The origins of Petrodvorets dates back to the year 1704 when Peter the Great commissioned the construction of a small country house. After his victory over the Swedes, the country house made room for a complex that represented the triumph and the power of the Russian Tsar as the ruler over the seas. The construction designed by the architects Jean Baptiste Leblond and Johann Friedrich Braunstein was inaugurated in 1723, but thereafter continually expanded. In the design of the numerous fountains and cascades, water plays a central role. From the terrace of the palace one looks over a spectacular ensemble of gravity-powered fountains that look onto the Gulf of Finnland. This is definitely one of the most impressive and thus, popular of the palaces surrounding St. Petersburg.