The Gromov Mansion (Ratkov-Rozhnov) is a historical building in the center of St. Petersburg, on the corner of Millionnaya Street and Marble Lane.
The main facade of the three-story palace, overlooking the Neva
embankment, was divided into three parts: the center, and two side
risalits (according to other sources, the central part of the facade was
two-story, and the rhizoliths had three floors). The façade had a clear
articulation characteristic of that time - horizontal interfloor
tie-rods, vertical pilasters between windows, window glazing with small
squares, simple architraves and a gable roof. The façade of the
two-story (three-story) wing, overlooking Millionnaya Street, had a
large arch in the center for entering the front yard to two entrance
arches. The front entrance overlooks Millionnaya Street. Both wings are
decorated with rusticated pilasters. On the first floor of the palace
there was a spacious vestibule, and above it, on the second floor, there
was a two-height hall, in which molding and carving on the fireplaces
were made by the father of the architect Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli.
Symmetrically, to the right and left of the large hall, there were
smaller halls. The first floor of the palace, in order to appear more
massive, was treated with rustication, and the second and third floors,
to emphasize the height of the building, were decorated with pilasters.
From the side of the current Marble Lane, one-story outbuildings were
built, separating the palace from the neighboring site.
In 1737
the palace was described as follows:
The stone courtyard of the
princes Kantemirov on the Bolshaya Neva ..., on it is a ward building in
3 apartments and all around that courtyard all sorts of stone chambers
and under the cellar chambers, and next to that courtyard there is a
special other stone courtyard in the back line of 3 apartments and
cellars under it, a roof shingled
In 1743, the Church of the
Great Martyr Theodore Stratilates was built on the top floor.
At the beginning of the 18th century, on this piece of land there was
the house of captain Ipat Mukhanov, from whom in 1715 it was bought by
the Moldavian ruler, Dmitry Cantemir, who settled in St. Petersburg. By
his order, in 1720-1725, the young architect Bartolomeo Francesco
Rastrelli built a palace on this site, which became the first
independent work of the architect. Rastrelli designed the palace in the
Petrine Baroque style with two wings, each of which had an
architecturally designed facade. Three drawings of the palace under
construction have been preserved and are kept in the engraving and
drawing department of the National Museum of Sweden: the main facade of
the palace overlooking the Neva embankment, the facade of the service
building overlooking Marble Lane, and the facade of the house
overlooking Millionnaya Street.
After the death in 1723 of Dmitry
Kantemir, who never waited for the completion of the construction of the
palace, a lengthy litigation about the inheritance began between his
children and his second wife. According to some sources, the palace of
Cantemir went to his widow Anastasia Ivanovna, according to others, it
passed to the sons of Antiochus or Konstantin. In 1726, the poet Vasily
Kirillovich Trediakovsky lived in the palace, who taught the young
Antiochus the Russian language and versification, and the following year
Count Burchard Munnich lived in the rented premises of the palace. In
1755-1757, the English embassy was located in the mansion, where his
secretary, the future Polish king Stanislav Poniatowski, lived.
In the spring of 1762, the brothers Matvey and Sergey Kantemir sold
their house for 20,000 rubles to the Prosecutor General of the Senate
Alexander Ivanovich Glebov. And on June 12, 1764, the house was
transferred from A. I. Glebov to the possession of Count Alexei
Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin. (Nevsky archive, issue 2, 1995, pp. 238 -
239. Article by V.V. Antonov "Next to Marble. On the history of the
Cantemir mansion".)
In 1762, Catherine II bought the palace from
Kantemirov and handed it over to Count Alexei Petrovich
Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who had returned from exile. After the death of the
count in 1768, the heirs sold the mansion to Count Vladimir Grigoryevich
Orlov, who, in turn, after moving to Moscow in 1775, sold it to Count
Pavel Martynovich Skavronsky (according to P. M. Stolpyansky, the plot
was presented to him by Catherine II), and from him passed to his wife
Ekaterina Vasilievna.
Upon the death of the count in 1766, due to
the debauchery of his son Andrei, imprisoned in a monastery, the house
was inherited by his nephew, Prince Mikhail Nikitich Volkonsky. On
December 2, 1768, Prince Mikhail Volkonsky sold it to Count Vladimir
Grigoryevich Orlov for 24,000 rubles. in 1777, Countess Maria Nikolaevna
Skavronskaya, nee Countess Strogonova, who mostly lived in Italy, became
the owner of the mansion by deed of purchase. (Nevsky archive, issue 2,
1995, p. 239. Article by V.V. Antonov "Next to Marble. On the history of
the Cantemir mansion".)
