Amazing St. Petersburg: Labor Square

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

St. Petersburg is a city that, thanks to the ideas of Peter I, inherited the European tradition of regular planning, when straight streets intersect with straight main highways at clear angles, and spacious squares are formed at their intersection. Europe also inherited this tradition from its predecessor - the Great Roman Empire. But even more interesting is that before Rome, regular planning was found in cities of more ancient civilizations - Mesopotamia, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, etc. One of the squares organized near the historical center of St. Petersburg in a very important place for the city was Labor Square. There is no Ploshchad Truda metro station in St. Petersburg yet. Accordingly, you have to get there by land transport.

Where is Labor Square in St. Petersburg?

The area is located in the Admir alteisky district. Once upon a time on the left bank of the Neva on Admir alteysky Island, not far from the forestwarehouses of New Holland, which appeared in the first quarter of the 18th century, a convict house was built for rowers of galleys. By the way, galleys - rowing military vessels, were released nearby - at the Galernaya (or Skampavey) shipyard, which was located at the bottom of the Promenade des Anglais.

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How to get to Truda Square in St. Petersburg? The best way to do this is from Nevsky Prospekt: in the area of Malaya Morskaya Street, trolleybuses and fixed-route taxis go towards the square. But the tram rails, previously laid here, have long been dismantled.

History of three names

The territory bore the name "Square of Labor" in the Soviet period. They renamed it back, returning the historical name, in the 90s. due to the trend of bringing back old titles.

The very first name of the square was Blagoveshchenskaya. She received this name in the 1830s. along the main dominant - the Church of the Annunciation, built here in 1830

The second name - "Nikolaevskaya" - the square received after the Grand Duke's Palace, built here in the 1860s.

In Soviet times, namely in 1918, the square became known as Labor Square, because that is how it was renamed in connection with its new functional purposenationalized Nicholas Palace.

Lost Monument

We will talk about the aforementioned Annunciation Church, which until the Soviet era was an important spiritual and high-rise dominant of the ensemble of Labor Square in St. Petersburg. This is one of the most unique creations of Konstantin Ton, erected in the neo-Byzantine style. It was built for the Horse Guards and was destroyed in 1929

Being a five-domed church, the church had tent structures under the domes, and the central one was much larger than the others.

The façade of the church was decorated with corner beams of tripled columns, parts of the wall were decorated with kokoshniks, pediments, facing with Putilov stone and Finnish granite, as well as bas-reliefs designed by N. Ramazanov.

This amazing religious building had an underground temple and a necropolis, which were destroyed along with the foundations during the construction of the underpass. So the memory of the church on Labor Square in St. Petersburg, unfortunately, remained only in old engravings and photographs.

Saved in time

The most interesting and striking monument of the planning ensemble of Labor Square in St. Petersburg is the Nicholas Grand Duke's Palace.

Built by Andrey Ivanovich Shtakenshneider for Nikolai, the eldest of the sons of Nicholas I, the mansion became a decoration of the territory. Erected in the eclectic architectural style, it resembled a Renaissance palazzo with its light semi-circular arcades of windows, an extended front porch withgently sloping steps descending into the court-courtyard, with the division of the facade by cornices into horizontal tiers like a layer cake.

In the first half of the 18th century, the buildings of the Rope Yard were located in its place, and by the end of the same century, the Naval Barracks replaced the Rope Yard.

Nikolaev Palace was equipped with the latest technology. It had lightning rods, a mahogany elevator, a telegraph for communication with the Winter Palace and the General Staff, and a sewerage and water supply system perfect for those times. A garden adjoined the palace. A glacier was arranged in the very center of the garden.

According to the traditions of the era, the palace had its own temple in the name of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow". By order of the owner, a copy of the cave of the Holy Sepulcher was built.

At the direction of the son of Grand Duke Alexei Nikolaevich, after the death of the owner, the Kseninsky Institute for orphaned girls was opened in the palace building. In Soviet times, the issue of organizing a trade union palace here was considered. Still, it was not placed on Labor Square in St. Petersburg. We decided to open it in another historical building - the Yusupov Mansion.