The history of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, like many other buildings in this city, begins during the reign of Tsar Peter I. In 1711, something like a winter residence was built for the Tsar, which was called the Winter Palace. It was a tiny two-story house with a tiled roof and a high porch with steps. The history of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is quite multi-stage and interesting. Well, it's time to start this historic journey.
Second Winter Palace
As the years passed, the city grew rapidly, and more and more people close to the emperor (that is, the king) began to build their own estates in St. Petersburg. Peter I, of course, also wanted a magnificent holiday home. This is how the famous Winter Palaces of St. Petersburg appeared. The second palace was built right next to the first one according to the project of the architect I. Matarnovi. The palace was only a little larger than the first, but it was built of stone, but its greatest noteworthy is that it was here that Tsar Peter I died in 1725. Information about the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg has been preserved so reliably that any tourist can personallylook at the place where the king died.
Third Winter Palace
Architect D. Trezzini took up the modernization of the second Winter Palace almost immediately after the death of the king. The building turned out to be really big and majestic. The second Winter Palace became the western wing, and the Hermitage Theater is now located on the site of the main premises of the third. A lot can be said about the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and this is only a small part of the whole great story.
Fourth Palace
Historians associate the fourth palace with the name of Anna Ioannovna. The fastidious Empress was unhappy that some Admiral Apraksin's palace was larger and richer than hers… However, it was not big enough and beautiful enough for Her Majesty. The architect F. Rastrelli solved this problem in the following way: he added a long building to the existing third palace. This building was called the Fourth Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. A brief description of the structure is as follows: a grandiose palace with two beautiful facades. Rastrelli was a truly talented architect.
Fifth and sixth milestone
The Fifth Palace was just a temporary, not very luxurious wooden haven, which, moreover, was located far from the banks of the Neva. But the sixth palace was truly indescribably grandiose. In general, all the Winter Palaces in St. Petersburg were innovative for their time. This time, the chief architect faced an almost invincible task: to develop a project for the palace and implement it.his life in two years! Such was the whim of the then Empress Elizabeth!
Thousands of artisans, painters, casters and many others worked on the sixth palace. Huge areas and resources were allocated for the needs of construction. But the chief engineer F. Rastrelli understood that he could not manage in two years, and constantly asked for an extension of the term. In the end, with great difficulty, he managed to get an extension for a year from the Empress.
The creative genius of F. Rastrelli
In the end, we got a full-fledged Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. A brief description of it is as follows: a gigantic work of art. The palace had two facades: one overlooked the square, the other - to the Neva. In warm seasons, the palace is reflected in the waters of the river, which greatly increases the effect.
The brilliant F. Rastrelli thought out the interior layout of the palace perfectly. It consisted of three floors. On the first floor there were office premises, on the second - front halls and two churches, and the third floor was allocated entirely for the courtiers. In general, there were 460 different rooms in the palace, which were distinguished by stunning decoration. Perhaps it is thanks to the creative research of F. Rastrelli that we can safely say that the key attraction of St. Petersburg is the Winter Palace.
The death of the Empress and the new owner of the palace
Empress Elizabeth, apparently, subconsciously felt the impending death, so she wanted the project of her palacecompleted as quickly as possible. However, she passed away in the temporary fifth wooden palace without seeing her Winter Palace.
In 1761, Tsar Peter III "captured" the palace. He was extremely pleased with such a work of architectural art and decided to honor F. Rastrelli with the rank of major general. However, Catherine II, who ascended the throne in 1962, ruined the career of the great architect, and he had to emigrate to Italy, where he also continued to work in his speci alty.
A little about the construction process
As mentioned above, thousands of serfs were involved in the construction. Only a tiny fraction of them were given the right to spend the night and live in the premises of the Winter Palace, while the majority were located in huts right on the Admir alty meadows. The sellers of that part of the city, seeing all this excitement, inflated the prices of products, and deducted the payment for food from the salaries of the workers. It often happened that a worker remained indebted to his employer after paying his salary. They say that some masons even starved to death, the conditions were so brutal. The winter palaces of St. Petersburg, like the Great Wall of China, demanded a fair share of the state's resources. At that time, Russia was at war with Prussia, and there was simply no one to forge tools, because most of the blacksmiths were involved in the construction of the Winter Palace.
The construction of the Winter Palace cost about 2.5 million rubles, and in those days the ruble was a very valuable currency.
Fire in the Winter Palace
In 1837a terrible bad weather happened - the beautiful Winter Palace flared up! The cause of the disaster was a broken chimney. The scale of the fire was truly colossal - for 30 hours it was extinguished by several battalions of guards regiments, two companies of palace firefighters, a company of palace grenadiers and hundreds more "combat units". In an attempt to save the property of the palace, the soldiers desperately blocked the doors with bricks, trying to stop the fire, dismantled the roof in parts to be able to pour water from above, but this did not bring any actual benefit.
Restoration of the palace
When the fire finally subsided, only the walls and vaults of the first floor could be recognized - everything else was deformed beyond recognition. In 1837, restoration work began, which ended only three years later (recall that during the same time the Winter Palace was built from scratch). And this despite the fact that 10 thousand workers participated in the work every day. A huge amount of time has passed since the initial design of the palace, a significant part of the drawings was lost, and the then architects had to improvise. As a result, the winter palaces of St. Petersburg have been significantly transformed, acquiring the features of modern architecture. So, in fact, the "seventh version" of the palace appeared. The description of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is as follows: a white-green appearance with a huge number of columns and occasional golden ornaments.
Electrification and internal modernization
In the time period of 1869-1888, palaces are modernized in every possible way: they install telephones, electrify,gasify, conduct water pipes. By the way, to electrify the Winter Palace, a power plant was built on its second floor, which for 15 years was considered the largest in Europe.
Under the influence of different fashions, the palace was repeatedly modernized and the walls were painted. There is no such color on the spectrum of the rainbow that the Winter Palace was not painted in its time. For example, during the Second World War, the palace had a martial deep red color.
The Winter Palace today
This story of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg comes to an end. Today it exists in alliance with the theaters adjacent to it and together with them forms a single complex "The State Hermitage Museum". This is the last, eighth version. The idle and incredibly sophisticated view gives the right to confidently declare that the key attraction of St. Petersburg is the Winter Palace.
Now the magnificent Winter Palace is open for visits and historical tours. The description of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg from the lips of an experienced historian is truly fascinating. Tourists have the right to admire the beautifully finished St. George's Throne Hall, the Golden Living Room or the elegant Boudoir, replete with a huge number of mirrors and gold ornaments. Also worth seeing is the Malachite Living Room with rich green columns and the majestic concert hall. It also has an art gallery with many original pieces.
