Palace SquareToday’s Winter Palace, commissioned by Empress Elizabeth from the architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, is the fifth stone palace to have been built on the embankment of the Neva. Elizabeth didn’t live to see the completion of the construction in 1762, but from the era of her heir Peter III to the revolution the palace was the main residence of the Russian emperors. The sumptuous building has one façade facing out onto the Neva and another onto the Admiralty, though the main entrance is to the south of the building, leading out onto Palace Square. Visitors to the Hermitage Museum, which is sited in the Winter Palace and the other palaces linked to it, enter through the courtyard, passing the famed railings with their double-headed eagles created by Roman Meltser. At the center of Palace Square stands the Alexander Column, erected in 1834 by August de Montferrand to commemorate victory over Napoleon. The pedestal is decorated with bronze armor and allegorical figures depicting the Visla and the Nieman rivers, and the column itself is topped by the figure of an angel with a cross trampling a snake – a symbol of enemy forces. The sculptor Boris Orlovsky gave the angel’s face the characteristics of the victorious Emperor Alexander I. The theme of military victories is continued in the decoration of the square with the chariot of the goddess Victory over the arch of the General Staff Headquarters. The General Staff Headquarters, which creates a semi-circle on the southern side of the square, was designed by Carlo Rossi in 1823-1829. Curving a passageway under the Arch of Triumph, Rossi provided a brilliant solution to the problem created by Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa approaching the façade of the Winter Palace at such an acute angle. The street, in effect, becomes a unique corridor, completed by the almost theatrical effect of the panorama of the square. The left wing of the General Staff Headquarters, once home to the Finance and Foreign Affairs ministries, is now part of the Hermitage Museum. The right wing, formerly home to the General Staff and the War Ministry, remains the domain of the military, housing the headquarters of the Leningradsky military district. On the east side of the Palace Square ensemble stands another military building – the Guards Corps Headquarters (Alexander Bryullov, 1843). St. Isaac’s SquareAugust de Montferrand’s St. Isaac’s Cathedral (1858) is the fourth temple to stand on this site and is named in honor of Saint Isaac of Dolmatia, whose birthday (May 30 by the old calendar) coincided with that of Peter the Great. The construction of the building that stands on the site today was begun by Montferrand under Alexander I in 1818 and, after forty years, was completed during the reign of Alexander II. Right up until the revolution, this was the city’s main place of worship. The oldest building on the square, Myatlev House, stands to the left of the entrance to the cathedral. This mansion is of some historical interest as guests of its owner, Lev Naryshkin, included Denis Diderot and Germaine de Stahl, and in the 1920s it served as the State Institute of Artistic Culture, with Malevich, Tatlin, Filonov and many more leading Russian avant garde artists working there. Next to Myatlev House stands the powerful neo-classical former building of the German Embassy (Peter Behrens, 1913), and opposite is the famed Astoria Hotel built by Fyodor Lidval in 1912. Further to the south, the square is flanked by two buildings constructed for the State Property Ministry (Nikolai Yefimov, 1853). During the Soviet era, one became the Institute of Plant Cultivation. Before the Siny (“Blue”) Bridge over the Moika River (the widest bridge in the city, at 97 meters), stands a statue of Nicholas I on horseback, created by the emperor’s favorite sculptor, Pyotr Klodt. The monument is of particular interest as it has only two points of support – the hind legs of the horse itself. Beyond this statue stands the Mariinsky Palace, built in 1844 by Andrei Shtakenschneider for Nicholas I’s favorite daughter, Maria. Today, the building is occupied by the city’s Legislative Assembly. Between St. Isaac’s Square and Senate Square (now called Ploshad Dekabristov), at the beginning of Konnogvardeisky Boulevard, stands an austerely classicist building, the Manege (Giacomo Quarenghi, 1807), with marble tamers of the horses, the work of Paolo Triscorni, having been set up before it. During the winter months, the guards would engage in dressage training here, being quartered in the barracks on the boulevard. The building is now used as an exhibition center. Novaya Gollandiya (New Holland)Novaya Gollandiya is a small island bordered by the Moika River and the Kryukov and Admiralteisky canals. Here, during the reign of Peter the Great, timber was stored “in the Dutch fashion”, which is to say vertically, for the construction of ships at the Admiralty Wharf. The wood was kept on the island to reduce the risk of fires. The brick buildings of the warehouses around the perimeter of the island were put up in the 1760s and 1780s; the facades were designed by the classicist Jean Baptist Wallen de la Mothe. At the center of the island lies the so-called “little harbor” or gavanets. A short canal with a magnificent entrance arch connects it to the Moika. On the westerly promontory of the island, in harmony with the gloomy spirit of this site, stands the Marine Prison, where criminal seafarers were formerly incarcerated. Until recently, Novaya Gollandiya was a closed military site, with models of military craft being tested in the gavanets, and the island could only be viewed from the surrounding embankments or from the water. Today, the island is fated to become an entertainments center, although the authorities promise that all the island’s historic architectural features will be preserved. Peter and Paul Fortress The Peter and Paul Fortress, in the form that we see it today, was completed during the reign of Catherine the Great, with only the overall layout remaining from Peter the Great’s day. Viewed from the air, the fortress presents a six-sided form stretching from west to east, with six bastions placed at each corner. According to legend, the foundations of the fortress were laid by Peter himself on 16 (27) May, 1703, and this day is considered to mark the foundation of the city itself. The earth ramparts around the perimeter were constructed during the course of a year, with Domenico Trezini going on to replace them with stone over the course of the next thirty years. Today, the entire complex of buildings on Zayachy (Hare) Island belongs to the City History Museum. The main Petrovsky Gates on the eastern side, designed by Trezini, have remained from Peter the Great’s day to our own. Above them, in wooden bas-reliefs, is “The overthrowing of Simon the Magician by the Apostle Peter” by Konradt Osner, with Simon seen as the emperor’s enemy, King Charles XII of Sweden. The Peter and Paul Cathedral was completed in 1733, following the death of Peter the Great. In Trezini’s work we can see elements of Roman baroque churches (the two-toned styling and the décor) and northern Protestant churches (the bell-tower with its 122.5 meter spire, making it the highest building in the center of St. Petersburg). The weathervane, created in the form of a golden angel with a cross, is one of the main symbols of the city. Working bells have been fitted in the bell tower. Members of the Romanov family have been buried in the cathedral: emperors and empresses and 26 grand dukes and duchesses. In 1998, in the St. Catherine’s Side Chapel, the remains of the last emperor Nicholas II and his immediate family, shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, along with their doctor, cook, footman, and maid, have been buried. A gallery links the cathedral with the grand ducal burial-vault (David Grimm, Antony Tomishko, Leonty Benois, 1906), which contains the remains of grand dukes and their families. To the right of the exit from the burial-vault stands the Botny Domik (“Boat House”), built at the beginning of Catherine the Great’s reign especially for the “grandfather of the Russian fleet” – the boat on which Peter the Great learnt the art of navigation. Today, the fortress only preserves a copy of the famed vessel, with the original lying in the Naval Museum. To the south of Sobornaya Ploshad (Cathedral Square), stands the Commandant’s House (built in 1746, and subsequently reconstructed several times). Here, the fortress’s commandant lived on the first floor and worked on the ground floor, where his offices were located. The position of commandant of the fortress was a job for life, with distinguished generals retiring into this post from the reign of Alexander I onwards. Commandants were buried by the eastern wall of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The house now contains an excellent exhibition dedicated to pre-Revolutionary Petersburg. Opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress stands the building of the Mint, built during the reign of Paul I by the architect Antonio Porto. As early as the reign of Peter the Great, the minting of coin had been transferred to the fortress as the best defended site in the city. Ploshad Dekabristov (Decembrists’ Square)At the center of what was formerly Senate Square, stands one of the city’s main symbols, the monument to Peter the Great, which, with a little help from the poet Pushkin, came to be known as the Bronze Horseman. It was created by Etienne Falconet and his student Mari Collo, and unveiled in 1782. Peter is dressed in the robes of a Roman emperor and seated on a rearing horse, the hind legs of which are trampling a serpent, the serpent personifying the enemies of Peter’s reforms. There is a brisk inscription in Latin on the statue’s pedestal: “To Peter the First, From Catherine the Second.” Along the western border of the square stands