First Vasily Bazhenov and then Matvey Kazakov worked on the construction of this ensemble. It was never completed, becoming a "bone of contention" between the empress and the architect. But this did not prevent the Tsaritsyn Park from becoming the only pseudo-Gothic palace complex in the world.
The area on the territory of modern Tsaritsyno has been known since the end of the XVI century as the patrimony of Tsarina Irina, the sister of Boris Godunov. Then there was the village of Bogorodskoye. But in the time of troubles, only cascades of ponds remained of it.
Soon these places had a new name-Black Mud. People believed that the local springs and mud help to cope with any disease, so the land was not empty for long. In 1633, the Black Mud passed into the possession of the boyars of the Streshnevs, relatives of the wife of Mikhail Romanov. And at the end of the Prut campaign in 1714, Peter I gave these lands to the Moldavian Prince Dmitry Cantemir for his help in the fight against Turkey. The new owner in 1722 put a stone single-domed church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Life-giving Spring" on the site of the wooden church and built a wooden palace in the Chinese style.
