1. The time of Peter I
The creation of St.Petersburg was the historical act of Peter I. By the time of the city foundation in 1703, considerable settlements and towns already existed in adjacent areas of North-Eastern Europe. They were: Abo, Vyborg, Kexholm , Schlisselburg, Old Ladoga, Koporje, Novgorod, Pskov, Revel (Tallinn). So, the area where the foundation of the new important Russian city in the delta of the Neva *) took place was not at all deserted . A plan of the area of the future metropolitan St.Petersburg shows that in 1700 more than 30 little settlements were scattered over that ground. They were granges, farmsteads, small villages, inns (taverns). Almost all of them were placed along the banks of the Neva or its tributaries.
There were also two large settlements in that region. They were situated opposite each other, across the Neva. One – on the left bank – was the Russian large village Spasskoye (Saviour’s) with an Orthodox church. Another – on the right bank, in the mouth of the river Okhta, near the Swedish fortress Nienschantz – consisted of 500 homesteads, Swedish and German churches, a brickyard and a hospital. In fact, it amounted then to a big town and was called Nystad or Nyen-Stad (New Town). Inns stood apart from settlements. The plan of 1700 shows three of them over the site suggesting that the location was visited by travellers, and not uninhabited.
Peter I had come to the place through Lake Ladoga and by the Neva, driving Sweden out along the way. Having seized the Nienschantz and Noteburg fortresses, he stayed by the Neva, down its stream, near right bank, on Koivusaari Island (Birch Island), or Beryozovy Ostrov – in Russian, today’s Petrogradskaya Side. The date of the foundation of St.Petersburg is considered to be the day when the Sankt-Piter-Burkh (Dutchspelling) Fortress on Enisaari Island (Hare Island), or Zayachiy Ostrov in Russian was consecrated. It was the day of the Holy Trinity, in 1703 it fell on the 16-th of May (27 May, New Style).
Over the years, 27 May is revered as the first day in the city’s history. The name of the corresponding religious celebration was reflected in a number of names in the city toponymy. First and foremost, they were Troitskaya (Trinity) Street and Troitskaya (Trinity) Square with a church of the Holy Trinity sited on Beryozovy (Birch) Island *) The word sounds like the Finnish ‘Neva’ that means - big river, great water.
which was an initial centre of the growing city (today they are called correspondingly Nobility Street and the Square at the Trinity Bridge, while the church rebuilt more than once, was destroyed in the 1920-s). Next are the Trinity Bridge, solemnly opened on the day of the two-hundredth anniversary of Petersburg as a material and really necessary memorial; the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the Holy-Trinity Alexander Nevsky Monastery (Laura since 1797); the former Trinity churches in the district of the Okhta, in the 17-th Line and Halley Harbour of Vasilyevsky Island; the grandiose Trinity Cathedral of the Life-Guards Izmailovsky Regiment; and Trinity (modernday Moskvina) Prospekt. There were several Trinity branches of convents or monasteries, now the area between Sedov and Babushkin Streets is known as the “Trinity Field”.
The map of the locality of the future St.Petersburg in 1700, from the Atlas by Tsylov. 1-13,19-28,30,34-39,41-44,46 –Finnish villages, granges, farmsteads; 14,29,31 inns (taverns); 15 – hospital; 16 – Nyen-Stad; 17–German church (kirk); 18 – Swedish church; 32–Spasskoye (Saviour's) settlement; 33– Russian Ortodoch Church; A – Neva River
For several years the city was growing as if by adjustment, seeking the most rational proportion for its parts. On Birch Island, where it started, springing up were the first house of Peter (log hut – izba) and Prince A.D.Menshikov’s edifice, original commercial and administrative buildings such as: Exchange, Gostiny Dvor (Stalls far Merchants, or Shopping Arcade), Mint, Kronwerk and other institutions, as well as houses and tents of branches for working people. On Hare Island, the earthwork Sankt Pitersburkh Fortress, with the stone Cathedral of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the Commandant’s House and the Arsenal were being constructed. On the left bank of the Neva, the Admiralty was being erected, with huts of working people and a military camp close by. In order to protect the northern reaches of the future city from possible attacks by Sweden, on Aptekarsky (Apothecary) Island, small fortifications and batteries were built. A battery of a similar type had been put up on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island.
