Nevsky Prospekt, 39
Subway: Nevsky Prospekt, Gostiny Dvor
Closed to the public
Anichkov Palace stands near Anichkov Bridge. It was commissioned in 1741 to architect Mikhail Zemtsov. At the time of its construction this palace was located at the outskirts of the old Saint Petersburg. The privacy was a must, since the new owner of the palace was Aleksey Razumovsky, secret husband of the empress. Elizabeth and Razumovsky or "Night Emperor" as he was known even had a child together, Duchness Tarakanova. The decorations of the palaces were completed by famous Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli who added Baroque decorations to the facade of the buildings.
New Empress Catherine II the Great gave Anichkov Palace to a new lover Grigoriy Potemkin who ordered its reconstruction in 1776- 78 under supervision of architect Ivan Starov. The whole building got a face life a new neo- classical facade that was quiet popular in a Russian capital at the time. After the October Revolution of 1917 it became a museum of the city and later as Leningrad's Pioneers' (Soviet Boys Scouts) Palace. Now it is named Palace of Youth Creativity and one of its wings holds Anichkov Lycee.
The anichkovsky
Palace began construction in 1741 by decree of the Empress
Elizabeth, who had just ascended to the throne as a result of
another coup. The project of a multi-storey building in the form of
a stretched letter " H " was created by one of the first architects
of the new capital, Mikhail Zemtsov, but he died in 1743. Bartolomeo
Rastrelli finished the proet in the high Baroque style.
At
this time, Fontanka served as the outskirts of the city, and Nevsky
Prospekt was still a clearing. Thus, the Palace was to decorate the
entrance to the capital. A special channel was dug from the Fontanka
river to the Palace, ending at the entrance with a small Harbor.
Hence the unusual position of the Palace, standing sideways to
Nevsky Prospekt. Elizabeth presented her favorite Alexey Razumovsky
with a built Palace that resembled a garden, fountains, and flower
beds in Peterhof. Subsequently, the Palace repeatedly acted as a
gift, usually for a wedding. After her accession to the throne,
Catherine II, having bought it from Razumovsky's brother, Kirill,
considered it most appropriate to give it also to her favorite count
Grigory Potemkin. 100 thousand rubles were added to the gift for the
arrangement of the Palace "to taste". As a result, the Palace was
remodeled in 1776-1778 by the architect I. E. Starov in the
classicist style, so the multi-storey buildings characteristic of
the Baroque were destroyed, the stucco disappeared, and the Harbor
was filled in. As a result, the Palace became more strict, but also
monotonous.
At the end of the XVIII century, the Palace was
bought off to the Treasury, for some time it was the Office of His
Imperial Majesty, for which later on the Fontanka embankment in
front of the Palace, the architect Quarenghi built two separate
buildings that closed the view of the Palace from the Anichkov
bridge. In 1809, Alexander I gave the Palace to his beloved sister,
Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, as a dowry for her wedding to
Prince George of Oldenburg. When in 1816 she remarried and left
Russia, the Palace was again purchased by the Treasury.
The
following year, 1817, Alexander I gave the Palace as a wedding gift
to his brother Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Nicholas I. During his
time, the architect Rossi re-planned some of the Palace's interiors,
and also included the Palace with the adjacent garden in the
ensemble of the Alexandrinsky theater square (now Ostrovsky square):
he added an arched "service building" to the South, built a fence
around the Palace garden and built two one-story pavilions on its
Western side. After ascending the throne and moving to the Winter
Palace, Nicholas moved here for the duration of lent, and court
balls were held here. When the Winter Palace was reconstructed after
the fire of 1837, the Imperial family moved to Anichkov and lived
there for some time. After the death of the Emperor in 1855, the
Palace was renamed "Nikolaevsky", but the name did not stick. The
Emperor's son Alexander, the future Alexander II, was also brought
up in the Palace.one of his teachers was Pushkin's friend the poet
Vasily Zhukovsky, who had his own apartment in the Palace. He also
taught the Russian language to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. On
November 23, 1836, Alexander Pushkin was invited to an audience with
the Emperor, and Nicholas demanded that he refrain from dueling.
In 1841, Nicholas gave the Palace, again for the wedding, to his
son Alexander, and that a quarter of a century later — also for the
wedding of his son, the future Alexander III. Fearing terrorists,
Alexander III chose the Palace as his residence. At this time, a
blank wall was built on the side of the square. After his death, the
Palace served as the residence of the Dowager Empress Maria
Feodorovna. The interiors of the Palace were repeatedly altered due
to the wishes of the new owners. As a result of the renovation of
the premises in the 1870s in the library and "Museum" of Emperor
Alexander III, stained glass Windows of the workshop of Vladimir
Dmitrievich Sverchkov appeared in the Windows.
After the
revolution, the city Museum did not last long here, in 1925 it was
closed, and only on February 12, 1937, the Leningrad Palace of
pioneers, now the Palace of creativity of the young and Anichkov
Lyceum, opened in the Palace. During the great Patriotic war, on
October 1, 1941, a surgical hospital was opened in the Palace of
pioneers. He worked through the first winter of the siege, receiving
a significant number of wounded people. In the spring of 1942, the
hospital was moved from the Palace, and in may, the pioneer Palace
was reopened to blockaded children.
A birch tree planted by
cosmonauts Herman Titov and Vladimir Komarov grows in front of the
main building of the Anichkov Palace.