In the year seventeen hundred and forty-one the empressElizabeth, who had just ascended to the throne, issued a decree on the construction of the Anichkov Palace. Petersburg was rapidly expanding. Created a project of a multi-storey building in the form of an elongated letter "H", a new architect of the northern capital, Mikhail Zemtsov, and completed the grand construction in the Baroque style by the famous architect B. Rastrelli.
In those distant times the Fontanka was a suburbcity, and in the place of the modern Nevsky Prospekt there was a clearing. According to the author of the project, Anichkov Palace was to become an adornment of the entrance to the city. To him from the Fontanka itself was dug a canal, which ended with a small harbor. Built palace, a bit reminiscent of Peterhof, Elizabeth donated to her favorite Razumovsky. Later, the building was repeatedly donated, mostly the palace was a gift for the wedding. After Catherine II came to power, she bought Anichkov Palace from Razumovsky's relatives and gave it to Grigory Potemkin. In addition, a favorite was donated one hundred thousand rubles for the reconstruction of the palace to his own taste. As a result, for two years, the architect IE Starov rebuilt the building in the style of classicism. Disappeared baroque characteristic of different levels, was destroyed magnificent stucco, the harbor was covered. As a result, the Anichkov Palace became more strict and cold.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the building was bought offin the treasury, and for a short time there was the Cabinet of the Emperor. Later, for him, a separate room was built by the architect of Quarenghi. Anichkov Palace Alexander the First gave to the wedding of his own sister, the Grand Duchess, his beloved Catherine Pavlovna, who became the wife of Prince George of Orenburg.
In 1817, the future emperor settled in the palaceNicholas the First. During his reign, the architect Rossi changed the interiors of some of the halls of the palace. When Nikolai moved to Winter Palace, he came to the Anichkov Palace during the Great Lent, and luxurious court balls were held regularly here.
There are monuments, without which it is difficult to imagine Petersburg. Anichkov Palace has always been the decoration of the northern capital. It is closely connected with the life of the great people of Russia.
In 1837, after the fierce fire in the Winter Palace,the august family of Nicholas I lived for some time in the famous palace. Here, the son of Emperor Alexander was also raised, one of the teachers of which was the greatest Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky. He was given separate apartments in the palace.
After the revolution, one thousand nine hundred and seventeenthAnichkov Palace in St. Petersburg for a short time was a museum of the history of the city. In 1937 the Palace of Pioneers was opened here. But the Great Patriotic War that began began to make corrections to the history of the legendary palace. On October 1, 1941, a surgical hospital was opened in this historical building, during which thousands of lives of the heroic defenders of the besieged Leningrad were saved. In the spring of 1942, the hospital was relocated, and in May the Palace of Pioneers reopened here.
