The Stroganov Palace. Architect: Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Tactile Model. Here is a model of the Stroganov Palace. The length of each facade is 73 meters along Nevsky Prospect and approximately 50 meters along the Moika River. The height of the palace is about 15 meters. The three-story building is pale pink with white decorative elements. Following tradition, the central floor—the piano nobile—was designated for state rooms. This floor houses the palace’s main halls. The first, lowest floor contained service premises, while the third floor was intended for living quarters. The facades facing Nevsky Prospect and the Moika River feature similar compositions: at the center of each is a portico crowned by a pediment bearing the Stroganov coat of arms. The coat of arms is shown on the label in an enlarged scale. A portico is the central, colonnaded section of a facade, topped by a pediment. On the Moika side, the pediment is triangular, and the portico features a balcony with an ornate wrought-iron railing. The windows of the palace’s main hall—the Ballroom—open onto this side. On the Nevsky Prospect side, the pediment is semicircular. The windows of the piano nobile are adorned in their lower part with a decorative Baroque grille, a fragment of which can be explored tactilely in a larger scale. The central sections of the facades are decorated with pilasters (flat columns attached to the wall) and columns. In addition to other plastic decorations, both facades of the palace are adorned with lion masks above the second-floor windows and portrait medallions beneath them. According to one version, these bas-relief portraits depict the palace’s first owner, Baron Sergei Stroganov, whom Rastrelli sought to surprise in this manner. However, many historians claim that the famous architect placed his own profile on the palace walls as a kind of authorial signature to immortalize his work. Yet a third version suggests that Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe, who completed work on the Rastrellian facades, might have left his profile as a mark of his participation in this prestigious project. A medallion is shown in greater detail on the label in an enlarged scale. Coat of Arms Description: A shield featuring a bear’s head, diagonally divided by a wavy bend bearing three arrowheads, supported by two sables standing on their hind legs. The shield is crowned by a baronial coronet. These sables, like the bear’s head, are symbols of Siberia, signifying that the Stroganov ancestors were among the organizers of Yermak’s campaign into Siberia and contributed to the region’s conquest by Russia. The formation of the palace began presumably in the 1720s, when single-story chambers were built near the Green Bridge over the Moika River, belonging to one of the Stroganovs, possibly the entire family. In 1742, Baron Sergei Grigoryevich Stroganov purchased an unfinished two-story house on the same site. Subsequently, all buildings were unified into a single whole. Work on the palace was carried out in 1754–55. The dynasty continued to own it until 1918. Then, in 1921, the last male member of the Stroganov family, Sergei Alexandrovich, specifically traveled to Petrograd from France to hand over the keys of the palace to the People’s Commissar of Enlightenment, A.V. Lunacharsky. He never returned to Russia. The palace is situated at the intersection of Nevsky Prospect and the Moika River. In this part of St. Petersburg, it is the only building retaining features of Baroque architecture. The palace was the most significant among the numerous properties of the famous Stroganov family. The list of architects who contributed to the palace is extensive and illustrious, including the Italians Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli and Carlo Rossi, the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe, and the Russian architectural genius Andrei Voronikhin—a former serf—among many other renowned architects. Permission to purchase the land was granted by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna herself. With her approval, the court architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who executed commissions exclusively for the imperial family, was engaged for the construction. by Irina Savenko
