As its name suggests, the city of Pavlovsk is closely associated with Emperor Paul (Pavel in Russian). The land where Pavlovsk now stands was allocated to Paul by his mother Catherine the Great on the birth of his first son - the future Emperor Alexander I. The Pavlovsk Palace was subsequently commissioned, along with a landscaped park and, following Paul’s assassination, it remained the home of his widow Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna who turned it into somewhat of a centre of Russian culture. Today the palace is a museum protected by UNESCO and is the main sight in the city.