Yelagin Palace (Елагин дворец; also ''Yelaginsky'' or ''Yelaginoostrovsky Dvorets'') is a

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became ...

Yelagin Island Yelagin Island () is a park island at the mouth of the Neva River which is part of St. Petersburg, Russia. Yelagin Island is home to the Yelagin Palace but has a few other buildings as well. A former suburban estate of 18 century Russian nob ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, which served as a royal summer palace during the reign of

Alexander I Alexander I may refer to: * Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon 495–454 BC * Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus * Pope Alexander I (died 115), early bishop of Rome * Pope Alexander I of Alexandria (died 320s), patriarch of A ...

. The villa was designed for Alexander's mother, Maria Fyodorovna, by the architect Carlo Rossi. It was constructed in 1822 on the site of an earlier mansion built during the rule of

Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anha ...

. The house was destroyed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

but was rebuilt and currently houses a museum. The isle to the north of the imperial Russian capital owes its name to its former proprietor,

Ivan Yelagin Ivan Perfilievich Yelagin (russian: Иван Перфильевич Елагин; 1725–94) was a Russian Imperial historian, an amateur poet and translator who acted as unofficial secretary to Catherine the Great in the early years of her reig ...

(1725–94), a close ally of Catherine II from her early days as Grand Duchess. The first villa on the site might have been designed by

Giacomo Quarenghi Giacomo Quarenghi (; rus, Джа́комо Кваре́нги, Džákomo Kvaréngi, ˈdʐakəmə kvɐˈrʲenʲɡʲɪ; 20 or 21 September 1744) was an Italian architect who was the foremost and most prolific practitioner of neoclassical architectu ...

. Yelagin was fascinated with the idea of extracting gold from ordinary materials and retreated to the villa for his secretive research in

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim wo ...

. Count Cagliostro was summoned by Yelagin to help him in these activities, but fled the island after Yelagin's secretary had slapped him in the face. After the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna declared that she was too old to make daily trips to such distant residences as

Pavlovsk Palace Pavlovsk Palace (russian: Павловский дворец) is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by the order of Catherine the Great for her son Grand Duke Paul, in Pavlovsk, within Saint Petersburg. After his death, ...

and

Gatchina Palace The Great Gatchina Palace (russian: Большой Гатчинский дворец) is a palace in Gatchina, Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It was built from 1766 to 1781 by Antonio Rinaldi for Count Grigori Grigoryevich Orlov, who was a favouri ...

, her son Alexander I bought the estate from Yelagin's heirs and asked Carlo Rossi to redesign the villa. Its lavish Neoclassical interiors were decorated by

Giovanni Battista Scotti Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

, Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky, and

Stepan Pimenov Stepan Stepanovich Pimenov () (1784 – ) was an artist and sculptor of the Russian Empire. He was closely associated with Vasily Demut-Malinovsky, with whom he worked on the decoration of buildings designed by Carlo Rossi and Andrey Voroni ...

. After Maria Feodorovna's death, the palace remained deserted for long periods of time.

Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pol ...

leased it to his prime ministers such as

Sergei Witte Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (; ), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the tsar as head of the government. Neither a liberal nor a conservative, he attract ...

Pyotr Stolypin Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin ( rus, Пётр Арка́дьевич Столы́пин, p=pʲɵtr ɐrˈkadʲjɪvʲɪtɕ stɐˈlɨpʲɪn; – ) was a Russian politician and statesman. He served as the third prime minister and the interior ministe ...

, and

Ivan Goremykin Ivan Logginovich Goremykin (russian: Ива́н Лóггинович Горемы́кин, Iván Lógginovich Goremýkin) (8 November 183924 December 1917) was a Russian politician who served as the prime minister of the Russian Empire in 1906 a ...

. In June 1908 Stolypin lived in a wing of the Yelagin Palace; in July 1914 also the

Council of Ministers A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or ...

under

convened there. The

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

turned the palace compound into "a museum to the old way of life". In the

siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of ...

it was damaged by a shell and burnt to the ground. The house was rebuilt in the 1950s to serve as a resort for workers. Since 1987 it has housed a collection of

objets d'art In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...

from the 18th and 19th centuries, notably precious

glassware upTypical drinkware The list of glassware includes drinking vessels (drinkware) and tableware used to set a table for eating a meal, general glass items such as vases, and glasses used in the catering industry. It does not include laboratory glas ...

. The entrance is guarded by two lion sculptures, inspired by the ''

Medici lions The Medici lions are a pair of marble sculptures of lions: one of which is Roman, dating to the 2nd century AD, and the other a 16th-century pendant. Both were by 1598 placed at the Villa Medici, Rome. Since 1789 they have been displayed at th ...

'' in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

References

External links

Website repository of 1909 images of Yelagin Palace with information about its history

Photos of Yelagin Palace interiors
{{Authority control Palaces in Saint Petersburg Royal residences in Russia Palladian architecture Villas in Russia Houses completed in 1822 Carlo Rossi buildings and structures Art museums and galleries in Saint Petersburg Decorative arts museums in Russia 1822 establishments in the Russian Empire Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg