On 30 April 1797, Emperor Pavel Petrovich signed a decree ‘On the establishment of a school for training in farming’. Under the decree, the school was built on a large site (about 277 hectares) between Pavlovsk and Tsarskoye Selo.

The publication outlines school policies, staffing specifications, and training programs. It includes coloured prints of design plans for the school building, mills, hospitals, shops and other facilities as well as drawings and illustrations depicting gardens and farming fields that they planned to develop there.

The engravings were made by Gavrila Tikhonovich Kharitonov (second half of the 18th century), who worked at the printing houses of the Saint Petersburg Mining School.