The history of the creation of the Winter Palace begins with the reign of Peter I.

The very first, then the Winter House, was built for Peter I in 1711 on the banks of the Neva. First Winter Palace was two-story, with a tiled roof and a high porch. In 1719-1721, the architect Georg Mattornovi built a new palace for Peter I.

Empress Anna Ioannovna considered the Winter Palace too small and did not want to settle in it. She commissioned the construction of the new Winter Palace to the architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. For new construction, the houses of Count Apraksin, Raguzinsky and Chernyshev, as well as the building of the Maritime Academy, were bought out on the embankment of the Neva River. They were demolished, and a new Winter Palace was built in their place by 1735. The Hermitage Theater was built on the site of the old palace at the end of the 18th century.

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna also wished to remake the imperial residence to her taste. The construction of the new palace was entrusted to the architect Rastrelli. The project of the Winter Palace created by the architect was signed by Elizaveta Petrovna on June 16, 1754.

In the summer of 1754, Elizaveta Petrovna issues a personal decree on the beginning of the construction of the palace. The required amount - about 900 thousand rubles - was taken from the "tavern" money (collection from the drinking trade). The previous palace was dismantled. During construction, the courtyard was moved to a temporary wooden palace built by Rastrelli at the corner of Nevsky and Moika.

The palace was notable for its incredible size at that time, lush exterior decoration and luxurious interior decoration.

The Winter Palace is a three-storey building with a rectangular plan, with a huge ceremonial courtyard inside. The main facades of the palace face the embankment and the square that was formed later.

When creating the Winter Palace, Rastrelli designed each facade differently, based on specific conditions. The northern facade, facing the Neva, stretches out as a more or less flat wall, without noticeable protrusions. From the side of the river, it is perceived as an endless two-tiered colonnade. South facade, overlooking the Palace Square and having seven divisions, is the main one. Its center is highlighted by a wide, magnificently decorated projection cut through by three entrance arches. Behind them is the main courtyard, where in the middle of the northern building was the main entrance to the palace.

Around the perimeter of the roof of the palace is a balustrade with vases and statues (originally stone in 1892-1894 were replaced by a brass drift).

The length of the palace (along the Neva) is 210 meters, width - 175 meters, height - 22 meters. The total area of ​​the palace is 60 thousand square meters, there are more than 1000 halls, 117 different staircases.

There were two chains of ceremonial halls in the palace: along the Neva and in the center of the building. In addition to the ceremonial halls, the second floor contained the living quarters of the members of the imperial family. The first floor was occupied by utility and office premises. The upper floor was mainly occupied by the apartments of the courtiers.

About four thousand employees lived here, there was even its own army - palace grenadiers and guards from the guards regiments. The palace had two churches, a theater, a museum, a library, a garden, an office, and a pharmacy. The halls of the palace were decorated with gilded carvings, luxurious mirrors, chandeliers, candelabra, patterned parquet flooring.

During the reign of Catherine II, a winter garden was organized in the Palace, where both northern and plants brought from the south, the Romanov gallery; at the same time, the formation of the St. George Hall was completed. Under Nicholas I, a gallery was organized in 1812, where 332 portraits of the participants were placed Patriotic War... The architect Auguste Montferrand added the Petrovsky and Field Marshal Halls to the palace.

In 1837, a fire broke out in the Winter Palace. Many things were saved, but the building itself was badly damaged. But thanks to the architects Vasily Stasov and Alexander Bryullov, the building was restored two years later.

In 1869, gas lighting appeared in the palace instead of candlelight. In 1882, the installation of telephones began. In the 1880s, a water supply system was built in the Winter Palace. On Christmas Day 1884-1885, electric lighting was tested in the halls of the Winter Palace, since 1888 gas lighting was gradually replaced by electric. For this, a power plant was built in the second hall of the Hermitage, which for 15 years was the largest in Europe.

In 1904, Emperor Nicholas II moved from the Winter Palace to the Tsarskoye Selo Alexander Palace. The Winter Palace became a venue for receptions, ceremonial dinners, and the king's stay on short visits to the city.

Throughout the history of the Winter Palace as an imperial residence, the interiors were redesigned in accordance with fashion trends. The building itself changed the color of its walls several times. The Winter Palace was painted in red, pink, yellow. Before the First World War, the palace was painted brick red.

During the First World War, an infirmary was located in the building of the Winter Palace. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government worked in the Winter Palace. In the post-revolutionary years, various departments and institutions were located in the building of the Winter Palace. In 1922, part of the building was transferred to the Hermitage Museum.

In 1925-1926, the building was rebuilt again, now for the needs of the museum.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Winter Palace suffered from air raids and shelling. The basements of the palace housed a dispensary for scientists and cultural figures suffering from dystrophy. In 1945-1946, restoration work was carried out, at the same time the entire Winter Palace became part of the Hermitage.

At present, the Winter Palace, together with the Hermitage Theater, the Small, New and Big Hermitages, constitutes a single museum complex "The State Hermitage".

The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg (2 Dvortsovaya Square / 38 Dvortsovaya Embankment) is a former imperial palace, now part of the Main Museum Complex of the State Hermitage. The current building of the palace (the fifth) was built in 1754-1762 by the Italian architect B. F. Rastrelli in the style of magnificent Elizabethan baroque with elements of French rococo in the interiors. It is an object of cultural heritage of federal significance and an object world heritage UNESCO composed historic center St. Petersburg.

From the moment the construction was completed in 1762 to 1904, it was used as the official winter residence of the Russian emperors. In 1904, Nicholas II moved his permanent residence to the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. From October 1915 to November 1917, a hospital named after Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich worked in the palace. From July to November 1917, the Provisional Government was located in the palace. In January 1920, the State Museum of the Revolution was opened in the palace, which shared the building with the State Hermitage until 1941.

The Winter Palace and Palace Square form a beautiful architectural ensemble modern city and are one of the main objects of domestic Russian and international tourism.

Story

In total, during the period 1711-1764, five winter palaces were erected in the city. Initially, Peter I settled in a hastily built in 1703 near Peter and Paul Fortress one-story house.

First Winter Palace

Where the Winter Palace now stands, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, only naval officials were allowed to build. Peter the Great exercised this right, being a shipbuilder under the name of Peter Alekseev, in 1711, on the site of the former Preobrazhensky barracks, he built a wooden "Winter House" near the Neva River. The first Peter's palace was a small two-story house with a high porch in the center and a tiled roof, and was located not on the embankment of the Neva, but on the modern Millionnaya Street. This palace was a gift from the Governor of St. Petersburg A.D. Menshikov for the wedding of Peter the Great and Ekaterina Alekseevna (February 1712).

Second Winter Palace

In 1718, the architect Georg Mattarnovi, by order of the tsar, began construction of a new Winter Palace, at the corner of the Neva and the Winter Canal (which was then called the "Zimnedomny Canal"). The color of this building was different from the color of the previous Winter Palaces of the Tsar: the Mattarnovi building was gray. Before the end of construction, the architect died, and the palace was completed by Domenico Trezzini.

In 1720, Peter I with all his family moved from a summer residence to a winter one. In 1725, Peter I died in this palace. After his death in 1726-1727, at the direction of Catherine I, the palace was expanded by D. Trezzini and occupied the territory of the current building of the Hermitage Theater.

Third Winter Palace

Later, Empress Anna Ioannovna considered the Winter Palace too small and in 1731 entrusted its reconstruction to FB Rastrelli, who proposed to her his project for the reconstruction of the Winter Palace. According to his project, it was required to acquire, at that time on the site occupied by the present palace, houses that belonged to Count Apraksin, the Naval Academy, Raguzinsky and Chernyshev. Anna Ioanovna approved the project, the houses were bought up, demolished and in the spring of 1732 construction began. The facades of this palace were facing the Neva, the Admiralty and the "meadow side", that is, the palace square. In 1735, the construction of the palace was completed, and Anna Ioanovna moved into it to live. The four-story building included about 70 ceremonial halls, more than 100 bedrooms, a gallery, a theater, a large chapel, many staircases, office and guard rooms, as well as rooms of the palace office. Almost immediately, the palace began to be rebuilt, an extension on the meadow side of technical buildings, sheds, stables began.

Here on July 2, 1739, the betrothal of Princess Anna Leopoldovna to Prince Anton-Ulrich took place. After the death of Anna Ioannovna, the young emperor John Antonovich was brought here, who stayed here until November 25, 1741, when Elizaveta Petrovna took power into her own hands. Under Elizabeth, the addition of office premises to the palace continued, as a result, by 1750, he “represented a motley, dirty look, unworthy of the place he occupied and the strangest imperial palace, one wing adjacent to the Admiralty, and the other in the opposite direction, to the dilapidated chambers of Raguzinsky, could not be pleasant to the empress. " On January 1, 1752, the Empress decided to expand the Winter Palace, after which the neighboring areas of Raguzinsky and Yaguzhinsky were bought out. At the new location Rastrelli added new buildings. According to the project drawn up by him, these buildings were to be added to the existing ones and be decorated with them in the same style. In December 1752, the Empress wished to increase the height of the Winter Palace from 14 to 22 meters. Rastrelli was forced to redesign the building, after which he decided to build it in a new location. But Elizaveta Petrovna refused to move the new Winter Palace. As a result, the architect decides to rebuild the entire building, the new project was signed by Elizaveta Petrovna on June 16, 1754:

Ponezh in St. Petersburg, our Winter Palace is not only for receiving foreign ministers and sending them to the Court on fixed days of festive ceremonies, due to the greatness of our imperial dignity, but we cannot be satisfied with the necessary servants and things, for which we set out our Winter Palace with a large space in length, width and height can be rebuilt, for which rebuilding, according to the estimate, will require up to 900,000 rubles, which amount, for two years, cannot be taken from our salt money. That is why we command our Senate to find and to imagine from what incomes such an amount of 430 or 450 thousand rubles per year can be taken into this matter, counting from the beginning of this 1754 and the future 1755 years, and so that this was done immediately, so as not to miss the present winter way to prepare supplies for that structure.

Fourth (temporary) Winter Palace

It was built in 1755 by Rastrelli at the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and the river embankment. Sinks (destroyed in 1762).

Fifth (existing) Winter Palace

In 1762, the currently existing palace building appeared. At that time, the Winter Palace became the tallest residential building in St. Petersburg. The building consisted of about 1,500 rooms. The total area of ​​the palace is about 60,000 square meters. Elizaveta Petrovna did not live to see the end of construction, Peter III took over the work on April 6, 1762. By this time, the facades were finished, but many of the interior rooms were not yet ready. In the summer of 1762, Peter III was dethroned, and the construction of the Winter Palace was completed under Catherine II.

First of all, the Empress removed Rastrelli from the work. The interior decoration of the palace was carried out by architects Chevakinsky, Y. M. Felten, J. B. Wallen-Delamot and A. Rinaldi under the leadership of Betsky.

According to the original, made by Rastrelli, the layout of the palace, the largest ceremonial halls were located on the 2nd floor and overlooked the Neva, the Jordan, or, as it was previously called, the ambassadorial staircase, led to them. There were five halls in total (of which three middle halls later made up the current Nikolaev Hall). They were called avant-halls, as they led to the sixth huge Throne Room (which occupied the entire current space of the rooms of Nicholas II, overlooking the Neva, that is, the Malachite Hall, two drawing rooms and the study of Alexandra Fedorovna, corner on the Neva and the Admiralty).

In 1763, the empress moved her chambers to the southwestern part of the palace, under her rooms she ordered to place the chambers of her favorite G. G. Orlov. From the side Palace Square the Throne Room was equipped, and a waiting room appeared in front of it - the White Hall. A dining room was placed behind the White Hall. Adjacent to it was the Light Office. The dining room was followed by the Main Bedchamber, which a year later became the Diamond Rest. In addition, the Empress ordered to equip a library, study, boudoir, two bedrooms and a dressing room for herself. In the restroom, the empress built a toilet seat from the throne of one of her lovers, the Polish king Poniatowski. Under Catherine, a winter garden and the Romanov Gallery were built in the Winter Palace. In 1764, in Berlin, through agents, Catherine acquired from the merchant I. Gotskovsky a collection of 225 works by Dutch and Flemish artists. Most of the paintings were housed in a secluded apartment of the palace, which received the French name "Hermitage" (place of solitude).

In the 1780s and 1790s, works on finishing the palace interiors were continued by I. Ye. Starov and G. Quarenghi.

In 1783, by order of Catherine, the palace theater was demolished.

In the 1790s, by order of Catherine II, who considered it inappropriate for the public to enter the Hermitage through her own chambers, a gallery was created between the Winter Palace and the Small Hermitage, with the help of which visitors could bypass the royal apartments. The Marble Gallery (of three halls) and the new Throne (Georgievsky) Hall, opened in 1795, were created. The old throne room was converted into a number of rooms, provided for the quarters of the newly married Grand Duke Alexander.

In 1826, according to the project of K.I.Rossi, the Military Gallery was built in front of the St. In the early 1830s, in the eastern building of the palace, O. Montferrand designed the Field Marshal, Petrovsky and Armorial Halls.

After the fire of 1837, when all the interiors were destroyed, the architects V.P. Stasov, A.P. Bryullov and A.E.Shtaubert supervised the restoration work in the Winter Palace.

Historical events

On December 29, 1837, a fire broke out in the Winter Palace. They could not extinguish it for three days, all this time the property taken out of the palace was piled around the Alexander Column.

On February 5, 1880, SN Khalturin, a member of the Narodnaya Volya, detonated an explosion in the Winter Palace with the aim of assassinating Alexander II, while eleven soldiers from the guard were killed and fifty-six were wounded, but neither the emperor nor his family members were injured.

On January 9, 1905, during the procession of workers 'columns to the Winter Palace, a peaceful workers' demonstration was shot, which was the beginning of the Revolution of 1905-1907.

In August 1914, after the outbreak of the Second Patriotic (First World) War, part of the cultural property from the palace, including the Gallery of Treasures, was taken to Moscow, but the Art Gallery remained in place.

In mid-October 1915, a military hospital named after Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich was located in the palace. The halls of the Nevsky and Bolshoi enfilades, as well as the Picket and Alexandrovsky halls, were allocated for the hospital wards.

During the revolution of February 1917, the palace was occupied by troops who went over to the side of the rebels.

In July 1917, the palace became the seat of the Provisional Government, which announced the nationalization of the royal palaces and formed an artistic and historical commission to accept the values ​​of the Winter Palace. In September, part of the art collection was evacuated to Moscow.

On the night of October 25-26 (November 7-8), 1917, in the days of the October Revolution, the Red Guard, revolutionary soldiers and sailors surrounded the palace, which was guarded by a garrison of cadets and a women's battalion, a total of 2.7 thousand people. The palace was fired upon by the cannons of the Peter and Paul Fortress. By 2 o'clock 10 min. On the night of October 26 (November 8), they stormed the palace and arrested the Provisional Government. In the cinema, the storming of the Winter Palace was portrayed as a battle. In fact, it passed almost bloodlessly - the defenders of the palace offered almost no resistance.

On October 30 (November 12), 1917, People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky announced the Winter Palace and the Hermitage state museums... For several months, the People's Commissariat for Education was located in the rooms on the first floor of the palace. In the ceremonial halls, they began to arrange cinematographic screenings, concerts, lectures, meetings.

In 1919, the palace opened the first after the revolution exhibitions of paintings from the paintings remaining in Petrograd, as well as the exhibition "The Funeral Cult of Ancient Egypt."

On January 11, 1920, in the halls of the first and second floors of the palace, official opening State Museum of the Revolution. By November 1920, the process of returning the art values ​​evacuated to Moscow was completed. On January 2, 1921, the halls of the Art Gallery opened to the public, and the following year, other exhibitions of the State Hermitage. Together, the two museums existed in the palace building until 1941.

On June 22, 1941, after the start of the Great Patriotic War, twelve bomb shelters were equipped in the basements of the palace, in which about two thousand people permanently lived until 1942. A part of the non-evacuated museum collection of the Hermitage, cultural values ​​from suburban palaces and various institutions of Leningrad were hidden in the palace.

During the war, the buildings of the palace suffered from the shelling of the Wehrmacht artillery and the bombing of the Luftwaffe, a total of seventeen artillery shells and two aerial bombs hit them. The Small Throne (Petrovsky) Hall was damaged, part of the Armorial Hall and the ceiling of the Rastrelli Gallery were destroyed, and the Jordan Staircase was damaged. On November 7, 1944, the palace was partially opened to the public. The restoration of the halls and facades of the palace continued for many years after the war.

Architecture

A modern three-storey building in the plan has the shape of a square of 4 wings with an inner courtyard and facades facing the Neva, the Admiralty and Palace Square (the length along the facade from the Neva side is 137 meters, from the Admiralty side 106 meters, the height is 23.5 meters, about 1050 rooms ). The splendor of the building is given by the magnificent decoration of the facades and premises. The main facade, facing the Palace Square, is cut through by the arch of the main passage.

In the southeastern part of the second floor there was one of the Rococo monuments, the legacy of the fourth winter palace - the Great Church of the Winter Palace (1763; architect B. Rastrelli).

Coloring of facades and roofs

The facades and roof of the palace changed the color scheme several times. The original color had a very light warm ocher coloration with an emphasis on the order system and plastic decoration with white lime paint. In the protocols of the Office of the buildings, it is said about the leave for these works of lime, chalk, ocher and ink (red earth, which after processing was used as a pigment). In later documents there are such names as "pale yellow with white", "the color of a wild stone." The roof was tinned.

"The palace is painted on the outside: the walls are painted with sandy paint with a thin projection, and the ornaments are white lime."

- architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli (RGIA, f. 470, op.5, d.477, l.147)

Until the fire of 1837, there were no fundamental changes in the color of the palace, with the exception of the roof, which in 1816 changed its color from white-gray to red. During the post-fire repairs, the color of the facade was made up of slaked Tosno lime, ocher, Italian mummy and part of the Olonets land, which was used as a pigment and had an ivory shade, while the roof was painted with red lead iron, giving it a brownish-red color.

In the second half of the 1850s - 1860s, under Emperor Alexander II, the color of the palace facades changed. The ocher becomes denser. The order system and plastic decor are not painted with an additional color, but they acquire a very light tonal selection. In fact, facades are perceived as monochrome.

In the 1880s, under Emperor Alexander III, the facades were split in two tones: a dense ocher expression with the addition of red pigment and a weaker terracotta tone. With the accession of Nicholas II in 1897, the emperor approved the project of painting the facades of the Winter Palace in the color of the “new fence of the Own Garden” - red sandstone without any tonal highlighting of the columns and decor. All buildings on Palace Square were painted in the same color - the headquarters of the Guards Corps and the General Headquarters, which, according to the architects of that period, contributed to the unity of perception of the ensemble.

The terracotta-brick color of the palace remained until the end of the 1920s, after which experiments and the search for a new coloration began. In 1927, an attempt was made to paint it gray, in 1928-1930. - in a brown-gray scale, and a copper-gouged sculpture on the roof - in black. In 1934, for the first time, an attempt was made to paint the palace with orange oil paint, highlighting the order system with white paint, but the oil paint had a negative effect on stone, plaster and stucco decoration. In 1940, a decision was made to remove the oil paint from the facade.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, for the purpose of camouflage, the palace is painted with reversible glue gray paint. In 1945-1947, a commission consisting of the chief architect of Leningrad N.V. Baranov, the head of the State Inspectorate for the Protection of Monuments N.N.Belekhov, representatives of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, the State Construction Control, the State Hermitage and scientific consultants decided to paint the walls of the palace with chromium oxide with adding emerald pigment; columns, cornices, interfloor rods and window frames - in white; stucco decoration, cartouches, capitals - ocher, while it was decided to leave the sculpture black.

Since the 1960s, instead of lime paints, synthetic dyes have been used to paint the facade, which negatively affect stucco decoration, plaster and natural stone. In 1976, on the recommendation of the All-Union Central Research Laboratory, a decision was made to clear the surface of the sculptures from the paint coating to form a natural layer of patina, which at that time was considered a natural protection against aggressive environmental influences. Currently, the copper surface is protected with a special paint composition containing a copper corrosion inhibitor.

For sixty-five years, the public and the city authorities have developed a certain stereotype in the perception of the color scheme of the palace, however, according to the Hermitage researchers, the currently existing color scheme of the facades does not correspond to the artistic image of the palace, and therefore it is proposed to recreate the color scheme of the facades as close as possible to the volumetric-spatial composition of the palace, created by Bartolomeo Rastrelli.

Dimensions (edit)

The palace building has 1080 rooms, 1945 windows, 117 staircases (including secret ones), and its variously arranged facades, strong projections of risalits, accentuation of stepped corners, a changeable rhythm of the columns (changing the intervals between the columns, Rastrelli either gathers them into beams or exposes the plane of the wall ) create the impression of restlessness, unforgettable solemnity and splendor. The building is 22 meters high. In 1844, Nicholas I issued a decree banning the construction of civil buildings in St. Petersburg above the height of the Winter Palace. They had to be built at least one fathom less.

General impression

In the external appearance of the Winter Palace, which was created, as the decree on its construction said, "for the common glory of all-Russian", in its elegant, festive form, in the magnificent decoration of its facades, Rastrelli's artistic and compositional concept is revealed - the deep architectural connection of this building with the city on Neva, which became the capital of the Russian Empire, with all the character of the surrounding urban landscape, which persists to this day.

Originality

The sculptures and vases installed above the cornice along the entire perimeter of the building give elegance and splendor to the silhouette of the building. They were originally carved out of stone and replaced with metal ones in 1892-1902 (sculptors M.P. Popov, D.I. Jensen). The "revealed" composition of the Winter Palace is a kind of Russian reworking of the type of closed palace building with an inner courtyard, which is widespread in the architecture of Western Europe.

Rooms of the Winter Palace

Jordan Gallery

Located on the first floor of the Winter Palace. The decoration is carried out in the Russian baroque style. At first, the gallery was called the Main Gallery, since guests of the palace followed from the Main Lobby to the Main Staircase. Later (like the entrance) it was renamed into the Jordanian, since in Epiphany from the Great Church of the Winter Palace, a procession passed through it, heading to the Neva, where the so-called Jordan was installed over the ice-hole - a pavilion for the consecration of water.

Jordan stairs

In the 18th century, the staircase was called Ambassadorial, then it received the name of the Jordan staircase, since during the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, the procession descended along it to the Neva, where an ice-hole was cut in the ice to illuminate the water - the Jordan.

It is here that the talent of the great Rastrelli is revealed in all its strength and expressiveness. Behind the majestic arched spans of the first floor gallery and the first, shaded, flight of stairs, a huge staircase, shining with light, suddenly opens up. Located almost twenty meters high, a picturesque plafond depicting the ancient Greek gods soaring in the sky enhances the baroque effect by illusory tearing of the planes of the ceiling, and the light pouring from the windows, reflected in the mirrors, glides over the gilded stucco ornaments, white marble statues of gods and muses. Destroyed by a fire in 1837, the staircase was recreated by V.P. Stasov, who, while restoring this half of the palace, managed to preserve the main idea of ​​Rastrelli.

Field marshal hall

The hall was created in 1833-1834. Auguste Montferrand. After the completion of construction, in 1834, portraits of Russian field marshals were placed on the walls of the Field Marshal Hall: “P. A. Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky "(F. Rise)," G. A. Potemkin-Tavrichesky "(A. Vigi)," A. V. Suvorov-Rymniksky "(N. S. Frost)," M. I. Kutuzov-Smolensky "(P. Basin)," I. I. Dibich-Zabalkansky "(P. Basin)," I. F. Paskevich-Erivansky "(F. Kruger).

This austere white marble hall earned a sad reputation for the fact that it was here on December 17, 1837 that a fire began, which destroyed the entire Winter Palace in 30 hours. After the fire of 1837, it was rebuilt by V. Stasov in the style of classicism. In 1854 at south wall of the hall, on the sides of the entrance to the Small Throne Hall, were placed battle canvases "The capture of the outskirts of Warsaw by the Russian troops" by O. Verne and "The surrender of the Hungarian army to the Russian by General Gergey at Vilagos" by G. Villevalde. During the First World War, the hall housed the hospital chambers. After 1917, all the paintings were removed and transferred to the funds of other museums.

Several years ago, it was decided to restore the decoration of the hall. The portrait of IF Paskevich by F. Kruger was returned to its place. In May 2005, portraits of A. V. Suvorov (N. Frost) and M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov (P. Basin) appeared in the Field Marshal Hall.

Petrovsky (Small Throne) Hall

Created in 1833 according to the project of O. Montferrand. Dedicated to the memory of Peter I. In the decoration of the interior of the hall, the emperor's monogram (two Latin letters "P"), double-headed eagles and crowns were used. The throne was made in St. Petersburg at the end of the 18th century. Behind the throne, in a niche designed in the form of a triumphal arch, is the painting "Peter I with the Goddess of Wisdom Minerva" by Giuseppe Amiconi. In the upper part of the walls there are canvases depicting the famous battles of the Northern War - the Battle of Poltava and the Battle of Lesnaya (P. Scotti and B. Medici). The hall is decorated with silver-embroidered panels made of Lyons velvet and St. Petersburg silverware. The hall also has royal crowns, state emblems in the form of two-headed eagles.

After the fire of 1837, it was restored unchanged by V.P. Stasov.

Hall of arms

From the end of the 18th century on the site of the Armorial Hall there was the White Gallery, finished according to the project of Yu.M. Felten. During the reign of Catherine II, magnificent court balls were held here. In 1796, by decree of Emperor Paul I, the "Funeral Hall", where the funeral ceremony took place in farewell to the deceased Empress Catherine the Great and her husband, Emperor Peter III, who was killed in a coup in 1762. In the first third of the 19th century, the original purpose of the White Gallery returned. In it again, palace masquerades, ceremonial receptions and balls were rustling. However, in 1830, Emperor Nicholas I decided to give it a different meaning. The main idea of ​​the new project is to glorify the power of the Russian Empire.

Recreated by V.P. Stasov after the fire of 1837 for ceremonies in the style of late Russian classicism. At the entrance to the hall, there are sculptural groups of ancient Russian soldiers with banners, on the shafts of which were fixed shields with the coats of arms of the Russian provinces. In addition, the coats of arms of the provinces are located on gilded bronze chandeliers. The hall is surrounded by a colonnade carrying a balcony with a balustrade. In the center of the hall there is a bowl made of aventurine made by Yekaterinburg stone-cutters of the 19th century. The solemn image of the Hall of Arms is emphasized by the majestic rhythm of French windows, alternating with massive, entirely gilded columns.

War gallery 1812

The gallery is dedicated to the victory of Russian arms over Napoleon. It was built according to the project of Karl Ivanovich Rossi and was solemnly opened on the anniversary of Bonaparte's expulsion from Russia, December 25, 1826, in the presence of the Imperial Court, generals, officers and soldiers awarded for participation in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in the foreign campaign of the Russian army in 1813 - 14 years On its walls are portraits of 332 generals painted by D. Doe - participants in the war of 1812 and the overseas campaigns of 1813-1814. In addition, the gallery contains portraits of Emperor Alexander I and King of Prussia Friedrich-Wilgem III by F. Kruger, a portrait of Emperor Franz I of Austria by P. Kraft. The prototype of the gallery was one of the halls of the Windsor Palace, dedicated to the memory of the Battle of Waterloo, in which portraits of the participants in the Battle of the Nations were concentrated.

Georgievsky (Great Throne) Hall

Created in 1787-1795 according to the project of Giacomo Quarenghi. The huge double-height room of the hall was made in a classical style. It was consecrated on November 26, 1795 on the day of St. George the Victorious, from where it got its name. It was completely destroyed during a fire in 1837. At the direction of Emperor Nicholas I, the architect V.P. Stasov used white Carrara marble delivered from Italy to restore the hall. Due to the complexity of the facing, it was opened in 1841, later than other halls.

Above the throne place there is a marble bas-relief "St. George the Victorious slaying the dragon with a spear". The pattern of the gilded ornaments of the ceiling of the hall repeats the pattern of the parquet made of 16 types of colored wood. The Great Imperial Throne was executed in London 1731-1732. N. Clausen by order of Empress Anna Ioannovna.

Official ceremonies and receptions were held in this hall.

In 1917, the symbols of the Russian Empire were removed from the throne place, and in the 1930s, it was completely dismantled. After the Great Patriotic War, instead of the throne seat, a map of the Soviet Union made of gems, made for the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris, was placed in the hall. In the 80s of the XX century, the card was dismantled and transferred to Mining museum... In 1997-2000, the throne seat was restored.

Big church

The interior of the Great Church was created by F.B. Rastrelli in the Baroque style. On July 12, 1763, the Archbishop of St. Petersburg Gabriel (Kremenetsky) consecrated the Cathedral in the name of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands. After a devastating fire in 1837, the temple was restored by V.P. Stasov "with the possible accuracy<…>in the same form. " On March 25, 1839, Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) of Moscow, in the presence of the Imperial family, consecrated the renovated cathedral. At the end of the 19th century, a belfry with five bells was built on the roof of the palace.

Picket (New) Hall

Completes the Big Enfilade. It was created by Vladimir Stasov after a fire in 1837 on the site of a staircase and two small rooms for setting up an internal guard - a picket, hence the name of the hall.

The hall is dedicated to the history of the Russian army and became the logical completion of the general panorama located in the Gallery of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Field Marshal Hall. Guardsmen were on duty in the hall, this determines the severity and military theme in the interior design. The hall is decorated with reliefs depicting helmets, shields, spears, armor, medallions with battle scenes.

Since 1979, the hall has been closed, for 25 years it has kept the museum funds of the Oriental Department, carpets and other art objects. On December 9, 2004, the Picket Hall reopened to the public.

Alexander Hall

This hall was built by Alexander Pavlovich Bryullov (brother of the artist K.P.Bryullov) in the 30s - 40s of the 19th century. According to the architect's plan, this hall was supposed to perpetuate the memory of Emperor Alexander I. Also, these architects built five enfilades adjacent to the Alexander Hall, in which in this moment the collection of French painting is located.

White Hall

Created by A.P. Bryullov for the wedding of the future Emperor Alexander II in 1841.

Bolshoi (Nikolaevsky) entrance hall

Nicholas' entrance hall was conceived, like Aleksandrovsky, to glorify the emperor. This hall is the most impressive interior of the Winter Palace - its area is 1103 m². The Concert Hall adjoins it.

Golden living room

The Golden Drawing Room was designed and built by A.P. Bryullov in the 30s - 40s of the 19th century for the Grand Duchess and later Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Initially, the walls and vault in it were covered with white artificial marble, and only the delicate stucco ornament that adorned them was highlighted with gilding. With the participation of the architect Vladimir Andreevich Schreiber in the 1860s - 70s, the walls of the hall were covered with solid gilding. In the tragic days for Russia that came after the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881, namely here, surrounded by elected members of the State Council, the new Russian autocrat Alexander III decided the fate of the Russian constitution and reforms, which he worked on and which his father did not manage to complete.

Boudoir

The boudoir was also built by A.P. Bryullov, but completely redesigned in 1853 by Harald Bosse. Similar to an elegant snuff-box, the small-sized room is stylized in the Rococo spirit with an abundance of carved gilded ornaments, mirrors and pictorial inserts. Part of the Boudoir, in the form of a kind of alcove, is separated by a step and a low figured lattice. A garnet-colored damask for decorating panels on the walls, upholstering furniture, for draperies on windows and doors was ordered in France from the Cartier factory.

October Stairs

Created by OR Montferrand in the late 1820s. After the fire of 1837, it was restored by A.P. Bryullov almost unchanged. The interior of the staircase is made in a classical style, richly decorated with grisaille painting. It got its name in memory of the events of October 1917, when the troops of the storming troops penetrated it into the Winter Palace. The captured ministers of the Provisional Government were taken out along the same staircase at 3 a.m. from 25 to 26 October 1917.