During the first years, the city’s building could not be said to be finel. Being busy with different affairs and battles, Peter was far from the future capital. His idea of creation of a well-planned city was initially developed as by projects of the architects J.-B.Leblond and D.Trezzini, and later on, – by P.M.Yeropkin’s design. The regular building was being carried out by a specialized chancellery of municipal affairs. By the
The first building of the future Sankt Pitersburkh was Peter the Great's wooden house with windows made in the Holland manner.
end of Peter’s life, the unique appearance of Petersburg had been formed and many features of its layout that received the utter completion in the 60-s of the XVIII-th century had already become evident.
In search of the grandeur and stability of his capital, Peter I wanted St.Petersburg to be built of stone. In 1714 he issued an order that banned stone building in other towns and cities of Russia. Stone-masons and bricklayers were gathered in the capital from all over the country. However the first houses in Petersburg were wooden. Thereupon they were replaced by wooden buildings coated in clay and, by fachwerk houses constructed in such a way that their wooden timbering, or casing was filled up with solution of lime. The richest of fachwerk constructions was A.D.Menshikov’s house on Birch Island. It was called Posolsky (Ambassadorial) House as receptions of ambassadors used to be held there. Among other fachwerk constructions worthy of mention is the second gostiny dvor (shopping arcade) built in place of a wooden one in the Trinity Square.
The first house of natural stone using material taken from ruins of the Swedish fortress Nyenschantz in the mouth of the Okhta river – on the place of the modern-day Petrozavod (Peter’s works) was erected on Birch Island for the chancellor G.I.Golovkin in 1710. The building has not survived. Another stone edifice (both of natural and artificial materials) was the residence of the general-governor of the capital Prince A.D.Menshikov erected in his estate on Vasilyevsky Island to the plan of the architects D.M.Fontana and G.I.Shedel in 1710-1716. It was built of bricks and limestone slabs (so called Putilovo Stone). The ceilings of the cellar and the ground floor are brick and vaulted. On the outside the house is plastered. It was then the most stately building in the city where the official tsar’s receptions and assemblies took place. Nowadays it is rather difficult to perceive the impression the size of the palace produced at that time. But when you mentally throw a glance at the building from the ground level, as if boating by the Neva for a tsar’s reception, you can imagine the grandiose scale of that magnificent, immense edifice under a high iron roof, then standing in forest on a low bank. There were other stone houses along the Neva as well, but none of them have remained.
Citizens dealt with stone building rather unwillingly. Thus, as noted in a description of St.Petersburg in 1716-1717, “ all houses in the most rich district of Nobility Street on Birch Island are wooden... For the time being the masters are laying up materials in store to rebuild their wooden houses in stone later”. In order to stimulate stone building in the city, D.Trezzini and J.-B.Leblond had drawn up standard models for houses. For a rouble, engravings of those designs were sold to all comers. Somewhat changed as they are, several buildings constructed after the project for “eminent” citizens on Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment between the 7-th - 8-th and 19-th - 20-th Lines have survived to the present day.
