Dedicated to the memory of his friend Tsar Alexander I, Frederick Wilhelm III built this group of wooden houses in 1826 in the style of a Russian village. Lenné was commissioned to build 13 houses arranged in the shape of a St Andrew's cross. Granted by the king to the singers of a Russian military choir residing at court, the houses could only be passed down from father to son. The Alexandrovka Museum retraces the story of this unusual colony.