Malachite living room

The malachite living room was part of the private chambers of the wife of Nicholas I - Alexandra Feodorovna. According to the will of the emperor, Bryullov included a rare semi-precious stone - malachite - in the decoration of the hall. Since the 1830s, after the discovery of huge deposits of malachite in the Ural mines of the Demidovs, this stone began to be used more widely. In the grand drawing room of the Empress, columns, pilasters and fireplaces were made using a laborious technique called "Russian mosaic": thin plates of stone were glued to the base, the lines of joints were filled with malachite powder, then the surface was polished. The combination of malachite with abundant gilding of the vault, doors, column capitals and pilasters was delightful. The guests did not know what to be surprised more: “... the luxury of material or the luxury of the artist's thought<…>in the temple of wealth and taste. " The hall was furnished with furniture that had been stored up during the fire, made in 1830 according to drawings by Auguste de Montferrand by the master Heinrich Gambs. The malachite drawing room opens onto the halls of the Nevskaya suite, completing the precious necklace of the historical interiors of the Winter Palace. The malachite living room is the only surviving example of malachite decoration of an entire residential interior.

Small (White) dining room

The small dining room was finished in 1894 according to the project of A.F. Krasovsky. The interior is decorated in the Rococo style and stylized as the 18th century. At the same time, the hall also contains items of the 20th century: an English chandelier with a musical mechanism, a French clock, and Russian glass. On the windows there are tapestries woven at the St. Petersburg Manufactory in the 18th century. The dining room was part of the residential suite of the family of Nicholas II.

On the night of October 25-26, 1917, during the storming of the Winter Palace, it was in the Small Dining Room that the Provisional Government that was sitting here was arrested. This event is reminded of a memorial plaque installed in the dining room in 1957 on the mantelpiece.

Concert hall

Created by the architect V.P. Stasov after the fire of 1837. The purpose of this hall is "deciphered" by its decoration: in the second tier there are sculptures of ancient muses and goddesses by the sculptor I. Herman, and the decorative grisaille painting of the paduga connecting the ceiling and walls includes allegorical figures with attributes of art. V concert hall the Hermitage's rich collection of Russian silver of the 17th - early 20th centuries is located, the center of which is a peculiar monument of the 18th century - the silver tomb of St. Prince Alexander Nevsky.

Tourism

The Winter Palace is of great historical, cultural and artistic interest for tourists from Russia and the whole world. In 2009, the total number of visitors was 2,359,616. About 500 thousand of them are foreigners.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The question by which you can recognize a tourist on the streets of St. Petersburg: "Where is the Winter Palace?"

The history of the construction of the Winter Palace

A masterpiece of architectural architecture, executed in the Baroque style, is located on the Palace Square. This is an amazing ensemble of monuments to Russian architecture. You can get to Palace Square both by metro and by land transport... It is best to walk, sightseeing along the way, enjoying the solemn and majestic architecture of Northern Palmyra.
The building of the Winter Palace was built in the second half of the 18th century, by order of the beloved daughter of the first Russian emperor, according to the plan of the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The Winter Palace was built in the Russian Baroque style.

From the end of construction in 1762 until 1904, the building served as the residence of the royal family in the winter. After the royal family moved to Tsarskoe Selo and before the formation of the State Hermitage, the odeon housed: the hospital, the headquarters of the provisional government and the Museum of the Revolution, which was adjacent to the Hermitage until the beginning of the Second World War. The modern Winter Palace is one of the main expositions of the Hermitage.
The Winter Palace is a building consisting of 4 outbuildings, interconnected in the form of a square, with a courtyard. The front side of the building faces the Admiralty, the river and Palace Square.

How to get to the Winter Palace?

Considering where the Winter Palace is located, the closest thing to it is to go from the Admiralteyskaya metro station, the Frunzensko-Primorskaya branch of the St. Petersburg metro. Leaving the metro at Kirpichny lane, you need to turn right and after about 25 meters, turn onto Bolshaya Morskaya Street. Then, moving straight, without turning anywhere, to the carriageway of Nevsky Prospekt. It is necessary to cross the avenue, and there it is already very close to the Arch of the General Staff, located in front of the Palace Square, the place where the Winter Palace is located.
Walk a little further from the metro station "Nevsky Prospect", pavilion Naberezhnaya Kanal Griboyedov. From the metro station "Nevsky Prospect" to get to the Winter Palace, you need to walk 4 blocks, crossing Malaya and Bolshaya Konushenny streets and the Moika River. After that, turning to the right, go out onto Bolshaya Morskaya Street. From there you need to go to the Arch of the General Staff building in order to exit to the Palace Square.
Palace Square with the Winter Palace are the most popular place for walks among tourists. That is why any passer-by can answer the question: "Where is the Winter Palace?"
Winter Palace address: Palace Square, 2, Palace Embankment, 38.

The Winter Palace is the largest palace building in St. Petersburg a. The size and excellent finish make it one of the most striking monuments of the Petersburg Baroque. “The Winter Palace as a building, as a royal dwelling, perhaps, has nothing similar in the whole of Europe. With its immensity, its architecture, it depicts a powerful people who so recently entered the environment of educated nations, and with its inner splendor reminds of that inexhaustible life that boils in the interior of Russia ... - this is how V. A. Zhukovsky wrote about the Winter Palace. The history of this architectural monument is rich in turbulent historical events.

At the beginning of the 18th century, in the place where the Winter Palace now stands, construction was allowed only to naval officials. Peter I exercised this right, being a shipbuilder under the name of Peter Alekseev, and in 1708 built a small house in the Dutch style for himself and his family. Ten years later, by order of the future emperor, a canal was dug in front of the side facade of the palace, called (after the palace) the Winter Canal.

In 1711, specially for the wedding of Peter I and Catherine, the architect Georg Mattarnovi, by order of the tsar, set about rebuilding the wooden palace into a stone one. In the process, the architect Mattarnovi was retired and the construction was headed by Domenico Trezzini, an Italian architect of Swiss origin. In 1720, Peter I with all his family moved from a summer residence to a winter one. In 1723 the Senate was transferred to the Winter Palace. And in January 1725 Peter I died here (in the room on the first floor behind the current second window, counting from the Neva).

Later, Empress Anna Ioannovna considered the Winter Palace too small and in 1731 entrusted its reconstruction to F.B. Rastrelli, who offered her his project for the reconstruction of the Winter Palace. According to his project, it was required to acquire the houses that stood at that time on the site occupied by the present palace and belonged to Count Apraksin, the Naval Academy, Raguzinsky and Chernyshev. Anna Ioanovna approved the project, the houses were bought up, demolished, and the work began to boil. In 1735, the construction of the palace was completed, and the empress moved into it to live. Here on July 2, 1739, the betrothal of Princess Anna Leopoldovna to Prince Anton-Urikh took place. After the death of Anna Ioannovna, the young emperor John Antonovich was brought here, who stayed here until November 25, 1741, when Elizaveta Petrovna took power into her own hands.

Elizaveta Petrovna also wished to remake the imperial residence to her taste. On January 1, 1752, she decided to expand the Winter Palace, after which the neighboring plots of Raguzinsky and Yaguzhinsky were bought out. At the new location Rastrelli added new buildings. According to the project drawn up by him, these buildings were to be added to the existing ones and be decorated with them in the same style. In December 1752, the Empress wished to increase the height of the Winter Palace from 14 to 22 meters. Rastrelli was forced to redesign the building, after which he decided to build it in a new location. But Elizaveta Petrovna refused to move the new Winter Palace. As a result, the architect decided to rebuild the entire building. New project- the next building of the Winter Palace - Elizaveta Petrovna signed on June 16, 1754.

Construction lasted eight long years, which fell on the decline of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and the short reign of Peter III.

The story of Peter III's arrival at the palace is curious. After Elizabeth's death, 15 thousand dresses, many thousands of shoes and stockings remained in her wardrobes, and only six silver rubles were in the state treasury. Peter III, who replaced Elizabeth on the throne, wished to immediately move into his new residence. But the Palace Square was cluttered with heaps of bricks, boards, logs, barrels of lime and similar construction waste. The capricious disposition of the new sovereign was known, and the chief of police found a way out: in St. Petersburg it was announced that all inhabitants have the right to take whatever they please on Palace Square. A contemporary (A. Bolotov) writes in his memoirs that almost all of Petersburg with wheelbarrows, carts, and some with sleds (despite the proximity of Easter!), Ran to Palace Square. Clouds of sand and dust rose above her. The townsfolk grabbed everything: boards, bricks, clay, lime, and barrels ... By evening, the square was completely cleared. Nothing prevented Peter III from entering the Winter Palace.

