Doesn’t this just look like the perfect retreat for some mad Russian aristocrat? Turns out, it is! Or was, rather.

Built near the Black Sea, a region so beloved by the old Russian upper class that they called it the “Russian Riviera,” this princely mansion was confiscated after the Soviets took over. During their rule, the house served as a summer residence for the Muscovite elite, very much as it had in the old days, one might say. Not everything changed under the Communist regime.

Read more at English Russia.