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Heart of the Empire

For over two centuries, St. Petersburg was the most important city in the Russian Empire — a center of industry and culture, and home to the imperial court.  In the middle of the city, on the "Admiralty Side" of the Neva, lay the focus of it all: the Tsar's residence on Palace Square, the Admiralty shipyards, the Bronze Horseman.

Click here for a map of the Central Region

For a stroll around the Imperial City in 1894, click here.

	Admiralty (Адмиралтейство)
	In St. Petersburg, all roads lead to the Admiralty.  Its frigate-topped spire — at 72-meters (236-foot), still dwarfed by that of Peter & Paul Cathedral — is a city landmark.

	Soon after founding the city, Peter the Great set up the Admiralty.		This shipyard constructed warships for the Russian navy.
	It was encircled on three sides by fortifications, with no houses or other buildings nearby.
Later, this open space would become the Alexander Gardens, as well as Palace Square, St. Isaac's Square, and Senate (Decembrists') Square.

	This ensemble provided an enormous parade grounds for imperial regiments.

To celebrate its 1805 centennial, Alexander I commissioned Russian architect Andrei Zakharov to redesign the Admiralty and remove its fortifications.
	In the 1840s, the defensive moat was filled in and the shipyard was moved downstream.
	An embankment was laid out running along the Neva.		The Alexander Gardens were established in 1872.
The Admiralty has been home to the Naval Engineering School since 1925.

Palace Square (Дворцовая площадь)
Downstream from his Summer Palace, Peter maintained a winter counterpart near the Admiralty.		Trezzini replaced the Tsar's wooden house with a brick residence in 1711, while another was erected facing the Neva.
He later remodeled the palace for Peter's widow.  Her successor, Empress Anna Ivanovna, refused to live in such a small palace, moving into the former palace of Admiral Apraxin across the Winter Canal.

Anna hired Bartolomeo Rastrelli to consolidate the palaces.			He patched together several buildings into a larger structure.

	Empress Elizabeth commissioned Rastrelli to redesign his work from the ground up in 1754.
	Sadly, Elizabeth died before Rastrelli completed his masterpiece — the Winter Palace.

Catherine II ordered an addition to the east end of the palace.			This Small Hermitage was later joined by the Large Hermitage.
Giacomo Quarenghi built the Hermitage Theater in 1783-87 on the site of Peter's palace, connected to the rest of the complex by an arch over the Winter Canal.

	Catherine also ordered the redesign of the square in front of the palace in 1779.  In 1819, Alexander I commissioned Carlo Rossi to give Palace Square its current form.
Rossi built the monumental General Staff Building (1819-28) along the back of the square, with a huge archway to Malaya Morskaya Street and Nevsky Prospect.			At the center of the square stands a monument to the Russian victory over Napoleon, designed by Auguste Montferrand and erected in 1834.
At over 150 feet tall and 600 tons, the Alexander Column is the largest in the world.  It is a single piece of granite, held in place by its own weight.

	The Royal Guard Regiments staff building and New Hermitage completed the ensemble.

	The Soviets used to mark May Day each year with a parade across the square.

This page was first published 1 January 2004, and last updated 19 December 2005.