In the summer of 1762, Peter III was dethroned. The construction of the Winter Palace was completed already under Catherine II. In the fall of 1763, the Empress returned from Moscow to St. Petersburg after the coronation celebrations and became the sovereign mistress of the new palace.

First of all, Catherine removed Rastrelli from the work, and Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy, the illegitimate son of Field Marshal Prince Ivan Yuryevich Trubetskoy and the personal secretary of Catherine II, became the manager of the construction site. The Empress moved the chambers to the southwestern part of the palace, under her rooms she ordered to place the chambers of her favorite G. G. Orlov.

From the side of Palace Square, the Throne Hall was arranged, in front of it a waiting room appeared - the White Hall. A dining room was placed behind the White Hall. Adjacent to it was the Light Office. The dining room was followed by the Main Bedchamber, which a year later became the Diamond Rest. In addition, the empress ordered to equip a library, study, boudoir, two bedrooms and a dressing room for herself. Under Catherine, a winter garden and a Romanov gallery were also built in the Winter Palace. At the same time, the formation of the St. George Hall was completed. In 1764, in Berlin, through agents, Catherine acquired from the merchant I. Gotskovsky a collection of 225 works by Dutch and Flemish artists. Most of the paintings were housed in the secluded apartments of the palace, which received the French name "Hermitage" ("place of solitude").

The fourth palace built by Elizabeth, now existing, was conceived and implemented in the form of a closed quadrangle with a vast courtyard. Its facades face the Neva, the Admiralty and the square, in the center of which F.B. Rastrelli intended to erect an equestrian statue of Peter I.

The facades of the palace are divided into two tiers by an entablature. They are decorated with columns of Ionic and composite orders. Columns of the upper tier unite the second, front, and third floors.

The complex rhythm of the columns, the richness and variety of forms of platbands, an abundance of stucco details, a multitude of decorative vases and statues located above the parapet and over numerous pediments, create a decorative decoration of the building that is exceptional in its splendor and splendor.

The southern facade is cut through by three entrance arches, which emphasizes its importance as the main one. The entrance arches lead to the front yard, where the central entrance to the palace was located in the center of the northern building.

The front Jordan Staircase is located in the northeast corner of the building. On the second floor, along the northern façade, there were five large halls, the so-called "anti-chambers," in a suite, behind them was the huge Throne Hall, and in the southwestern part there was the palace theater.

Despite the fact that the Winter Palace was completed in 1762, for a long time, work on the interior decoration was still carried out. These works were entrusted to the best Russian architects Y. M. Felten, J. B. Ballen-Delamot and A. Rinaldi.

In the 1780s and 1790s, work on altering the interior of the palace was continued by I. Ye. Starov and G. Quarenghi. In general, the palace has been altered and rebuilt an incredible number of times. Each new architect tried to bring something of his own, sometimes destroying what had already been built.

Arched galleries ran along the entire lower floor. Galleries connected all parts of the palace. The premises on the sides of the galleries were of a service nature. There were storage rooms, a guardroom, and the palace employees.

The ceremonial halls and living quarters of the members of the imperial family were located on the second floor and were built in the style of the Russian Baroque - huge halls flooded with light, double rows of large windows and mirrors, lush Rococo decor. The upper floor was mainly occupied by the apartments of the courtiers.

The palace was also destroyed. For example, on December 17-19, 1837, there was a strong fire, which completely destroyed the excellent decoration of the Winter Palace, of which only a charred skeleton remained. They could not extinguish the flames for three days, all this time the property taken out of the palace was piled around the Alexander Column. The disaster killed the interiors of Rastrelli, Quarenghi, Montferrand, Rossi. The restoration work, which began immediately, lasted two years. They were led by architects V.P. Stasov and A.P. Bryullov. According to the order of Nicholas I, the palace was to be restored the same as it was before the fire. However, not everything was so easy to do, for example, only some of the interiors created or restored after the fire of 1837 by A.P. Bryullov have come down to us in their original form.

On February 5, 1880, SN Khalturin, a member of the Narodnaya Volya, set off an explosion in the Winter Palace with the aim of assassinating Alexander II. At the same time, eight soldiers from the guard were killed and forty-five were wounded, but neither the emperor nor his family members were injured.

In the late 19th - early 20th centuries, the interior design was constantly changing and supplemented with new elements. These, in particular, are the interiors of the apartments of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II, created according to the projects of G.A. Bosse (Red Boudoir) and V.A. Krasovsky). Among the renovated interiors, the most interesting was the decoration of the Nicholas Hall, which contained a large equestrian portrait of Emperor Nicholas I by the artist F. Kruger.

For a long time, the Winter Palace was the residence of the Russian emperors. After the murder of Alexander II by terrorists, Emperor Alexander III moved his residence to Gatchina. From that moment on, only especially solemn ceremonies were held in the Winter Palace. With the accession to the throne of Nicholas II in 1894, the imperial family returned to the palace.

The most significant changes in the history of the Winter Palace took place in 1917, when the Bolsheviks came to power. A lot of valuables were plundered and damaged by sailors and workers while the palace was under their control. The former chambers of Alexander III were damaged by a direct hit from a shell fired from a gun at the Peter and Paul Fortress. Only a few days later, the Soviet government declared the Winter Palace and the Hermitage state museums and took the buildings under protection. Soon the valuable palace property and collections of the Hermitage were sent to Moscow and hidden in the Kremlin and in the building of the Historical Museum.

An interesting story is connected with the October Revolution in the Winter Palace: after the storming of the palace, the Red Guard, who was entrusted with placing guards to guard the Winter Palace, decided to familiarize himself with the arrangement of the guards in pre-revolutionary times. He was surprised to learn that one of the posts had long been located on an unremarkable alley of the palace garden (the royal family called it "Own" and under this name the garden was known to Petersburgers). An inquisitive Red Guard found out the history of this post. It turned out that once Tsarina Catherine II, having come out in the morning to the Draw ground, saw a sprouting flower there. So that he would not be trampled by soldiers and passers-by, Catherine, returning from a walk, ordered a guard to be set up at the flower. And when the flower withered, the queen forgot to cancel her order on the presence of the guard in this place. And since then, for about a hundred and a half years, there was a guard at this place, although there was no longer a flower, no Tsarina Catherine, or even a Draw ground.

In 1918, part of the premises of the Winter Palace was given over to the Museum of the Revolution, which entailed the reconstruction of their interiors. The Romanov Gallery, which contained portraits of the sovereigns and members of the Romanov dynasty, was completely liquidated. Many chambers of the palace occupied a reception center for prisoners of war, a children's colony, a headquarters for organizing mass celebrations, etc. The coat of arms was used for theatrical performances, the Nicholas Hall was converted into a cinema. In addition, congresses and conferences of various public organizations have been held in the halls of the palace.

When at the end of 1920 the Hermitage and palace collections returned from Moscow to Petrograd, there was simply no room for many of them. As a result, hundreds of paintings and sculptures were used to decorate the mansions and apartments of party, Soviet and military leaders, rest homes for officials and their families. Since 1922, the premises of the Winter Palace began to be gradually transferred to the Hermitage.

In the early days of the Great Patriotic War, many of the Hermitage's treasures were urgently evacuated, some of them were hidden in basements. To prevent fires in the buildings of the museum, the windows were bricked up or shuttered. In some rooms, the parquet floors were covered with a layer of sand.

The Winter Palace was a major target. A large number of bombs and shells exploded near him, and several hit the building itself. So, on December 29, 1941, a shell crashed into the southern wing of the Winter Palace, overlooking the kitchen yard, damaging the iron rafters and roofing on an area of ​​three hundred square meters, destroying the fire-fighting water supply installation in the attic. An attic vaulted ceiling with an area of ​​about six square meters was pierced. Another shell that hit the rostrum in front of the Winter Palace damaged the water main.

