The Hermitage

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. Enjoying the city's exquisite and varied architecture, strolling along the granite embankments of the full-flooded Neva, everyone can find convincing evidence that St Petersburg is a truly unique and unfathomable city. 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. It is justly said that St Petersburg is not merely the city of poets, but is built itself like a poem - with regular stanzas and well-memorized rhymes. Its panoramic views and silhouettes, spires and domes, arches and bridges can be enjoyed like a beautiful piece of poetry. While wandering about the city and thus turning over the pages of its stone chronicle, you can sense the harmony of its living and dead nature and to enjoy the inexhaustible architectural variety of the northern capital. All kinds of monumental and decorative art contribute amply to its beauty. 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 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 Trezzini. 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 I. 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 1767—69, Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe designed the so-called "La Mothe's Pavilion", now known as the Small Hermitage, and in 1770-87, the architect Yury Velten constructed one more palace - the Large Hermitage. The Hermitage Theatre completed the ensemble of buildings connected by hanging arched passageways and covered bridges. Thus, in a little more than two centuries the Winter Palace grew into a huge complex with living apartments, churches, libraries and gardens. It also had a telegraph, an office, a chemist's shop, flats for servicemen and guards, as well as numerous auxiliary premises - a kitchen, a storeroom, a manege, carriage departments and laundries. The palace grew together with the city and beyond its luxurious, truly regal facades the eight generations of the monarchs governed the activities of the Russian Empire. The private apartments of the imperial family were traditionally located in the western section of the 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 front 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.

Panoramic view of the Hermitage buildings from the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island

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 Hermitage. The Malachite Drawing-Room. Architect: Alexander Briullov, 1839

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 restrained Classicism. The Empress entrusted the most important part 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 Vasily 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 Fs 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 signalled the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution. Originally designed by Auguste de Montferrand, the room was restored after the fire of 1837 by Alexander Briullov. The architect used for the new decor malachite delivered by Demidov, a wealthy owner, of mines in the Urals. The columns, pilasters and fireplaces of the room were adorned with thin plaques of malachite in the so-called "Russian technique".

The Hermitage. The Hall of Peter the Great. Architects: Auguste de Montferrand, 1833; Vasily Stasov, 1839

Many rooms of the Hermitage Museum built by talented master craftsmen to designs by outstanding architects are superb examples of Russian art. One of them is the Peter Hall (Small Throne Room) conceived as a memorial room. Decorated by Auguste de Montferrand in 1833 in the spirit of Late Classicism, it was recreated after the fire by Vasily Stasov to its former appearance. The design of the hall — the stucco ornament, the ceiling painting, the frieze on the walls including Peter's Latin monogram, the double-headed eagles and crowns — perfectly corresponds to its use. On the walls, at the top, are historical paintings by the Italian artists Barnaba Medici and Pietro Scotti. The pictures feature the famous victorious battles of Poltava and Lesnaya during the Northern War against Sweden. In the depth of a niche between the jasper columns hangs the allegorical canvas Peter the Great with the Goddess Minerva by the Venetian painter Jacopo Amiconi. Under the painting stands the imperial throne made in England by Nicholas Clausen in 1731 for the Russian Empress Anna Ioannovna. 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 air)'. The overall character of its luxurious decor, executed by the architect Alexander Briullov, echoes in some way the Malachite Draw-ing-Room, which was also known as the "golden" one in the nineteenth century. The room is provided with gilt furniture modelled on sumptuous Baroque examples by Andrei Stakenschneider. 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.