a crucial ensemble of state institutions that was completed by the architect Carlo Rossi in 1834. The buildings, linked by an arch over Galernaya Ulitsa and decorated with statues to Piety and Justice, were home to the Senate and Synod. Both institutions appeared as a result of administrative reforms carried out by Peter the Great: the Senate, founded in 1711, was the highest judicial body in the country by the beginning of the 19th Century, and the Synod, founded in 1722, replaced the institute of the church patriarchate. On the opposite side of the square stands the Admiralty. The foundations for the Admiralty Wharf were laid by Peter the Great in 1704, and the emperor personally drew up the plans for the ‘П’-shaped building of the fortress-wharf. Before being decommissioned in the mid-19th Century, 250 ships for the Baltic Fleet were built here. In 1806-1823, the architect Andreyan Zakharov reconstructed the building in keeping with the empire style for the Naval Ministry, preserving its original planning. The grandiose building with six, multi-columned porticos and a central tower surrounded by columns of the Ionic order and a multitude of sculptures, embodies the conception of Russia’s naval might. The tower is topped with a gilded spire with a weathercock in the form of a ship. In keeping with the conception of Minikh and Yeropkin, the city’s three main thoroughfares radiate out from the Admiralty – Nevsky and Voznesensky prospects and Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. Ploshad Iskusstv (Arts Square)This square, originally named the Mikhailovsky after the grand ducal palace that stands here, by virtue of the abundance of cultural institutions that surround it, was renamed Ploshad Iskusstv (Arts Square) in 1940. The ensemble was designed by Carlo Rossi. A central position in the square is occupied by the Pushkin statue – a highly successful debut by the sculptor Mikhail Anikushin (1957). The Mikhailovsky Palace (1825) itself was built for the younger brother of Emperor Nicholas I, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. At the end of the 19th Century, Alexander III ordered that the treasury buy the palace, and the Russian Museum was opened here in 1898. Today, it possesses the largest collection of Russian art in the world. In 1911, the architect Vasily Svinin attached a building to the palace from the Sadovaya Ulitsa side. The building was stylized to echo Rossi’s classicism, and now houses the Russian Ethnographic Museum. The architect Leonty Benois created another wing of the Russian Museum on the Canal Griboyedova side in 1912. The Maly Opera Theater (now the Mussorgsky Theater of Opera and Ballet, though originally titled the Mikhailovsky) stands at No. 1 Arts Square and was designed by Alexander Bryullov (1833). It is one of the three remaining imperial theaters, along with the Mariinsky and Alexandrinsky. The next buildings, with their facades created by Rossi, are Golenishev-Kutuzov House (No. 3) and Zhako House. Both are of cultural interest, with the former housing the museum-apartment of the artist Isaac Brodsky, and the latter housing the Wandering Dog, a café and restaurant that drew the leading lights of the Bohemian world of poets, actors and musicians in the 1910s. On the corner of Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa stands the Bolshoi Hall of the Philharmonic, which is housed in the former building of the Aristocratic Assembly (Rossi, 1839). Further down Italyanskaya Ulitsa, we find the Musical Comedy Theater, built in the 1910s. Ploshad OstrovskovoIn the center of Ploshad Ostrovskovo stands the Catherine Square, with its monument to Catherine II (Mikhail Mikeshin, 1873), surrounded by the leading historical figures of her era. Grouped around the square we fined one of Carlo Rossi’s key classicist ensembles. The Russian National Library, which leads out onto the square, was built by Rossi in 1834, with statues of academics and poets placed in the apertures between the columns. The dominating component of the composition is the Alexandrinsky Theater (1832). The façade features Corinthian columns decorated with Apollo’s chariot, the work of the sculptor Stepan Pimenov. The imperial theater, as was previously the case with the square, is named in honor of Nicholas I’s wife, Alexandra Fyodorovna. Beyond the theater stretches Ulitsa Zodchevo Rossi (“Street of the Architect Rossi”), famed for its proportions (the height of the buildings and the actual width of the street is 22 meters). The street is home to the Theatrical Museum, the Theatrical Library and the Academy of Russian Ballet (the Vaganovskoe Institue, graduates of which include stars of Russian ballet such as Mathilda Kshesinskaya and Ulyana Lopatkina). The Rossi ensemble concludes on Ploshad Lomonosov with a semi-circle of buildings turned towards the Fontanka River. In the center of the square stands a small bust of Mikhail Lomonosov created by Parmena Zabello. The Pavilions of the Anichkov