The Premier Site for Russian Culture
Built possibly by Savva Chevakinsky (1768–71) on the site of the temporary wooden Winter Palace of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1755). The plot of land was presented by Catherine the Great to Nikolai Chicherin, the head of police in St Petersburg. Three-storey wing facing the River Moika was added (1794). Vasily Stasov added a wing on Bolshaya Morskaya Street (1814–17). Home to the St Petersburg Noble Assembly (from 1845). Acquired by the Yeliseyev merchants and reconstructed (1858).