For residents of the city and its visitors, the Marian Palace, one of two palaces in Kiev, has about the same significance as the Winter Palace, also known as the Hermitage, for St. Petersburgers and tourists. There is no other palace of the same scale, opulent, beautiful and historically significant among the sights of Kiev.
Until 1917, when the monarchy was overthrown, the Mariinsky Palace was the residence of the Romanov dynasty, who stayed there while on duty or vacation in Kiev.
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The first member of the imperial family to visit the palace was Catherine II in 1787. Her predecessor — Elizabeth Petrovna, never lived to see the moment when the majestic Baroque building decorated the high right bank of the Dnieper. It was thanks to her order that in 1744 the palace was laid, and the project of its construction was entrusted to the famous architect B. Rastrelli, with his talented hands. Rastrelli, with whose talented hand many buildings of amazing beauty appeared in Kiev, St. Petersburg and the Latvian cities of Jelgava and Pilsrundale.
Rastrelli was a renowned master of architecture, and in his work on the Mariinsky Palace his talent was on full display. As always, in his work the architect focused not on pomp, but on the elegance of forms. The rich plasticity of the facades and expressive volumes were admired by royalty and continue to impress admirers of beautiful architecture today. Openwork parapets, lush forms of the Corinthian order, rusticated walls, molded window trim — detail by detail the Mariinsky Palace inspires connoisseurs of beauty. The building has a solemn and festive appearance, thanks in part to its classical color scheme: 
the walls are painted turquoise, the balustrades and moldings white, and the columns and cornices light yellow.
The construction of the palace lasted until 1752. According to Rastrelli’s decision, the building was erected, like many other buildings of the architect, in the form of the letter «P» with two one-storey wings on the sides, adjacent to the main two-storey building. The decision to build the second floor out of wood was fatal — as a result of a fire in 1819 it was completely burned down, and the stone buildings of the first floor were partially damaged. For more than 40 years the beautiful building stood in a deplorable state until 
Emperor Alexander II restored it. By the way, it is because of this page of history that today the palace is called the Mariinsky Palace — so the Emperor paid tribute to his wife Maria Feodorovna, who uncomplainingly bore his infatuations with favorites. During the reconstruction in 1870, the palace was restored under the direction of architect Karl Mayevsky in full compliance with the surviving old plans and paintings. Thanks to this, even though the building was badly damaged during the Great Patriotic War and underwent another reconstruction in the late 1940s, today it has no significant differences with Rastrelli’s original version.
Currently(2007-2018) the Mariinsky Palace is again under renovation, which is scheduled to be completed in the coming years. Officially, tours are not conducted, although there are online reviews of tourists who have visited the interiors with guides by arrangement. According to eyewitnesses, the interior of the palace has preserved chandeliers and furniture of the XVIII-XIX centuries, paintings by famous painters, fragments of wall paintings by the artist K. Alliaudi.
Being on vacation in Kiev, even if not being able to get inside, the Mariinsky Palace is worth seeing at least from afar — 
to make an impression of it. Even those who have only familiarized themselves with its exterior claim that it is the most beautiful dvorets of Kiev, a very impressive and memorable structure. While visiting the palace, you can walk along the alleys of the City Garden, a park established on this place in 1743 by Peter the Great himself, and the Mariinsky Park of the same name, founded in 1874 by order of Maria Fyodorovna. Here you can go to the observation deck with a panoramic view of the Dnieper River and the left bank of the city, look at the building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine — see other attractions of Kiev worthy of attention.