Menshikov Palace (Saint Petersburg)
Menshikov Palace ( Russian Меншиковский дворец ) is a baroque palace, and the first large stone building in the temporary Russian capital Saint Petersburg. It was built for the first governor-general Alexander Danilovich Menshikov.
Situated on Vasilievsky island on the Great Neva three -story palace with the address ". Universitetskaja nab ( Университетская набережная - Universitätskai ) 15" was built from 1713 after the original plans of the Italian architect Giovanni Maria Fontana and was until about 1720 by the Hamburg architect Gottfried skull completed. The palace was luxuriously appointed inside. To this end, over 30,000 Delft tiles, ornate woodwork and hardwood floors were installed. The Danish ambassador in Russia, said that all the riches came from Polish castles. But Peter the Great Menshikov had accused that he had plundered Poland. Behind the three wings were originally more extensive baroque gardens, but later, the buildings fell victim. Front of the building, which had lost by a subsequent increase in street level some of its original Imposanz, ships could anchor. So the building was also occasionally used in its initial stage to completion of the Winter Palace of Peter the Great for state receptions.
As the Great his friend, adviser and favorite Menshikov 1727 fell out of favor after the death of Tsar Peter, the palace was expropriated and 1732 the First Cadet Corps, an elite school for the Russian nobility, provided. The school, which gave both a military and a musical education ( from her 1756 Czarina Elizabeth I was the first permanent Russian theater show ), used the building until the end of the tsarist era 1918. Was to this end in 1735 a modification and an extension by the architect Domenico Trezzini.
After many years of extensive renovations, a branch of the State Hermitage Museum in 1981 at the Palais housed. It will be exhibited objects of Russian culture in the first third of the 18th century. For this purpose a part of the living rooms of Prince Menshikov was loving restored and can be visited.