Pavlovsk

The story begins in the late 18th Century court of St Catherine the Great, where the land was bequeathed to her son, who was later assassinated. Subsequent generations added their own hand to the growth of the palace - all of them working with the best architects and artisans of their day. The saga sweeps the reader through the Revolution, when the palace was narrowly saved from rampaging Red Guards by a group of art lovers - only to fall a few years later into the hands of the Nazis - through the heroic siege of Leningrad to the eventual miraculous restoration by a group of Russian museum workers and artists.