The Catherine’s Garden is the name of the garden square in front of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. It was built in the 1820s by architect Carlo Rossi. Catherine’s Garden is part of the ensemble of Ostrovsky Square on the territory of the Anichkov Palace estate. The view of Ostrovsky Square is dominated by the Alexandrinsky Theatre building. The central place in the layout of the Catherine’s Garden is occupied by the monument to Catherine II, installed in 1873. It was the monument that gave the name to the garden square, which is also known as “Montmartre”, because St. Petersburg artists exhibit and sell their works around the garden.

The dominant buildings that defined the site of the future Catherine Square between Nevsky Prospect, Sadovaya Street and Fontanka Embankment were the Anichkov and Vorontsov Palaces. The former belonged to Count A.G. Razumovsky. In place of the modern Ostrovsky Square there was a palace garden extending to Bolshaya Sadovaya Street and Lomonosov Bridge. On the site of the building of the Russian National Library there were greenhouses; along Sadovaya Street there were houses where gardeners and palace employees lived.

The square in front of the Alexandrinsky Theatre appeared during the large-scale reconstruction of this city quarter. The Maly Theatre, which by the mid-1810s turned out to be too cramped for the public, was not able to accommodate big audiences, and required expansion. The construction of the new theatre was entrusted to C. Rossi and A. Mauduit.

The first rearrangement of the garden took place during the construction of the monument to Catherine the Great. Architect D.I. Grimm proposed to increase the garden’s length in the direction of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. In accordance with the project, the square was given a shape close to a rectangle with rounded corners. Its reconstruction began immediately after the monument was erected in 1873. The area of the garden increased by a third; it was then renamed Catherine’s Garden.

During the Great Patriotic War, the garden was severely damaged. In 1962, new rose bushes were planted in the garden on Ostrovsky Square. At the turn of the new century, the Catherine’s Garden experienced a revival. In 1989-2001, another reconstruction was carried out with the return of the 1878 layout. At the same time, the repairing of the fence was performed together with the restoration of decorative details in the shape of Catherine II’s monograms, which were lost after 1917.