The history of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, likemany other buildings in this city, begins during the reign of Tsar Peter I. In 1711, for the king built something like a winter residence, which was nicknamed the Winter Palace. It was a tiny two-story house with a roof made of shingles and a tall porch with steps. The history of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is rather multi-stage and interesting. Well, it's time to begin this historic voyage.
Years passed, the city grew rapidly, and everythingmore 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. Thus appeared the famous Winter Palace of St. Petersburg. The second palace was built right next to the first by the architect I. Matarnovi. The palace was only slightly larger than the first, but it was built of stone, but its greatest notice is that it was here in 1725 that Tsar Peter I died. Information about the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg has been preserved so reliably that any tourist can personally look at place of death of the king.
Architect D.Trezini began to modernize 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 on the place of the main premise of the third is now the Hermitage Theater. About the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg you can tell a lot, and this is only a small part of the whole great history.
Historians associate the fourth palace withthe name of Anna Ioannovna. The fastidious Empress was dissatisfied with the fact that some Admiral Apraksin's palace was bigger and richer than hers ... However, it was not big enough and beautiful for Her Majesty. The architect F. Rastrelli solved this problem as follows: he attached a long body to the existing third palace. This structure was named "The Fourth Winter Palace in St. Petersburg". The brief description of the structure is as follows: a grand palace with two beautiful facades. Rastrelli was a truly talented architect.
The fifth palace was only temporary, not verya magnificent wooden retreat, which, moreover, was located far from the banks of the Neva. But the sixth palace was really inexpressibly grandiose. In general, all the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg was innovative for its time. This time, the chief architect was faced with an almost unconquerable task: to develop a palace project and implement it in two years' time! Such was the whim of the then Empress Elizabeth!
Over the sixth palace thousands of artisans worked,painters, casters and many others. Huge areas and resources were allocated for construction. But the chief engineer F. Rastrelli understood that in two years he could not manage, and constantly asked for an extension of the term. In the end, with great difficulty, he managed to get the empress renewed for a year.
In the end it turned out to be a full-fledged WinterPalace in St. Petersburg. A brief description of it is as follows: a giant work of art. The palace had two facades: one went to the square, the other - to the Neva. In warmer times the palace is reflected in the waters of the river, which multiplies the effect many times.
The ingenious F.Rastrelli thought out the interior layout of the palace. It consisted of three floors. On the first there were office spaces, on the second - the main halls and two churches, and the third floor was allocated entirely for the courtiers. On the whole, there were 460 different rooms in the palace, which featured an amazing finish. 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.
Empress Elizabeth, apparently subconsciouslyfelt the impending death, so I wanted her palace project to be completed as soon as possible. However, she died in the temporary fifth wooden palace, and did not see 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 title of Major-General. However, ascended to the throne in 1962, Catherine II destroyed the career of a great architect, and he had to emigrate to Italy, where he also continued to work in his specialty.
As already mentioned above, in the constructionthousands of serfs are involved. Only a tiny fraction of them was given the right to spend the night and live in the Winter Palace, most of them were located in huts right on the Admiralty meadows. The sellers of that part of the city, seeing all this excitement, overstated prices for food, and the payment for food was deducted from the salaries of the workers. Often it also happened that the worker remained in debt to his employer after paying his salary. They say that some masons even died of hunger, so brutal were the conditions. Winter palaces of St. Petersburg, like the Great Wall of China, demanded a fair amount of resources from the state. At that time Russia was at war with Prussia, there was no one to forge the guns, for most 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.
In 1837 there was a terrible bad weather -the beautiful Winter Palace broke out! The cause of the disaster was the failure of the chimney. The magnitude of the fire were truly colossal - 30 hours it was extinguished several battalions of the Guards regiments, two companies of the palace fire, a company of palace grenadiers and hundreds "of units." Trying to save the palace property, the soldiers desperately laying bricks door, trying to stop the fire, the roof dismantled piece by piece, to be able to pour water on top, but the actual use is not brought.
When the fire finally subsided, it was possible to find outonly the walls and vaults of the ground floor - everything else is deformed beyond recognition. In 1837, restoration work was begun, which ended only three years later (we recall that during the same time the Winter Palace was built from scratch). And this despite the fact that 10,000 workers took part in the work every day. Since the original design of the palace a lot of time has passed, a significant part of the drawings was lost, and then the architects had to improvise. As a result, the winter palaces of St. Petersburg have significantly changed, having acquired the features of modern architecture. Thus appeared, in fact, the "seventh version" of the palace. The description of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is as follows: white-green appearance with a huge number of columns and periodically encountered gold ornaments.
In the time interval of 1869-1888palaces in every way modernize: telephonize, electrify, gasify, conduct water pipes. By the way, to electrify the Winter Palace on its second floor a power station was built, which for 15 years was considered to be the largest in Europe.
Under the influence of different modes, the palace repeatedlywas subjected to modernization of the interior and painting of the walls. There is no such color on the spectrum of the rainbow, which did not paint the Winter Palace in its time. For example, during the Second World War the palace was militantly saturated red.
This is the story of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburgcomes to the end. Now it exists in an alliance with the theaters adjoining it and forms together with them a single complex "The State Hermitage". This is the last, the eighth version. An exquisite and exquisite 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 forvisits and historical excursions. 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 decorated throne Georgievsky Hall, the Golden Room or the elegant Boudoir, full of a huge number of mirrors and gold ornaments. It is also worthwhile to learn Malachite drawing room with rich green columns and a grand concert hall. Also in it there is an art gallery with many original works.