However, construction of government stone buildings was more successful. As early as the 30-th of May, 1706, the work on replacing of earth walls of the Sankt-Pitersburkh Fortress by stone began. Instead of the former ramparts, walls and bastions of brick and Putilovskaya slab were put up. In the same manner, the Admiralty Shipyard was rebuilt after 1721. Somewhat earlier, in 1711 a stone building of the Admiralty College was put into the central part of the Admiralty complex and in 1712 in the Sankt-Pitersburkh Fortress the architect D.Teizzini made a start of erection of the stone church in the name of the Apostles Peter and Paul on the site of a wooden one. The cathedral was completed in 1732. It is constructed of brick and limestone. By some accounts, its “lantern” bay-window is made of dolomite, as this rock is a good sound-ing-board. The cathedral is plastered on the outside. The same architect – D.Trezzini set up the stone church of the Annunciation in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in 1717-1722. Constructed of brick and stone are buildings of the Kunstkammer (Chamber of Curiosities) and the Twelve Colleges (Collegiums) on Vasilyevsky Island, the Summer Palace of Peter I in the Summer Garden and one of his winter residences.
Natural stone, especially Putilovo Slab, found wide use in the building. Peter I said: “ I spare no land, but grudge the Putilovo hill.” First applied in the building of St.Petersburg at the beginning of the XVIII-th century, Putilovo Slab became an essential material thereafter. Foundations of buildings, plinths and stylobates, walls, staircase rooms and steps, bases of balconies, flagstones, embankment clothing, rubble were now made of it. Historically the slab is the traditional building stone of Petersburg.
The exclusive role of Putilovo Slab was determined by the simplicity of open-cut mining and dressing of the stone in quarries. Besides, there were no problem with the stone transport to the growing city. The point is that Petersburg, firstly remote, lying far from habitable areas of the country, was rather well connected with them by the water way of the Neva, Volkhov and canals roundabout Ladoga Lake. Just along those routes to the south of Ladoga Lake, near the Putilovo hill at the Nazja river and on banks of the Volkhov Putilovo Slab and some similar varieties of the rock were quarried well back in time. Convenient places for quarrying were on the Tosna river as well. The stone was hauled to Petersburg on barges along the Volkhov, Tosna and then the Neva. Later findings of similar stone – for example, in the vicinity of Gatchina
- were also easily accessible and situated not far from the new city. But the most valuable, sound stone was brought from afar – from the Staritsk quarries on the Volga and from other places.
A landmark in the history of Russian town building was the construction of stone roadways and pavements in St.Petersburg. Usually streets or roads were paved only outside houses to a width of 1.5-1.8 m, while the middle part of the road where loaded carts, wagons, carriages went remained unmade. The Trinity Square, nowever, had been completely paved, as had been the Great Perspective Road from today’s Vosstaniya (Uprising) Square to the Admiralty. It was the main thoroughfare in the city from the old Novgorod Road (modern Ligovsky Prospekt). Of interest is a testimony of the kammer-junker Berhgolts who wrote in 1721: “... I had reached a long and wide avenue paved with stone and called a prospect with good reason, as its termination almost disappears out of sight. It was being cut and built for a short time by captured Swedes exclusively. Despite the fact that trees planted in three or four lines on each side of the road are yet not high, it is unusually beautiful due to the enormous length and cleanliness maintained here (captured Swedes are to clean it every Saturday) and creates the wonderful view I have never met till now.”
Every citizen was obliged to deliver 100 stones in the city for paving of streets. In addition, householders themselves flagged roads along their plots. Taxes were imposed on every cart and ship arriving in the city: they were 3 and from 10 to 30 stones correspondingly.
Looking at a map of St.Petersburg drawn up in the last year of the life of Peter I, we can not but note the rational simplicity of the layout of Vasilyevsky Island and the Admiralty district, while the Petersburg area (Petrogradskaya side later on) looks markedly less regular. The thoroughfare of the modern Bolshoi (Big) Prospekt and the system of streets – “lines”, embankments (today’s University and Lieutenant Schmidt embankments) are clearly delineated and recognizable on Vasilyevsky Island. Already at that time today’s Galernaya (Galley), Pochtamtskaya (Post Office) and other streets existed to the south of the Admiralty and Nevsky Perspective Road renameded Nevsky Prospekt (Avenue) only in 1783. Also well-defined is the line of today’s Liteiny Prospekt that develops into the road stretching to the south of the Nevsky Perspective Road on the line of the future Vladimir Prospekt. Furthermore, this road turns to the West and after the second bend extends to the South, well beyond the precincts of the city (it is not preserved in the modern layout).
