Palace of Peter I in the Summer Garden opened after restoration. History Tour of the Summer Palace

The Summer Palace of Peter I in St. Petersburg was built in 1711–1712. designed by architect Domenico Trezzini. Architects and sculptors from Western Europe were involved in the design of the facades and interiors of the Summer Palace: Andreas Schluter, Georg-Johann Mattarnovi, Jean-Baptiste-Alexandre Leblon.

The Summer Palace of Peter I has a happy fate: after the death of Peter the palace never rebuilt, although there were some losses in the interior decoration. To this day, the layout and appearance of the building, the picturesque ceiling lamps of allegorical content, pine wardrobes, tiled stoves and wall decoration with painted Dutch tiles, wood paneling of the ground floor rooms, interior decoration of the Lower and Upper Cooking Rooms and the Green Cabinet have been preserved unchanged. The unique wind instrument in the Cabinet of Peter I still shows the direction and strength of the wind, as well as the time. On the second floor there is a Danzig closet, in which, according to legend, Peter I kept his underwear and over the knee boots.

The Summer Palace is valuable not only as one of the early architectural monuments of St. Petersburg, but also as evidence of the tastes, interests, aspirations of Peter the Great, which were reflected in the architectural features of the monument.

For the arrangement of his residence, Peter I chose a habitable and advantageously located manor on a cape between the Neva and Bezymyanny Erik (now the Fontanka River), where the estate of the Swedish major Erich Berndt von Konow (Konau) was located - a small house with a utility yard and a garden. At first, Peter could use Konau's house for living, but, perhaps, even then he built his own house for him. Ivan Matveev (Ugryumov), who from 1705 to 1707 supervised all engineering and construction work on the former Swedish manor. It was this building that I saw in 1710–1711. the author of "Description of St. Petersburg and Kronshlot": "Right by the river," he writes, "is the royal residence, that is, a small house in the garden of the Dutch facade, colorfully painted with gilded window frames and lead ornaments."

At the direction of Peter, a stone building was built on the site of his former house according to the project of the architect D. Trezzini. On April 17, 1712, Peter had already moved to live in the Summer Palace, and a year later the royal residence was visited by "overseas" guests: c.) they approached me, that is, to my very chambers .... "

After the death of Peter I, the Summer Palace lost its significance as a royal dwelling. For some time court servants lived here. . During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter's daughter, who honored the memory of her father, "dilapidated" things were repaired, and in the first half of the 19th century the former royal residence began to be used as a summer residence for prominent dignitaries of that time.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of St. Petersburg, an exhibition of monuments of the Petrine era was held in the Summer Palace. From the imperial palaces, the Hermitage, the State Archives, portraits and engravings, banners, military weapons, pieces of furniture and applied art, books, drawings were delivered. The bed of Peter I from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, presented at the exhibition, is still on display at the palace.

After 1917, the palace was preserved as a historical and architectural monument, but did not yet have the status of a museum. In 1925, the palace was transferred to the jurisdiction of the historical department of the State Russian Museum, and exhibitions were held in it that were not related to the historical past of the palace.

Since 1934, the Summer Palace of Peter I has become an independent museum of a memorial, historical and artistic nature. At the exposition of the museum you can see the clothes of Peter I, furniture, paintings and engravings, objects of applied art of Peter the Great's time.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Summer Palace was hit by an explosive wave, but the damage was eliminated already in 1946, and the following year the palace-museum was opened to visitors. In the 1960s the palace underwent a comprehensive restoration under the guidance of the architect A. E. Gessen.

Since 2004, the Summer Palace has become part of the State Russian Museum. In 2015–2017 the complex restoration was carried out in the palace, which was preceded by the painstaking work of historians and art historians. During the restoration process, the atmosphere of the royal dwelling of the beginning of the 18th century was restored in the palace.

