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Mikhail Mikeshin designed the monument to Catherine the Great in front of the Alexandrinsky Theatre (1863–73). Sculptures of the empress’s associates are grouped around the pedestal. The figures of P...
The Ice House was built in January 1740 to celebrate victory in the Russo-Turkish War (1735–39) and the tenth anniversary of Empress Anna Ioannovna ’s accession to the throne. The house was built on ...
The Field of Mars is a wide meadow in the centre of St Petersburg, lying between the Summer Garden, Marble Palace and the Pauline Guards Barracks. In the eighteenth century, it was used to hold vario...
The Passage was designed in the elegant style for Count Essen-Steinbock Fairmore by Rudolf Zhelyazevich (1846) and built between Nevsky Prospekt and Italian Street (1847–48). This two-hundred-yard-lo...
The Nikolaevsky Palace (1853–61) was built by Heinrich Stackenschneider between Horse Guards Boulevard and Galley Street on Annunciation Square (now Ploschad Truda) for the third son of Tsar Nicholas...
Empress Elizabeth Petrovna issued a decree establishing the first Russian ballet company (1742). Foundation of an open Russian Theatre which is commanded to stage plays and operas (1756). Creation of...
The Yussupov Palace stands on the bend of the River Moika. The building was constructed by Jean-Baptiste-Michel Vallin de la Mothe (1770). Countess Alexandra Branitskaya sold the palace to Prince Nik...
Yelagin Island was originally known as Mouse Island when St Petersburg was founded (1703). The Russian vice-chancellor Baron Pyotr Shafirov had a summer cottage on the island during the reign of Pete...
The writers Kornei Chukovsky and Maxim Gorky were instrumental in opening the House of Arts on 19 November 1919 in the former Yeliseyev House on the corner of the River Moika and Nevsky Prospekt (now...
Prince Paolo Troubetzkoy ’s equestrian statue of Tsar Alexander III was opened on Holy Sign (Znamenskaya) Square in front of the Nicholas Railway Station on 23 May 1909. Immortalising the founder of ...