On January 15, 1797, M.N. Skavronskaya
sold part of her yard on Millionnaya Street to Dmitry Stepanovich
Bortnyansky - now Millionnaya Street, house No. 9. (Anatoly Ivanov
"Houses and People. From the History of St. Petersburg Mansions", Ed.
2005, p. 78 - 83, article "My soul mourns ... (House number 9 on
Millionnaya street)".
In December 1804, the owner of the mansion,
Countess Maria Nikolaevna Skavronskaya, died in Italy and the house was
inherited by Princess Ekaterina Pavlovna Bagration and Countess Maria
Pavlovna von der Palen. On August 12, 1805, they sold the house of their
mother to their state lady, Countess Ekaterina Vasilievna Litta. (RGIA.
Fund 560, inventory 15, case 295, sheet 109-rev. TsGIA St. Petersburg.
Fund 781, inventory 1, case 119, sheet 173. Report of the City Duma on
October 1, 1805 on the record of the house for E. V litta.)
February 7, 1829 E. V. Litta dies. The house was inherited by Count
Julius Pompeevich Litta, Princess Ekaterina Pavlovna Bagration and
Countess Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova, who sold it to the Ministry of
Finance on March 14, 1833. (RGIA. Fund 560, inventory 15, case 295,
sheet 109 et seq.)
After the death of Skavronsky, Ekaterina
Vasilievna in 1798 remarried Count Julius Pompeevich Litt. For the
newlyweds, the architect Luigi Rusca rebuilt the building on the side of
Millionnaya Street in the classical style. After the death of Countess
Yu. P. Litta, he sold the mansion to the Ministry of Finance, settling
in its part on Millionnaya Street, and after his own death, the mansion
completely passed into the possession of the financial department. It
housed the office and printing house of the ministry, as well as the
apartment of the minister, in which Yegor Frantsevich Kankrin and Fyodor
Pavlovich Vronchenko, who held the position at that time, lived.
In 1868, the merchant Nikolai Dmitrievich Lokhovitsky bought the
house from the treasury. On his instructions, the mansion was rebuilt by
the architect Ludwig Fontana, who changed some of the interiors,
strengthened the ceilings, erected courtyard buildings, and redid the
facade from Millionnaya Street. Lokhovitsky himself did not live in the
house, having settled his brother in it, and renting out apartments. One
of the tenants in the house at that time was the Minister of War, Field
Marshal Dmitry Alekseevich Milyutin.
In 1875, the mansion was
bought by a lumber merchant and philanthropist Ilya Fedulovich Gromov.
By his order, in 1879, according to the project of Karl Rachau, the
complex of three separate residential buildings was rebuilt into one
large mansion. Having preserved the walls of the old Rastrelli building,
he completely changed the decor of the facades, covering them with
fractional molding, repeating the motifs of early classicism with the
introduction of baroque elements. On the side of the embankment, he
built two heavy bay windows supported by caryatids of the “Egyptian
style”. At the corner of Millionnaya Street and Marble Lane, the facade
was adorned with a group of three female figures, symbolizing fertility,
art and navigation. The interior decoration of the mansion was carried
out by the sculptor A. M. Opekushin and the artist K. L. Alliaudi. In
the main building on the Neva side, he placed the front apartments, and
in the buildings overlooking Marble Lane and Millionnaya Street -
comfortable apartments for the landlord's daughters.
After Gromov's death in 1882, Vladimir Alexandrovich Ratkov-Rozhnov, former manager of the Gromov family, became the owner of the mansion. He leased the mansion from Palace Embankment, and then sold it to the Ministry of Finance, in 1898-1901 the embassy of the Ottoman Empire was located here, and the Ratkov-Rozhnov family lived in buildings along Marble Lane and Millionnaya Street until 1917. After the death of Vladimir Alexandrovich, his son Ananiy owned the house. January 2 (January 15), 1917, the Russian branch of the New York National City Bank (The National City Bank of New York) was opened in the building.
The building overlooking Palace Embankment now houses the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, while the buildings facing Marble Lane and Millionnaya Street have long been residential. The sculptor V.I. Ingal, the poet A.A. Prokofiev lived here. In 1986, this part of the building was transferred to the Institute of Culture.