The history of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, as well as many other buildings in this city, begins during the reign of Tsar Peter I. In 1711, something like a winter residence, which was called the Winter Palace, was built for the king. 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 voyage.
Second Winter Palace
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. So the famous Winter Palaces of St. Petersburg appeared. The second palace was built right next to the first designed by architect I. Matarnovi. The palace was only a little larger than the first, but it was built of stone, but its most remarkable thing 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 personally look at place of the death of the king.
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 truly large and magnificent. The Second Winter Palace became the western wing, and the Hermitage Theater is now located on the site of the main building of the third. You can tell a lot about the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and this is only a small fraction of the entire great history.
Fourth palace
Among historians, the fourth palace is associated with the name of Anna Ivanovna. The picky empress was unhappy that some Admiral Apraksin had a bigger and richer palace than hers ... However, he was not big enough and beautiful for her Majesty. Architect F. Rastrelli solved this problem as follows: he attached 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 grand palace with two beautiful facades. Rastrelli was a truly talented architect.
Fifth and sixth milestone
The Fifth Palace was just a temporary, not very lush wooden haven, which was also located far from the banks of the Neva. But the sixth palace was truly indescribably grandiose. In general, all the Winter Palaces of St. Petersburg were innovative for their time. This time, the chief architect had an almost unbeatable task: to develop a palace design and bring it to 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 construction needs. But the chief engineer F. Rastrelli understood that for two years he could not cope, and constantly asked for an extension of the term. In the end, with great difficulty, he managed to get the Empress to extend for a year.
Creative genius F. Rastrelli
In the end, it turned out a full-fledged Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. A brief description of it is as follows: a gigantic sized work of art. The palace had two facades: one overlooking 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 ingenious F. Rastrelli perfectly thought out the internal layout of the palace. It consisted of three floors. On the first floor there were office premises, on the second floor there were ceremonial halls and two churches, and the third floor was allocated entirely for courtiers. In total, there were 460 different rooms in the palace, which were distinguished by stunning finishes. 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 demise, so she wanted the design of her palace to be completed as soon as possible. However, she died in the temporary fifth wooden palace, without having seen her Winter Palace.
In 1761, the palace was "captured" by Tsar Peter III. He was extremely pleased with such a work of architectural art and decided to award F. Rastrelli the rank of major general. However, Catherine II 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 specialty.
A little bit 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 most were located in huts directly on the Admiralty meadows. The sellers of that part of the city, seeing all this excitement, overestimated the prices of food, and deducted the payment for food from the salaries of workers. It often happened that a worker remained in debt to his employer after paying a 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 resources from the state. At that time, Russia fought with Prussia, there was no one to forge weapons, for 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 at the Winter Palace
In 1837 a terrible bad weather happened - the beautiful Winter Palace broke out! The cause of the disaster was the breakdown of the chimney. The scope of the fire was truly colossal - 30 hours it was extinguished by several battalions of guards regiments, two companies of palace firefighters, a company of palace grenadiers and hundreds of “combat units”. Trying to save the property of the palace, the soldiers frantically laid the doors with bricks, trying to stop the fire, dismantled the roof in parts in order to be able to pour water from above, but this did not bring any real benefit.
Restoration of the palace
When the fire finally died down, it was possible to find out only the walls and arches of the first floor - everything else was deformed beyond recognition. In 1837, restoration work began, which ended only three years later (recall that in the same time the Winter Palace was built from scratch). And this despite the fact that every day 10 thousand workers participated in the work. A huge amount of time has passed since the initial design of the palace, a significant part of the drawings was lost, and then architects had to improvise. As a result, the winter palaces of St. Petersburg have significantly changed, having acquired 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 periodically meeting gold ornaments.
Electrification and internal modernization
Over the time period 1869-1888, palaces are being modernized in every way: they are telephonized, electrified, gasified, and water pipelines are installed. By the way, to electrify the Winter Palace, a power station was built on its second floor, which for 15 years was considered the largest in Europe.
Under the influence of various modes, the palace was repeatedly subjected to modernization of the interior and painting the walls. There is no such color on the spectrum of the rainbow, which the Winter Palace did not tint at the time. For example, during the Second World War the palace had a warlike, richly red color.
Winter Palace today
On this the story of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg comes to an end. Nowadays, it exists in an alliance with theaters adjacent to it and, together with them, forms the single complex “The State Hermitage”. This is the latest, eighth version. An idle and incredibly sophisticated look 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 excursions. The description of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg from the lips of an experienced historian is truly mesmerizing. Tourists have the right to admire the beautifully decorated throne room of St. George, the Golden Living Room or the elegant Boudoir, replete with a huge number of mirrors and gold ornaments. It is also worth visiting Malachite living room with rich green columns and a majestic concert hall. It also has an art gallery with many original works.