The same map demonstrates the disposition of the Ligovsky canal, Ligovsky reservoir and the conduit pipes of an aqueduct supplying fountains of the Summer Garden. The Ligovsky canal dug out in 1718-1725 stretched from the Liga river (that took its source from a lake on the Duderhof Hills) partly along the old Novgorod high road that in the past crossed all the territory on the left bank of the Neva from the South to North. The canal existed for a long time, but the road changed into one of the main thoroughfares of the city – Ligovskaya street (now Ligovsky Prospekt). The location of the canal and street is not occasional: the preceeding old road stretching from the South-West to the territory of future Petersburg bent round from the East almost impassable, marshy lowlands. The road followed a bench of height 1.5-2 m sharply rising above the swamp. It was an ancient shore of the sea that had regressed to the Gulf of Finland about 5 thousand years ago. The bench is hardly noticed now in slight rise of Nevsky Prospekt and adjacent streets and lanes near the Moscow Railway Station. As a consequence of repairs, putting of dams, repeated grading and profiling of roads, the ancient shore bench has almost disappeared, but inside several yards located between Ligovsky Prospekt and Pushkin and Uprising streets there are walls 1.5-2 m high, constructed of limestone slabs. They represent remnants of stone-
The map of St.Petersburg in the last years of Peter the Great's life, from the Atlas by Tsylov.
work which consolidated the ancient shore (in the second yard of houses at NN 8 and 10 in Pushkin Street, for instance). That relatively raised and therefore reliable ground was used for laying of the old road. Originally, it was the only land link of the new capital under construction with the rest of Russia.
2. The city in the 30-50-s of the XVIII century
The scope of the stone town building started by Peter I was grandiose under the conditions of Russia. Nevertheless, despite of all efforts and energy of the tsar, despite of rapid rate of the new capital growth, it remained basically wooden during the 1-st quarter of the XVIII-th century. The exception was provided by the above-men-tioned unique edifices playing an exclusive role in creation of the appearance of the city and by other houses of magnates and nobility. The stone building developed after the death of Peter the Great, especially during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (Peter’s daughter).
In the 30’s the most significant public construction in stone was the central building of the Admiralty rebuilt by the architect I.K.Korobov who erected the tower with the spire as well. Also still standing are other public stone buildings put up in the 30-60-s, the edifices of the Land Shliakhetsky (Gentry) Cadet Corps on Vasilyevsky Island and the German school Petri-schule on Nevsky Prospekt amohg them. Simultaneously, in 1761 J.-B.Vallin de la Mothe began the building of the Big Gostiny Dvor (Shopping Arcade) completed only in 1785. Numerous examples of stone building in the middle of the XVIII-th century are private houses and palaces erected both by Russian and foreign architects. Thus, in the city centre there are the house of the Count F.A.Apraksin and Vorontsov-Dashkov’s mansion, the palaces of the Count A.G.Razumovsky (Anichkov Palace) and of the Count M.I.Vorontsov (now the Suvorov Military School), the Fontanny (Fountain) House of the Sheremetevs and the Stroganovs’ Palace. A number of churches erected at the same time add to the beauty of the city. They are the complex of the Smolny (Tar) Convent, St.Nicholas’ Naval Cathedral, Metropolitan House in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (Monastery of a High Rank), Church of Sts.Simeon and Anne at the Fontanka River, St.Panteleimon’s Church erected in the Solianoi Salt Lane to commemorate the victories of the Russian fleet at Gangut (Hangö) and Grengam (Groenham), and today almost unnoticed Church of the Three Saints on Vasilyevsky Island. There are many other important stone constructions in the city. The most famous of them is the Winter Palace – a building of the 50-60-s, official residence of Russian tsars, the remarkable creation by B.F.Rastrelli.