Of particular note is the restoration of the picturesque plafonds in seven rooms of the Summer Palace, after which the darkened unique painting was brought closer to its original color. There was a feeling of air and soaring allegorical figures.

In the Green Cabinet, where Peter's rarities were placed in special showcases, which marked the beginning of the history of the Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, the unique wall painting on wood of the early 18th century was cleaned and strengthened. The oak doors and shutters have been restored in the palace, and the parquet floor and fabrics on the walls have been updated in accordance with historical materials. 19th century window frames have been replaced.

Particular attention was paid to the famous wind instrument (anemometer), which was ordered by Peter I in Dresden and installed in the Summer Palace in 1714. The device combines three dials: one of them is an hour, the other two are indicators of the direction and speed of the wind. The arrows of the right and left dials are connected to the weather vane located on the roof through a shaft cut through the wall. The device is an integral part of the Summer Palace, its most unique rarity. The wind instrument has a carved frame, on which mythological characters are represented: the lord of the winds Eol, the lord of the seas Neptune and sea emblems - ship rudders, oars, tridents and a crown of rosters crowning the frame - the prows of ships.

Experts carefully approached the restoration of the Lower and Upper Cooks, finished with painted Dutch tiles. In Nizhnyaya Povarna, a black marble shell is presented, which is part of the water supply system of the time of Peter the Great. Under the building of the palace, a brick vaulted tunnel has been preserved, which provided the operation of a flow-flushing sewer - the first in St. Petersburg.

A renewed gilded weather vane shone on the roof of the palace.

The Summer Palace of Peter I is the only building that has been preserved in the Summer Garden since the beginning of the 18th century. It was built by the architect D. Trezzini, taking into account the wishes of Peter I in the Dutch style, so Peter I can be considered a co-author of the project.
The Summer Palace is located in the northeastern part of the Summer Garden. During the time of Peter I, the palace was surrounded by water on three sides: from the north - by the Neva, from the east by the Fontanka, in the south a pond was dug "Havanese", along which small ships moored to the palace. Subsequently, the "Havanese" was bombarded.

There was a Havanese

The palace was intended for the residence of the king and members of his family. Each floor has 7 rooms. The first floor was occupied by the chambers of the king, the second - by his wife Catherine and children. Peter lived in the palace until his death (1712-1725).
The most prominent architects of that time took part in the decoration of the premises: M.G. Zemtsov, G.I. Mattarnovi, N. Michetti, A. Schlüter.
The palace is decorated with gutters in the form of winged dragons and a weather vane in the form of the figure of George the Victorious. The weather vane is connected to an anemometer - a device that shows the direction and strength of the wind, as well as time. The anemometer was ordered by Peter I in Dresden and installed in the Summer Palace in 1714.

A frieze of bas-reliefs on antique themes runs along the facades. The largest bas-relief is located above the entrance. He depicts the goddess of wisdom Minerva with war trophies.

From the side of the Neva in front of the palace there is a sculpture "Peace and Abundance".

The Summer Garden got its name from the name of the palace. Prior to that, it was called the royal garden.
Since 1934 the Summer Palace has been a museum. Authentic objects of the 18th century, personal belongings of Peter I, paintings are stored here.

Summer Palace of Peter the Great is open May 1st to October 1st.
Visit as part of an excursion group(up to 15 people) every hour from 11 am to 4 pm.

Tuesday is a day off.

Price one-time entrance tickets:
Full ticket - 350 rubles.
Reduced ticket - 200 rubles.

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The Summer Palace of Peter I is considered one of the oldest buildings in St. Petersburg. The house is located in a very beautiful place called the Summer Garden. This park was laid out at the beginning of the 18th century, when the northern capital was just beginning to be built up. To work on his summer residence, Peter I invited eminent architects and garden masters. The king dreamed of building a Versailles-style garden here. Looking ahead, let's say that he succeeded and until now the Summer Garden remains one of the favorite places for tourists and residents of the city to relax.

