On a wooded hill in far southeast Moscow, Tsaritsyno Palace is a modern-day manifestation of the exotic summer home that Catherine the Great began in 1775 but never finished. Architect Vasily Bazhenov worked on the project for 10 years before he was sacked. She hired another architect, Matvey Kazakov, but the project was eventually forgotten as she ran out of money. For hundreds of years, the palace was little more than a shell, until the government finally decided to finish it in 2007.
