(Source: http://ppjournal.ru/dostoprime4at)

If one chooses the next most famous garden after the Summer, it still would not be Mikhailovsky, but younger and more remote Tavrichesky.

First of all, because there ends the amazing journey of "Moidodyr" character, who run half of the city from Sadovaya and Sennaya, with a hellish washcloth on his tail. The title of Tavrichesky Garden, renamed to City Children's in Soviet period, sticks in mind as firmly as Basseynaya Street, where another famous character resided. The main entrance is from the side of Potemkinskaya Street (ten minutes of unhurried walk from Chernyshevskaya metro station), which reminds of – if anyone has forgotten the name of the first landlord of this estate – His Serene Highness Grigory Potemkin-Tavrichesky.

The Palace - let's clarify it straight away – is separated from the Garden with a fence and is inaccessible to ordinary mortals. At the entrance, as it supposed to be, there is an old stand with park scheme and rules of conduct. These rules are formal – half of the visitors do exactly what is forbidden: they go "outside the paved paths", walk the dogs, feed the plump pigeons and do independent meditations on the lawns

It is immediately evident that Tavrchesky is not a gala garden but a very lived-in and loved by the locals, the real oasis in the surrounding rocks. It is shady here in summer, but in autumn yellow leaves and red berries of wild rose enliven the monotonous green. The relief, artificially created in Potyomkin times is very pleasant: in flat Petersburg any height can please.

If to look for flaws of Tavrichesky Garden, the one would be found immediately: despite considerable size, the car noise from surrounding streets is heard everywhere. There is no full-grown feeling of walking into the green space. The only place where the proximity of gasoline streets can be forgot is an island opposite the Tavrichesky Palace.

As already stated, the Palace, given for the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly is separated from the garden. Beautiful building at the other bank bifurcates reflecting in the water and in evenings looks mysteriously like in those days, when Yekaterina wandered through its halls and recalled his long time dead "Grishenka". In the north-western corner of Tavrichesky Garden is situated a newly renovated  tropical plant greenhouse (also known as Flowers Pavilion) with fish, turtles, House of Butterflies, exhausted teddy bears in the nursery room, garden shop and a cafe upstairs on the second floor.

It is nice there in winter, but in summer is too humid, yet it is still worth visiting this ancient location, the mastered spot in the urban environment. To look out of the windows at Potyomkinskaya Street, to go upstairs and to treat yourself with something on the balcony with a view of a pond and palm trees.