All these buildingss are constructed of brick, Putilovo Slab and plastered on the outside. The floors were of wooden beams. The external decor is stucco moulding, almost everywhere the role of natural stone (Putilovo Slab) is only functional. The sole exception is provided by F.A.Apraksin house in Millionnaya Street. Columns supporting a pediment of that edifice were executed in stone new to the capital, that is white-grey banded marble from islands, or the north shore of Lake Ladoga. Attention is usually drawn to the pink granite in the decoration of the Winter Palace. The rock was used for facing of pedestals of columns at the three porches and for revetting of parapets of pentre douces - or sloping doorways - that can be seen from the Palace Square. However, they were done significantly later - in the 1880-s.
Even by the beginning of the 60-s of the XVIII-th century, the wooden palaces of Catherine I (on Nevsky Prospekt) and of Elizabeth (on the place of the future Engineers, or Mikhailovsky Castle) were still standing side by side with magnificent buildings made of artificial and natural stones. Yet rising above the central part of the city were wooden spires of the Admiralty and small stone Church of Our Lady of Kazan built by the architect M.G.Zemtsov in 1733-1737 and pulled down before the erection of the Kazansky Cathedral. Made of wood were buildings of numerous enterprises, factories, plants and workshops, the majority of private houses belonging to noble citizens and to less eminent ones. As a rule, the sidewalks, embankments of the Neva, bridges across the Moika and Fontanka rivers, as well as over the Catherine Canal (today’s Griboyedov Canal) were of wood.
3.The time of Catherine II
By the last third of the XVIII-th century St.Petersburg had secured its predominance as the main city of Russia, taking the place of Moscow in that role for a century and a half. Factories in the city increased in number, the prestige of the country and its new capital grew in Europe. In 1760-1790-s the city’s face changed very rapidly. “I found Petersburg of wood and I will leave it of stone” – this statement of Catherine II marks a new stage of building in St.Petersburg.
In 1762 “The Committee for stone building in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow” was established, the architects A.V.Kvasov, I.E.Starov and others played important roles in its activities. The Committee launched works on the city improvement and on erection of stone public buildings at government expense. A start had been made on construction of granite embankments of the Neva and its tributaries, as well as on the building of stone bridges across the Moika and Fontanka Rivers and over the Catherine Canal. The first to be clad with granite was the Palace Embankment – in 1763-1767; developing further along in the 60-80-s was building of the granite embankment and houses between the Liteiny Dvor (Foundry Yard) and Fontanka River (modern Kutuzov Embankment), as well as facing with granite of Galernaya (Gelley), thereafter English Embankment. Within the next few years the embankments of the Catherine Canal and Zimniaya Kanavka (Small Winter Canal) were clad with granite. Banks of the Fontanka River were made good and the lining of them with granite began. The first stone bridge was the Hermitage across the Small Winter Canal on the Palace Embankment of the Neva. It was built in 1763-1766. The next on the same embankment were the Verkhne-Lebiazhy (Upper Swan) Bridge over the Lebiazhya Kanavka (Small Swan Canal) and Prachechny (Laundry) Bridge across the Fontanka River. The latter was constructed by T.I.Nasonov. In 1766 the engineer I.M.Golenishtshev-Kutuzov, father of the Field-Marshal M.I.Kutuzov, erected the Kazansky Bridge over the Catherine Canal that had been reconstructed across the width of Nevsky Prospekt in 1805.
The years 60-90-s of the XVIII-th century saw the appearance of a number of gen-eral-purpose stone buildings erected after the plans of N.A.Lvov, A.Rinaldi, G.Quarenghi, S.I.Chevakinsky, J.-B.Vallin de la Mothe, A.F.Kokorinov et al. They are the buildings of the General Post Office, shopping arcade of the Big Gostiny Dvor and Trading Silver Stalls, New Nicholas’Nikolsky and Krugly (Round) Markets. The Obukhovsky free medical service Hospital for the poor was built in the forest on the other side of the Fontanka River. The district (nowadays one of the central) represented an outskirt of the city. The stone warehouses to store timber for shipbuilding were constructed on the Moika embankment. The complex was called New Holland. The landscape of the right bank of the Neva was enriched with the edifices of the Academy of Arts and Academy of Sciences. The Assignation was Bank put up in Sadovaya Street. At the same time the improvement and marking of the Roads to Peterhof and Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village) with stone mile-posts was carried out.
Over the period of the 70-80-s, of fundamental importance in the formation of today’s outward appearance of the city was the granite facing of the walls and bastions of the Peter and Paul Fortress on the side towards the Neva and the creation of the railings of the Summer Garden along the Neva embankment. It was constructed of 36 granite columns united by an iron grill with ornaments of gilded bronze wrought in Tula. The year 1782 saw the unveiling of a monument to Peter I - the famous “Bronze Horseman”, the pedestal of which was made of an immense granite rock. At the same time the city acquired a Bolshoi (Big) or Kamenny (Stone) Theatre, as it was sometimes called, located on the site of the present building of the Conservatoire. The Theatre has not survived but in due course it had served its purpose in the cultural life of the capital. In the 60-80-s the Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre were also erected.
During the last third of the XVIII-th century the scope of building of stone private houses was steadily growing, according to present-day terminology they became large-scale production. Beginning in 1766, Nevsky Prospekt, for instance, was being built up with stone houses forming already a continuous line. Some of palaces belonging to nobility, people of quality and members of tsar’s family were particularly splendid in their decoration and grandiose in their size. Examples are found in the Marble Palace built for the Count G.G.Orlov, Palace of the Count G.A.Potemkin – Tavrichesky (of Taurida), estate and residence of the Count Yusoupov situated between the Fontanka River and Sadovaya (Garden) Street, Kamennoostrovsky (Stone Island) Palace.
In the 60-90-s many stone places of worship were erected. These are: the Polish Roman-Catholic Church of St.Catherine and Armenian Church on Nevsky Prospekt, the Cathedral of Prince Vladimir on Petrogradskaya Side, the Lutheran Church of St.Catherine and St.Andrew’s Cathedral on Vasilyevsky Island, the Church of the Nativity of St.John the Baptist (in memory of the Chesma Victory) on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, the Holy Trinity Cathedral and gate-church in the Alexander Nevsky Laura (Monastery). The most magnificent church in the centre of the city was to be the third St.Isaac’s Church being built at the same time but pulled down later.
Thus, by the end of the XVIII-th century the plan of the founder of the city had been realised: the centre of Petersburg was formed essentially of stone, and no other city in Russia was competitive in the number of stone constructions with the capital. As before, the main building materials were brick and limestone slab quarried near Putilovo village and elsewhere. Almost all buildings of that time, private and government ones, and churches, were constructed of brick and plastered outside. They were embellished with stucco moulding. Putilovo Slab and its varieties were used for bases of buildings, staircases and the adornment of entrances. The role of the rock was mainly functional and only partly decorative. Simultaneously new stone – pink and grey granite from deposits of Finland and the Karelian Isthmus, had quickly become a oare of the practice of building. It was used as structural and decorative material and found application in the construction of embankments, parapets and piles or piers of bridges, as well as for facing of walls of the Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress and its Neva quay. Karelian marbles and granite are widely employed in the decor of two particularly rich edifices: the Marble Palace and Mikhailovsky (later Engineers’) Castle. Marbles were also used for decoration of the third Isaac’s Church.
4.The city in the first half of the XIX-th century
Towards the beginning of the XIX-th century Saint-Petersburg had become a developed European city. Stable land links of the capital with the centre of Russia had been formed – since 1746 already the profiled and strengthened natural-soil road (highway) from Petersburg through Novgorod to Moscow had come in to use. Roads to the West and South had been built too. Their existence stimulated the primary growth of the city on the more convenient territory that was the Neva left-bank area. All governmental and municipal establishments had been gradually concentrated on the Admiralty side. In the late XVIII-th and early XIX-th centuries the administrative centre of the capital was definitely represented by the area of the today’s three squares: St. Isaac’s, Decembrists’ and Palace. Here, not far from the official tsar’s residence Winter Palace, the Senate was placed in the house ( not preserved now) of the Vice-Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin. Rising above Senate Square was St.Isaac’s Cathedral, the northern wing of the Admiralty housed the Naval College and the Foreign College occupied the mansion of the Count A.B.Kurakin on the English Embankment.
The complete arrangement of the administrative centre took place in the first half of the XIX-th century. Next created were the association of the three squares bounded with the buildings of the Senate and Senod, Horse Guards Menage, St.Isaac’s Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, General Staff Headquarters and Guards Headquarters. The Palace Square had been completed with the addition of the Alexander Column. The main building of the Admiralty constructed to the plan of A.D.Zakharov linked the squares together. Among other significant architectural creations of the first half of the XIX-th century mention may be made of the Our Lady of Kazan (Kazansky) Cathedral, the complex of the Alexandrinsky Theatre (called after Alexandra, the wife of Nicholas I), the Mikhailovsky (Michael’s) Palace and Theatre, the Smolny
The map of St.Petersburg at the time of Nicholas I ruling, from the Atlas by Tsylov.
(Tar) Institute, the Stock Exchange. As before, all these constructions are made of brick and limestone slab and externally plastered. However, buildings of the governmental centre of the day were already richly decorated with stone. Rocks used for the decor were not quite new in the architecture of St.Petersburg. The first was Piterlaks red granite, and unlike the previous time, definite parts of buildings were faced with it at the period under consideration. Secondly, there was Serdobol grey granite which at that point was used not only for construction of plinths, but for the creation of excellent sculptures and column-monuments as well. Karelian Marble was not new, but new was the manner to revet enormous areas of walls with that stone. Italian marble was rather scarce, being very sumptuous. It was used for the first time for the decoration of a facade of P.N.Demidov’s house erected in Bolshaya Morskaya (Great Naval) Street, N43. The owner was a manufacturer-millionaire. The interiors of buildings of that time were also embellished with stone very richly. The rocks are Russian and foreign marbles of different kinds, porphyries, quartzites, slate, granites, lazurite, jasper and malachite. Their different colours impart brightness and brilliance to staircases, halls and rooms.
Monumental and decorative sculpture made an integral part of stone decoration of Petersburg at the first half of the XIX-th century. Playing a large role in the architectural integrity of the city are the following monuments: the Rumiantsev Obelisk of granite and marble on the Tsarina Meadow (today’s Marsovo Pole, or Field of Mars) in 1799 and transferred to the Solovyovsky Garden on Vasilyevsky Island in 1818; the bronze memorial to A.V.Suvorov occupying the original position of the Rumiantsev Obelisk and having then a marble pedestal that was changed for the granite one later; the monument to Peter I standing on the pedestal of granite and light marble in front of the Mikhailovsky (Engineers’) Castle. Subsequently, sculptures representing the Dioscur brothers done in marble were set on both sides of a portico of the Manege (Reding School) of the Horse Guards Regiment, and two sculptural groups called “Heracles and Anteus” and “Pluto Carrying Off Proserpine” cut from Pudost Limestone were installed at the top of a staircase of a portico of the Mining Institute. In 1837 the monuments to M.I.Kutuzov and M.B.Barklay de Tolli were unveiled in front of the Kazansky Cathedral (Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan). They were cast in bronze and put up on granite pedestals.
5.The late XIX-th and early XX-th centuries
So by the mid-nineteenth century St.Petersburg had developed its unique appearance of the stone city that has survived in the old parts up till now. The futher growth of Petersburg followed the pattern seen in other capitalistic industrial cities. Stone factories and plants, private dwelling or tenament houses constructed with minimum expenditure in an attractive appearance were built very actively. In the grand centre of St.Petersburg, palaces for members of tsar’s family and other stately edifices were erected. Stone decoration of the buildings is lavish only inside, while their facades are richly adorned with stucco moulding. Natural stone here (limestone as a rule) is only functional, as it is used in foundations, socles, steps, porches, frames of windows, etc. The exception is provided by the Nikolayevsky (Nicholas’) and Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Palaces. The portico of the former is built of Serdobol grey granite and the front entrance of the latter is faced with rusticated grey sandstone.
Of prime importance in the development of Petersburg was construction of the Annunciation (later Nikolayevsky and Lieutenant Schmidt nowadays) Bridge. It was the first permanent bridge across the Neva built on granite abutments as early as the 1840-s. The last quarter of the XIX-th century and the first decade of the XX-th century saw the appearance of four more bridges across the Neva: Alexander (now Liteiny), Trinity (later named Kirovsky), then Palace and Bolsheokhtinsky (Large Okhta) named after Peter the Great. In the late XIX-th and early XX-th centuries, during the last stage of capitalism development in Russia (before the revolution of 1917), erection of rich stone buildings intended for banks and joint-stock companies was characteristic of St.Petersburg. Almost without exception they were located in Bolshaya Morskaya (Great Naval) Street and at the beginning of Nevsky Prospekt. As examples the following houses may be mentioned: the St.Petersburg Trading Bank (Wawelberg’s House), Asov-Don Trading Bank, Russian Trading and Industrial Bank, Faberge House, Russian Bank for Foreign Trade. Standing out are monumental design of these buildings, abundance of natural stone in decoration of the facades, exquisite workmanship in finish of stone and skillful masonry. New for the city were costly Swedish and Finnish granites, German and Polish sandstones, gabbro, gneisses, as well as native Serdobol Granite. At the beginning of the XX-th century the huge stone edifice of the “Astoria” Hotel and German Embassy building (Dresdnerer Bank now) were erected in St.Issac’s Square.
Only few edifices put up at that time differ in their beautiful appearance from the pompous pretentiousness of the above-mentioned buildings. One of them, for instance, is the austere edifice of the Ethnographical Department of the Russian Museum constructed to the design of the architect V.F.Svinyin in 1900-1911. Being rather modest from outside, the building is famous for its interiors, where variously coloured and textured Belogorsky (White Mountain) Marbles from Lake Onega were used.
Simultaneously, away from the centre, streets were completed as gloomy stone constructions of plants, factories, offices, shops, warehouses and multistorey dwelling houses. Wooden settlements, barracks, small private houses of workers and other indigent people continued to grow in industrial outskirts. Grandiose building developed during the Soviet period, demolished those constructions. In such a way, step by step, the stone city appeared in the place of the wooden one.
Pre-revolutionary history of the development both of the country and of quarrying, delivery and importation of stone for building and decoration of the capital is reflected in this transformation. At the first stage, in 1703-1730, the only natural stone used in the building was local limestone - so called Putilovo Slab. Added more recently were Karelian marbles, granites from Finland and Karelia, slate from areas of Lake Onega, Siberian and Afghanian lazurite, Uralian malachite, Karelian quartzite, marbles from Italy and other countries. Since about the last decade of the XIX-th century, when a railway system to the West and North-West had been formed and the cost of transportation decreased, used in the building of St.Petersburg were granites from Sweden and Finland, sandstones from Poland and Germany and only rarely Karelian marble. However, on record of all history of St.Petersburg almost none of constructions were built without limestone slab from Putilovo or other deposits in the vicinity of the city and Volkhov River. This slab has widespread application as a material for foundations, plinths, different constructive elements and rubble. |