Põltsamaa Castle

Põltsamaa was founded by the Livonian Order in 1272 as a purely defensive crusader fortress — a square castle with three gates on the banks of the Põltsamaa River, ringed by a moat, to which a convent hall and successively raised walls were added in the 14th and 15th centuries. During the Livonian War it was occupied by Polish troops, and from 1570 to 1578 served as the official residence of Duke Magnus of Holstein, who aspired to a Livonian kingdom with the help of Ivan the Terrible.

Under the ownership of Herman Wrangel the fortress slowly became a residence: fireplaces and tiled stoves, enlarged windows and doors, an extra floor, and the southern cannon tower transformed into the church that still stands. Burnt in the Great Northern War, the castle passed by inheritance to Woldemar Johann von Lauw in 1750 and eventually to the Russian princely family Gagarin, who held it until the Estonian land reform of 1919.

In 1772–73 the interior was redecorated in lavish rococo — perhaps the most artistically accomplished rococo interior in all of Estonia, with stuccowork by Johann Michael Graff, whose craftsmanship also survives at Rundāle Palace in Latvia. The bombing of 1941 all but disintegrated the castle: today only ruins remain of the main buildings, though the church and some annexes have been restored.