Saint Petersburg

The city.
The history of the city is closely connected with the name of Peter the Great.
Peter the Great is a colossal phenomenon in history with no other figure of a similar stature. The focus of this activity was St Petersburg, the new capital of Russia and "a window onto Europe". Three hundred years ago – 1703 – Peter the Great founded the city on the land won over from Sweden. It was necessary to control the delta of the Neva and the Tsar made up his mind to build a fortress, that gave life to the new city. Such is indeed that the February Revolution and October Revolution took place in Saint Petersburg.
The population of the city: 4,801 million people.
The city was the capital of Russia in 1712-28 and 1732-1918, ` cause it was the residence of the royal family and state government.
St Petersburg is a city fascinating people by its variety. There are 43 academies (conservatory, universities), 16 theatres (as well as Mariinskiy, Opera and Ballet Theatre, etc.), 47 museums (The Hermitage, Russian Museum, etc.).
People come to St Petersburg not only for business or to meet their friends and relations. Many of them visit St Petersburg primarily to have a look at what they cannot see anywhere else in the world. The beautiful museum of a city does not leave anybody indifferent. And it is unique indeed - there are few cities in the world which, like St Petersburg, have not grown naturally from an ancient settlement, but have been created by the will of a single man. The northern capital of Russia never fails to delight its numerous visitors by the beauty of its straight streets and ornate squares, by its charming, even if not very bright, specifically northern colouring, by a special aura reigning it. It is pleasant in any weather and in any season, be it melancholy rainy days, the magic White Nights, the fascinating golden autumn or the exciting time of spring storms. And although the northern capital is sometimes compared to Rome, called the Venice or Palmyra of the North, it has its own unparalleled grace, its own fascination. The soul of the city will readily reveal itself to you if you try to get in touch with it.

The Winter Palace.
The Winter Palace, the city's focal point on Palace Square, was the main residence of the imperial dynasty in St Petersburg. The building is so large that it can be held in view as a whole only from the Neva or from the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. The last monumental structure in the Baroque style, the Winter Palace was erected "for the glory of Russia". The stately edifice we see today is the fifth building on this site. The first one, a small wooden house, was erected opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress for Peter I in 1711 -12 after a "model" project by Domenico TrezzinL In 1716-22, Georg Mattarnovi put up the second Winter Palace near the eastern bank of the Winter Canal, at the place of the present-day Hermitage Theatre. It was in this palace that Peter the Great died on 28 January 1725. In 1726-27, Trezzini enlarged this building for Catherine L In 1731 -35, the fourth Winter Palace was put up to a project by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli. The building seemed to be very large for that period, but in the middle of the eighteenth century Empress Elizabeth Petrovna found it too small for her. So in 1754-62 Rastrelli built a new palace.
In 1837 a terrible fire devastated the palace with all its magnificent decor, but within a little more than a year the building was reconstructed and regained its former magnificence. Later its interiors were repeatedly redesigned. In 1922, the Winter Palace was handed over to the Hermitage Museum.
The palace is an integral architectural complex – “a city within the city”. The two-hundred-metre length of its facade determines the dimensions of Palace Square. Rastrelli, whose fantasy was inexhaustible, designed each from of the palace in a different way. The southern facade was to play the role of the principal entrance - the architect conceived a large formal square in front of it that would be later created by Carlo Rossi.

Peterhof.
Peterhof (in 1944 renamed Petrodvorets) is the capital of fountains reminiscent of a sparkling diamond of rare beauty. It seems to have an air of magic about it and produces an impression of an enlivened fairy-tale sprung, as it were, from sea-foam. Everything here is bent to the will of the sea, Peter's favourite element. Peter the Great conceived to construct this triumphal memorial and at the same time state residence in 1705. The building of the palace and park complex began in the 1710s. The seaside "paradise" was opened in a ceremonial atmosphere on 15 August 1723. It emerged on the once desolate seashore within a surprisingly brief period and produced an overwhelming impression on guests. Several generations of architects, sculptors, fountain engineers, gardeners and hydraulic engineers contributed to the creation of Peterhof`s unique splendour. After the War of 1941-45, it took another half of a century to raise it from ruins. The layout of Peterhof is based on the law of symmetry, and this principle is keenly felt in any of its sections. The main axis of symmetry of all the structures in the Lower Park lies at the Sea Canal running straight as an arrow, from the sea to the central pool adorned with the figure of Samson. By the sides of the canal are sparkling fountains alternating with shady avenues. The canal is a very complex hydrotechnical structure. Formerly small ships could use it to reach the Great Palace, but after the construction of the Large Pool in 1735 the canal lost its transportation function remaining the predominant feature of the entire Lower Park. In 1918 the palaces of Peterhof became state museums.

The Hermitage For a long time only guests of the royal family, people of exalted rank, could enjoy the Hermitage treasures. It was only in 1852 with the inauguration of the New Hermitage, then called the Public Museum, that an access to the art collection became freer. In 1917, after the October Revolution, the Hermitage and the Winter Palace were declared a state museum. Nowadays each visitor to the museum is allowed to view the state rooms of the palace, in which the ceremonial entrees of the imperial family used to take place, and to enjoy the beauty of their treasures.
The first owner of the renovated Winter Palace, Catherine the Great, resigned herself to its Baroque outer appearance, but expressed a desire to change the inner decor in the spirit of rest rained Classicism. The Empress entrusted the most important park of work to Giacomo Quarenghi. By 1795 he had finished the columns and walls of the St George Hall or Large Throne Room with Carrara marble. This magnificent state room was intended for official ceremonies and receptions. It contained the canopied imperial throne with the coat-of-arms bearing a representation of the victorious St. George as the patron of Muscovy - hence the name of the hall. Later a marble relief devoted to the same subject was placed over the throne. The hall suffered during the conflagration of 1837, but the architects Vastly Stasov and Nikolai Yefimov. who designed it anew, made the interior one of the best examples of Russian Classicism. The throne place has been completely restored recently.
The Malachite Room, the decor of which became a model for the decoration of palatial drawing-rooms in the middle of the nineteenth century, produced an indelible impression on its contemporaries. It served as the main drawing-room in the apartments of Alexandra Fiodorovna, the eldest daughter of King Frederick William of Prussia and Nicholas I's wife. It was also here, in the Malachite Room, that a session of the Provisional Government was being held in October 1917 when a volley fired from the cruiser Aurora signaled the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution.
Many rooms of the Hermitage Museum built by talented master craftsmen to designs by outstanding architects are superb examples of Russian art. Most of objects marked by a rare taste and mastery were produced by the best St Petersburg craftsmen in the eighteenth century.
Of particular interest is also the interior of the Golden Room - a dazzling large corner room once occupied by Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna. Illuminated from large windows on bright days, it looks light and airy. The overall character of its luxurious decor, executed by the architect Alexander Briullov, echoes in some way the Malachite Drawing-Room, which was also known as the "golden" one in the nineteenth century. Nowadays, the Golden Drawing-Room houses a large collection of carved gems, which rivals the most brilliant assemblages of this kind in the world. The fine cameos and intaglios displayed in this lavishly decorated interior were carved in cornelian, onyx, amethyst and other semiprecious stones by Western European master craftsmen. The origins of this representative collection go back to Catherine the Great who was fond of carved gems.
A single tour of the rooms and halls of the Hermitage will allow you just to form a general idea of the character and scale of Russia’s largest museum, its history, the architectural splendor of its halls and rooms and the endless variety of the collection displayed in them.