Despite the difficult conditions that existed in the besieged city, the Leningrad City Executive Committee on May 4, 1942 ordered construction trust No. 16 to carry out urgent restoration work in the Hermitage, in which emergency restoration workshops took part. In the summer of 1942, they blocked the roof in places where it was damaged by shells, partially fixed the formwork, installed broken skylights or iron sheets, replaced the destroyed metal rafters with temporary wooden ones, and repaired the plumbing system.

On May 12, 1943, a bomb hit the Winter Palace building, partially destroying the roof over the St. George Hall and metal truss structures, and damaged the brickwork of the walls in the storeroom of the Department of the History of Russian Culture. In the summer of 1943, despite the shelling, they continued to seal the roof and ceilings with tarred plywood, and skylights. On January 2, 1944, another shell hit the Armorial Hall, severely damaging the decoration and destroying two ceilings. The shell also pierced the ceiling of the Nikolaev Hall. But already in August 1944, the Soviet government decided to restore all the buildings of the museum. The restoration work required enormous efforts and took many years to complete. But, despite all the losses, the Winter Palace remains an outstanding monument of Baroque architecture.

Today, the Winter Palace, together with the buildings of the Small, Big and New Hermitages and the Hermitage Theater, forms a single palace complex, which has few equal in world architecture. In terms of art and town planning, it belongs to the highest achievements of Russian architecture. All the halls of this palace ensemble, built over many years, are occupied by the State Hermitage - the largest museum in the world with huge collections of works of art.

In the appearance of the Winter Palace, created, as the decree on its construction said, "for the common glory of all-Russian", in its elegant, festive form, in the magnificent decor of its facades, the artistic and compositional idea of ​​the architect Rastrelli is revealed - a deep architectural connection with the city on the Neva, became the capital of the Russian Empire, with all the character of the surrounding urban landscape, which is preserved to this day.

Palace Square

Any tour of the Winter Palace begins at Palace Square. It has its own history, which is no less interesting than the history of the Winter Palace itself. The square was formed in 1754 during the construction of the Winter Palace, designed by V. Rastrelli. An important role in its formation was played by C.I. Rossi, who in 1819-1829 created the General Staff building and the Ministry building and connected them into a single whole with the magnificent Arc de Triomphe. The Alexander Column took its place in the Palace Square ensemble in 1830-1834, in honor of the victory in the war of 1812. It is noteworthy that V. Rastrelli intended to place a monument to Peter I in the center of the square. The building of the Headquarters of the Guards Corps, created in 1837-1843 by the architect A.P. Bryullov, completes the ensemble of Palace Square.

The palace was conceived and built in the form of a closed quadrangle, with an extensive courtyard. The Winter Palace is rather big and stands out clearly from the surrounding houses.

Countless white columns sometimes gather in groups (especially picturesque and expressive at the corners of the building), sometimes thin and part, opening windows framed by platbands with lion masks and cupid heads. There are dozens of decorative vases and statues on the balustrade. The corners of the building are bordered by columns and pilasters.

Each facade of the Winter Palace is made in its own way. The northern facade, facing the Neva, stretches out as a more or less flat wall, without noticeable protrusions. The southern facade, overlooking the Palace Square and having seven divisions, is the main one. Its center is cut through by three entrance arches. Is there a front yard behind them? where in the middle of the northern building was the main entrance to the palace. Of the side facades, the western one is more interesting, facing the Admiralty and the square on which Rastrelli intended to erect the equestrian statue of Peter I cast by his father. Each platband decorating the palace is unique. This is due to the fact that the mass, consisting of a mixture of crushed brick and lime mortar, was cut and processed by hand. All the stucco decorations of the facades were made on the spot.

The Winter Palace was always painted in bright colors. The original color of the palace was pink-yellow, as can be seen from the drawings of the 18th - first quarter of the 19th century.

From indoor spaces the palace, created by Rastrelli, retained the baroque appearance of the Jordan Staircase and partly the Great Church. The main staircase is located in the northeast corner of the building. On it you can see various details of the decor - columns, mirrors, statues, intricate gilded stucco moldings, a huge plafond created by Italian painters. The staircase, divided into two solemn marches, led to the main, Northern suite, which consisted of five large halls, a Fragment of the Jordan Staircase behind which in the northwestern projection was a huge Throne Hall, and in the southwestern part - the Palace Theater.

The Great Church, located in the southeast corner of the building, also deserves special attention. Initially, the church was consecrated in honor of the Resurrection of Christ (1762) and a second time - in the name of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands (1763). Its walls are decorated with stucco molding - an elegant floral ornament. The three-tiered iconostasis is decorated with icons and picturesque panels depicting biblical scenes. Evangelists on the vaults of the ceiling were later painted by F.A. Bruni. Now, nothing reminds of the former purpose of the church hall, destroyed in the 1920s, except for a golden dome and a large picturesque plafond by F. Fonte-basso, depicting the Resurrection of Christ.

White Hall

It was created by A.P. Bryullov in place of a number of rooms that had three semicircular windows on the front in the center and three rectangular windows on the sides. This circumstance led the architect to the idea of ​​dividing the room into three compartments and highlighting the middle one with a particularly magnificent treatment. The hall is separated from the side parts by arches on protruding pylons decorated with pilasters, while the central window and the opposite door are accentuated by Corinthian columns, above which are placed four statues - female figures representing the arts. The hall is covered with semicircular vaults. The wall opposite the central windows is designed with an arcature, and above each semicircle are placed in pairs the bas-relief figures of Juno and Jupiter, Diana and Apollo, Ceres and Mercury and other deities of Olympus.

The vault and all parts of the ceiling above the cornice are processed with caissons with stucco molding in the same late classical style saturated with decorative elements.

The side compartments are decorated in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Here, under the common crowning cornice, a second smaller order with Tuscan pilasters covered with small stucco with grotesque ornaments was introduced. Above the pilasters there is a wide frieze with figures of children engaged in music and dancing, hunting and fishing, harvesting and winemaking, or playing sailing and war. Such a connection architectural elements Different scales and overload of the hall with ornamentation are characteristic of the classicism of the 1830s, but the white color gives the hall integrity.

George Hall and the Military Gallery

Experts call the Georgievsky, or the Great Throne Hall, designed by Quarenghi as the most perfect interior. In order to create the St. George Hall, a special building had to be attached to the center of the eastern facade of the palace. Colored marble and gilded bronze were used in the design of this room, which enriched the front suite. At the end of it, on a dais, there used to be a large throne, executed by the master P. Azhi. Others participated in the work on the design of the palace interiors. famous architects... In 1826, according to the project of K. I. Rossi, the Military Gallery was built in front of the St. George Hall.

The military gallery is a kind of monument to the heroic military past of the Russian people. It contains 332 portraits of generals, participants in the Patriotic War of 1812 and the foreign campaign of 1813-1814. The portraits were performed by the famous English artist J. Doe with the participation of Russian painters A.V. Polyakov and V.A.Golike. Most of the portraits were executed from nature, but since in 1819, when work began, many were no longer alive, some portraits were painted from earlier, preserved images. The gallery occupies a place of honor in the palace and is directly adjacent to the St. George Hall. The architect K.I.Rossi, who built it, destroyed the six small rooms that had previously existed here. The gallery was illuminated through glazed openings in the vaults supported by arches. The arches rested on groups of double columns that stood against the longitudinal walls. On the plane of the walls, portraits were arranged in simple gilded frames in five rows. On one of the end walls, under a canopy, there was an equestrian portrait of Alexander I by J. Doe. After the fire of 1837, it was replaced by the same portrait by F. Kruger, it is his painting that is in the hall today, on the sides of it there is an image of King Frederick Wilhelm III of Prussia, also executed by Kruger, and a portrait of the Austrian Emperor Franz I by P. Kraft. If you look at the door leading to the St. George Hall, you can see Dow's portraits of field marshals M.I.Kutuzov and M. B. Barclay de Tolly on either side of it.