Gardens on the left side of the square were also designed by Rossi. The Anichkov Palace itself was built by Mikhail Zemtsov with the participation of Rastrelli in 1754, and reconstructed at the end of the 18th Century by Ivan Starov. Its original owner was the favorite of Empress Elizabeth, Alexei Razumovsky, followed by Grigory Potyomkin, a lover of Catherine the Great. Today, it houses the Creative Palace of Youth. On the other side of Nevsky stands the pedestrian Malaya Sadovaya Ulitsa, which provides an excellent view onto Ploshad Ostrovskovo. This street is a favorite with locals: there are always hordes of people, and the benches, cafes and shops are never empty. No more than 200 meters in length, Malaya Sadovaya has been embellished by a number of additions in recent years – a fountain with a spinning granite ball, a bronze monument to a nameless photographer, complete with bulldog, streetlamps stylized for a bygone era, iron cats and the sculpted figure of the wandering dog Gavryusha. Smolny Cathedral and InstituteThe ensemble of Smolny Cathedral was constructed by the architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli in 1757. At the center of the cross-shaped courtyard, surrounded by the nunnery buildings with their four churches at each corner, stands the baroque cathedral – perhaps the architect’s finest creation. The monumental Smolny Institute building constructed by Giacomo Quarenghi in 1808, and the neo-classical propylae, separating the institute and its gardens from Ploshad Proletarskoi Diktatury (Proletarian Dictatorship Square), were created by Vladimir Shuko in 1924. The building was originally home to the classrooms of the first educational establishment for aristocratic girls. In the summer of 1917, the girls were pushed out by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Petrograd Soviet of Worker and Peasant Deputies. Here, over the night of November 7-8, the Second Congress of Workers Deputies effectively handed over power in the country to the Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, recognizing the famed decrees on peace and the land. From March of 1918 and to this day, Smolny houses the City Administration and its leaders: first secretaries, mayors and, now, governors. The Strelka of Vasilievsky Island The promontory in the eastern section of Vasilievsky Island was built to be viewed from the water. Until the mid-19th Century, this was in fact a trading port. With the passing of time, the buildings of the ensemble, designed by Jean Baptiste Toma de Tomon at the beginning of the 19th Century, found themselves occupied by predominantly cultural institutions. At the center of the ensemble, recalling ancient temples, is the building of the Stock Exchange (1810), with which de Tomon replaced a construction by Quarenghi that had previously stood here. Today, it is home to the Naval Museum. The Rostral Columns (1810s) on the promontory served as lighthouses for the port, receiving their names from the prows of enemy ships which were traditionally used to decorate columns erected to commemorate maritime victories. The sculptures decorating the columns are considered to be embodiments of four key Russian rivers: the Volga, Dnepr, Neva and Volkhov. The symmetrical composition of the Strelka is underlined by the warehouses and customs buildings erected on the Makarov Embankment in 1832 by Ivan Lukini. The ensemble is topped by a tower, mirroring that on the Kunstkammer, which stands close by on University Embankment. The warehouses are now home to the Zoological and Soil Science museums, while the customs house is now the Institute of Russian Literature, or Pushkin House, which contains the manuscripts of great Russian writers. Along University Embankment, the ensemble is continued by the Kunstkammer, the Academy of Sciences and the Twelve Colleges building. The Kunstkammer (Georg Mattarnovi, 1734) is a masterpiece of Petrine baroque and the oldest Russian museum (now the Ethnographical and Anthropological Museum and the Mikhail Lomonosov Memorial Museum). The apartments of academics and warehousing premises were originally housed in the Academy of Sciences (Giacomo Quarenghi, 1789), built in a late classicist style and decorated with an eight-columned portico of the Ionic order. Inside, on the upper landing of the main staircase, we can see Lomonosov’s mosaic, “The Poltava Battle.” The long Twelve Colleges building, according to the conception of its architect, Domenico Trezini, comprises twelve identical wings – one for each college – linked on the western side by a gallery, the renowned “university corridor.” In the mid-19th Century, these premises were transferred to the University, and they now contain the rector’s office, the geological and biological faculties and the Gorky Library. At the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, the Otta Clinical Gynecological Institute and the library of the Academy of Sciences were added to the Strelka ensemble. | |