The Summer Palace of Peter I in St. Petersburg is not splendid. This is a very modest building in the Baroque style, quite unlike the royal mansions.

Peter chose the place for the Summer Palace between the Neva and the Fontanka (in those years - the Nameless Yerik), just where the estate of the Swedish major Erich von Konow was located. It was here that a small two-story stone house was built according to the project of the architect Domenico Trezzini. True, initially Peter made the plan of the house on his own, and Trezzini only corrected it. It should be noted that the Summer Palace of Peter I is not distinguished by pomp. This is a very modest building in the Baroque style, quite unlike the royal mansions. The layout of both floors is exactly the same. There are only 14 rooms, 2 kitchens and 2 internal corridors. On the first floor there were rooms of the king, on the second - his wife Catherine. The owners used this house only in the warm season - from May to October. That is why the Summer Palace of Peter I has thin walls and single frames in the windows. The facade of the palace is decorated with 28 bas-reliefs depicting the events of the Northern War.

On the roof of the Summer Palace of Peter I there is a copper weather vane in the form of St. George the Victorious slaying a snake. The weather vane sets in motion the mechanism of the wind device located inside the house. The wind direction and strength were indicated on a special instrument panel. This device, unusual for that time, Peter I ordered in Dresden from the court mechanic.

Despite the external simplicity, the Summer Palace of Peter I had everything that was required for the needs of the sovereign. In the waiting room, he read letters, dealt with complaints, and occasionally received visitors. In the neighborhood there was a lathe and a machine tool, for which Peter worked, a bedroom, a dressing room, a kitchen, a dining room and a large assembly room. For the guilty, a punishment cell was provided. The interior decoration of the palace in allegorical form glorified the victory of Russia over the Swedes in the Northern War. On the second floor were Catherine's bedroom, a nursery, a room for ladies-in-waiting and a separate room for dancing.

Interestingly, in the Summer Palace of Peter I, a sewage system was equipped - the very first in all of St. Petersburg. The building was washed from three sides with water, which entered the house with the help of pumps. The flow of the Fontanka River served as the driving force behind the sewage system.

Next to the palace is another building - Human chambers. Here was located the famous Amber Room, a huge library and numerous collections of various things that Peter collected. For example, the anatomical collection of the Dutch scientist Ruysch was kept in the Human Chambers. In fact, this house housed a large museum: here the king brought various curiosities, mechanisms, many compasses, astronomical instruments, stones with inscriptions, household items of different peoples and much, much more.

The Summer Palace performed its main function as a country residence of the tsar until the middle of the 18th century. Then officials began to use it. For some time the palace even stood abandoned. This is what saved it from restructuring. In 1934, the historical and art museum was located here. The building was damaged during the Great Patriotic War. But a large-scale reconstruction in the mid-50s of the 20th century helped to completely restore the palace. Today the residence of the tsar is part of the Russian Museum, anyone can go inside and find out how Peter I lived.

Practical information

Address of the Summer Garden: St. Petersburg, Kutuzova Embankment, 2. The nearest metro station is Gostiny Dvor. Entrance to the garden is free, opening hours - from 10.00 to 20.00. Day off - Tuesday.

St. Petersburg looks like a carved box of turquoise and gems. Its carved and painted walls are bas-reliefs with a hundred or two old fairy tales and half-forgotten stories. The lid is the domes of churches and high spiers crowned with weathercocks and crosses. The bottom is the foundations of old buildings that still remember the breath of their creators, high vaults and powerful beams that continue to solemnly hold the weight for several centuries. And it is worth opening the box, and inside there will be an eclectic style and amazing combinations - grace, strength and power that bloom with new colors with the onset of each century.

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The Summer Palace of Peter the Great can hardly be called the most beautiful palace complex of the Northern capital - this building looks somewhat modest or even pale compared to other giants - real poetry in stone, however, this particular palace is part of the Russian Museum, representing a residence where most of its time, not occupied by traveling or military campaigns, the great monarch saw off. So, it is here that you should look if there is a desire to understand what exactly and how this person lived.