In the 1830s, A.S. Pushkin often visited the gallery. He immortalized her in the poem "The Leader", dedicated to Barclay de Tolly:

The Russian Tsar has a chamber in his palaces:
She is not rich in gold, not velvet;
But from top to bottom, full length, all around,
With my brush free and wide
It was painted by a fast-paced artist.
There are no rural nymphs, no virgin madonnas,
No fauns with cups, no full-breasted wives,
No dances, no hunts, but all the cloaks and swords,
Yes, faces full of belligerent courage.
In a crowded crowd, the artist placed
Here the chiefs of our people's forces,
Covered in the glory of a wonderful march
AND eternal memory twelfth year.

The fire of 1837 did not spare the gallery either, however, fortunately, all the portraits were taken out by the soldiers of the guards regiments.

V.P. Stasov, who restored the gallery, basically retained its former character: he repeated the treatment of the walls with double Corinthian columns, left the same arrangement of the portraits, retained the color scheme. But some details of the composition of the hall have been changed. Stasov lengthened the gallery by 12 meters. Above the wide crowning cornice, a balcony was placed for passage to the choirs of adjacent halls, for which the arches resting on columns, rhythmically breaking the too long vault into parts, were eliminated.

After the Great Patriotic War, the gallery was restored, and it additionally contains four portraits of the palace grenadiers, veterans who went through the company of 1812-1814 as ordinary soldiers. These works were also performed by J. Doe.

Petrovsky hall

Peter's Hall is also known as the Small Throne Hall. Decorated with special splendor in the spirit of late classicism, it was created in 1833 by the architect A.A. Montferrand. After the fire, the hall was restored by V.P. Stasov, and its original appearance has been preserved almost unchanged. The main difference between the later decoration is associated with the treatment of the walls. Previously, the panel on the side walls was divided by one pilaster, now there are two of them. There was no border around each panel, a large double-headed eagle in the center, and bronze gilded double-headed eagles of the same size were fixed in diagonal directions on the crimson velvet upholstery.

The hall is dedicated to the memory of Peter I. The crossed Latin monograms of Peter, double-headed eagles and crowns are included in the motives of the stucco ornament of the capitals of the columns and pilasters, the frieze on the walls, in the ceiling painting and decoration of the entire hall. On two walls there are images of the Poltava battle and the battle near Lesnaya, in the center of the compositions is the figure of Peter I (artists - B. Medici and P. Scotti).

Well, let's start with the most magnificent and most important royal palace- Winter!

The Winter Palace, according to the architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was created "... for the glory of the All-Russia" and was supposed to personify the greatness and strength of Russia, which became a powerful European power in the middle of the 18th century.


In 1754, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna approved the project of a new residence, proposed by the leading architect of the Russian baroque Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli.

The construction of the palace lasted eight long years, which fell on the sunset of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and the short reign of Peter III. In the fall of 1763, Catherine II, returning from Moscow to St. Petersburg after the coronation celebrations, became the sovereign mistress of the Winter Palace.
The creation of the ceremonial residence, which, according to the plan of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, was to overshadow the palaces of European monarchs with its splendor, required huge money and a huge number of workers.

About 4,000 people worked at this construction site; the best masters from all over the country were gathered here. The decoration of the ceremonial halls and apartments of the palace, the number of which, according to the testimony of its creator, was more than 460, was distinguished by extraordinary luxury.

The Winter Palace amazes with its grandeur of scale, richness and variety of decor and, at the same time, the integrity and proportionality of its parts. In this building, a vivid expression of the features of the work of Rastrelli, the creator of the Russian baroque style, was found: the stately splendor of the forms, the utmost saturation with decorative details, the irrepressible striving for brightness, splendor, and majesty. The architect decided the palace as an urban structure - a colossal enclosed volume with an inner courtyard and free facades that are not adjacent to any other buildings. The main facade, facing the Palace Square, has three mighty projections. The widest of them, the middle one, is cut through by three arched doorways leading to the huge front yard. The carriages of the Empress or her guests, passing the sentries, drove up to the main entrance, located in the northern building.

The facades of the palace are decorated with the variety and inventiveness inherent in Rastrelli's work, the entire system of decorations emphasized the unusual height of the building in those days - it dominated the city. The architect visually enhanced this impression by arranging the columns in two tiers one above the other. At the level of the roof, crowning the palace, there was a balustrade with decorative stone sculptures and vases continuing the vertical lines of the columns. Initially, the walls of the palace were painted with light yellow paint, and the decor and columns were highlighted in white, which can be seen in the drawings and paintings of the 18th - first quarter of the 19th century.

The interior layout of the building was clear and logical. The main premises of the palace - the main staircase, throne room, cathedral and theater - were to be located in four corner buildings (risalits). Connecting them, the remaining large and small halls, living rooms, galleries, storerooms were located - in total, according to the author himself, more than four hundred and sixty.

The ceremonial interiors of the second floor were designed in the Russian Baroque style of the mid-18th century. It is characterized by an enfilade structure of ceremonial chambers, huge halls flooded with light, double rows of large windows and mirrors, and lush rocaille decor. At present, only some of the interiors of the palace give an idea of ​​the original decoration of the halls, created according to Rastrelli's drawings. Among them is the Main Staircase, which was called the Ambassador Staircase in the 18th century.

Restoring the staircase after the fire of 1837, the architect V.P. Stasov kept Rastrelli's plan and repeated the composition almost unchanged. As in the 18th century, the height of the huge gilded room, permeated with streams of light, is visually enlarged by the skillful perspective of the picturesque plafond. Stasov included in the composition of the ceiling a plafond of the 18th century depicting Olympus, found in the storerooms of the Imperial Hermitage. In the second tier, statues rise on pedestals near paired pilasters: Loyalty, Justice, Wisdom, Greatness, Abundance, Justice, as well as Mercury and the Muse. The composition is based on the lower tier of the staircase with ornamented walls.

V.P. Stasov used decorative means of the Baroque style, but made some changes to the appearance of the stairs. Instead of wooden columns faced with pink marble, monolithic columns of gray Serdobol granite were erected, carved gilded balusters of the railings were replaced with a marble balustrade, and white and gold began to prevail throughout the room. One of the contemporaries of the restoration of the palace wrote that Stasov's decoration of the staircase, "not deviating in its forms from Rastrelli's style, was admirably ennobled by the new concept of art in relation to purity, relief and correctness of drawing."

Reviving the Big Church after the fire, V.P. Stasov was guided by the few surviving drawings and drawings by B.F. Rastrelli.

The interior created by him testifies to a deep penetration into the uniqueness of the Baroque. The large church was one of the most opulent accommodations in the Winter Palace. Everything in her decoration is permeated with secular cheerfulness and solemn elation. The walls of the church are decorated with whimsical curling ornaments and fluttering naked "putti".

The carving and painting of the iconostasis are harmoniously combined with the painting and molding of sails and walls. The composition is completed by a plafond on the theme of "The Resurrection of Christ". WITH closest approach to the original appearance, the interior of the Pre-Church Hall was recreated by the architect.

The decoration of the Great Throne (Georgievsky) Hall was almost completely destroyed in the fire. However, drawings, engravings and drawings give enough full presentation about the decoration of this hall, created by G. Quarenghi in 1787 - 1795, - one of the best examples of the ceremonial interior of the era of Russian classicism. The huge two-story hall with twin columns of the Corinthian order was unusually spectacular. Stasov fully retained the architectural divisions and proportions of the Quarenghi hall, and, nevertheless, gave the interior a completely different character. Instead of polished columns of colored marble, columns of white Carrara marble appeared, the walls of which are also covered with slabs. Instead of stucco medallions in the second tier, there are paired marble pilasters. Instead of painted plafonds with images of soaring figures against the background of a cloudless sky and allegorical scenes on ancient subjects, there is a coffered ceiling with cast, chased, gilded rods and bronze ornaments. It was a bold engineering decision to construct not a wooden ceiling, as usual, but a copper ceiling suspended from iron structures.

The austere and stately architecture of the St. George Hall was consonant with the solemnity of the official ceremonies that took place here until the end of the reign of the Romanov dynasty.

The Winter Palace created by F.B. Rastrelli, a true masterpiece of Russian architecture of the 18th century, defined the unique architectural appearance of the palace ensemble on the banks of the Neva. Each reign became a new stage in the life of the grand royal residence. The interiors of the palace, created by the most famous architects of the 18th-19th centuries, reflected the change architectural styles and artistic tastes from different eras.