petersburg, architect ivan starorov for it took almost 10 years to guess who was the owner of the estateficult to guess at the most prominent place, and it is the palace itself, you just have to look down on it with two letters, in and. e. these are the initials of the owner of the palace, count grigory potemkin, the empress of all russia catherine ii, she granted these lands in 1776. the third official favorite is known for sure only about one visit of the empress to the palace in january 1787. during a trip to the crimea, the sovereigns did not stop for the night in ability. prince in those at times, the table was served just like that , and perhaps one of these cutlery, made of family silver, was held in her hands. the mad empress herself. their first acquaintance took place back in 1762, the then 22-year-old son of a poor smolensk landowner participated in a palace coup thanks to which catherine was elevated to the throne potemkin tried in every possible way to charm the 10-year -old empress, but to no avail, until in 1769 he voluntarily went to the russian-turkish war, where a fair