a small pond, which is now kind of neglected as well. But one can well imagine what all this looked like before the revolution. The other day I saw that one of the old trees fell down and blocked the path, it was some sort of a weeping willow. It blocked off the path half way to the palace, so now you kind of have to walk around it in order to get there...
The Gorodok is not the only place that isfull of ruins - prerevolutionary artifacts that have not been restored - the town has many. The imperial station is another example, which I already mentioned. The Arsenal, the Chinese building and the Llama Pavilion in the Alexander Park are other examples.
