Nicholas Palace
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Nicholas Palace (Russian: Николаевский дворец, ''Nikolayevsky dvorets'') is one of several
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
palaces designed by Andreas Stackensneider (1802–65) for the children of
Nicholas I of Russia Nicholas I, group=pron (Russian language, Russian: Николай I Павлович; – ) was Emperor of Russia, List of rulers of Partitioned Poland#Kings of the Kingdom of Poland, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 18 ...
. The palace of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievich of Russia forms part of a sprawling complex incorporating a palatial
church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...
, a manege, and several outbuildings separated from Labour Square by a cast-iron fence. In 1894 the edifice reverted to the crown and was transformed into the Kseniinsky Institute for Noble Young Ladies (Russian: Ксенинский институт благородных девиц, ''Kseninskii institut blagorodnykh devits''). It was described by E. M. Almedingen in her memoirs:
At certain functions in the great paneled white hall it was easy to imagine yourself plunged into the court life of the late eighteenth century. ... The palace, for all its enormous size, was beautiful. The sweep of that regal, gray marble staircase, curving off to the right and the left, must have been an architectural marvel. We played in halls, their high ceilings supported by Corinthian pillars, their walls covered with most exquisite paneling. We read and studied in rooms with lovely mirrors, framed in the scrolled and carven fantasies of great artists. We slept in dormitories, their walls covered by delicate frescoes. ... The exquisite staircase... swept down to a hall where a gigantic Cerberus of a porter, magnificent in scarlet and gold, stood on duty. The great front doors, splendid with carved wood and panes of cut glass, were nearly always closed.
The
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
renamed it Palace of Labour (Russian: Дворец труда, ''Dvorets truda'') and handed it over to the
trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
s, who destroyed some parts of the original eclectic interiors in order to adapt the palace for their own headquarters. As of 2004, the trade unions are leasing a large part of the edifice to commercial enterprises as offices.


Architectural features

The Nicholas Palace became the dominant feature of Blagoveshchenskaya Square (today's Labour Square). The architect Andreas Stackensneider chose Italian
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
architectural techniques for the façade. In the eastern part of the palace, on the garden side, the house church was located. For the decoration of the vestibule, Stackensneider used bricks and stone leftover from the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The staircase was decorated with seventeen paintings by the artist Nikolai Tikhobrazov. The enfilade of the first floor began with the White Drawing Room, decorated with moulded overdoors and picturesque panels. Then came the Small Dining Room and the Chinese Drawing Room. In the centre of the west façade was the Rose Drawing Room, the ceiling of which was decorated with the painting " The Judgement of Paris". In the northwest part of the
mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...
, there were the Ballroom and the Banqueting Room with a height of 17 metres. The Dancing Hall was decorated with sculptures by Iensen. The furniture for the staterooms was made by the master Andrei Tour.


References


Bibliography

*Belyakova Z.I. ''Nikolayevsky dvorets.'' SPb, 1997. {{coord, 59.932, N, 30.293, E, display=title, source:dewiki Houses completed in the 19th century Palaces in Saint Petersburg Royal residences in Russia Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg