Second Cavalry Building

Second Cavalry Building is a small one-story octagonal pavilion. It was built in 1784-1785 by the court architect Vasily Bazhenov. In his drawings, the architect named this building and the one next to it (Second Cavalry Building) “small houses.” According to the original General Plan one of the buildings was designated as a “house for waiters.” The second one was called “unknown house” (i.e., without a specific function). Cavalry buildings got their current name when Tsaritsyno was surveyed in 1947.

The octagon layout is unique, the rooms are not only connected to the center, they are also interconnected along the perimeter with intermediate corner rooms. Each section can be isolated, and in addition to internal doorways, each also has an outside door. The building is quite suitable for the placement of courtiers of different ranks.

For 200 years the Second Cavalry building had not been used and gradually became dilapidated. By the early 1980s the building was in ruins. However, in 1984 large-scale restoration work of the Second Cavalry building began. After ten years, in 1994, the first exhibition opened at the Second Cavalry building. The exhibition introduced visitors to the main art collections of the Tsaritsyno Museum.