The Summer Palace was originally built precisely as an imperial residence, appearing on the map of St. Petersburg almost with the very foundation of the city. The main concerns for its appearance and design fell on the shoulders of the eminent master of his craft - Domenico Trezzini, according to whose project a small two-story mansion was subsequently erected in the rhythm of the Baroque. It is worth noting that, despite the fact that formally Trezzini is still the architect, the first plan of the future mansion was developed personally by the monarch, and only then these drawings were corrected and somewhat processed in a creative manner. The location of the residence was also personally chosen by Peter the Great - between the Fontanka and the Neva.

Some find the design of the Summer Palace somewhat meager - its walls are decorated with only twenty-eight bas-reliefs, which, as one would expect, turned out to be another variation on the theme of perpetuating the victory over the Swedes in the Northern War, brilliant for Russia, and the layout of the rooms is the same for both floors, but this simplicity buildings are more than compensated by the complexity of the laconic arrangement of the Summer Garden, which was conceived as an imitation of Versailles. It is noteworthy that the imitation was more than complete - and today the Summer Garden continues to be considered one of the most sophisticated examples of landscape art.

exposition

The summer residence of the monarch is quite an interesting place to visit, not only from the standpoint of deepening into the life of the emperor himself, but also from the point of view of those innovations that this energetic man decided to adopt from his more technically confident neighbors. So, the weather vane, unusual in its form, which represents the figure of St. George the Victorious, with the usual gesture of striking a snake, is the work of one mechanic, whom Peter the Great met in Dresden.

The unusualness of this mechanism was that its main component is located just under the roof of the mansion and is a panel that was difficult for that time, by which it was possible to track not only the direction, but also the strength of the wind. Another peculiar detail of the Summer Palace is the presence of a sewage system, which was the first example of structures of this direction in the entire city.

Today, a visit to the Summer Palace includes not only the opportunity to personally look at the monarch's study, his dressing room, private rooms and workshops, but also to visit another rather remarkable building, which is called the People's Chambers. What is the value of these premises? It was here that the so barbarously stolen Amber Room was once located, as well as a number of collections that were replenished on the personal initiatives of Peter the Great. So, it was here that the very collection of Ruysch, the Dutch anatomist, was kept, which aroused genuine interest in the Russian monarch and admiration for the results of his work. Today, this collection can be seen during a visit to the Kuntskamera, as it became one of the first components of the future Museum of Oddities.

The most interesting sights of St. Petersburg in our article.

Opening hours and ticket prices

A visit to the palace complex usually starts at ten in the morning and ends at 18:00. The box office closes an hour earlier. The choice of a day off is rather atypical - it's Tuesday. There are differences in the cost of tickets for citizens of Russia itself and some CIS countries, for foreign citizens. The former, in the general case, will spend no more than one hundred rubles on tickets, of course, if they are not included in preferential categories, while the latter will have to pay up to three hundred rubles for an entrance ticket.

K. P. Beggrov. View of the palace of Peter I in the Summer Garden. Lithograph based on a drawing by V. S. Sadovnikov. 1830

About Peter's residence in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg.

It seems that a rare researcher involved in the "Summer House" - that was the name of the palace of Peter I at the beginning of the 18th century - did not complain about the lack of sources related to this building by the architect D. Trezzini. “About the construction [of the Summer Palace] no correct information has been preserved,” wrote the writer A. P. Bashutsky in 1839. “The history of the Summer Palace has not yet been clarified,” summed up at the beginning of the 20th century art critic I. E. Grabar. “The early history of the royal summer residence is full of legends,” archaeologist V. A. Korentsvit echoes them. Pushed into the corner of the Summer Garden, the small two-story house of the tsar looked least of all like the residence of an all-powerful monarch. “Peter I laid it down more for his own entertainment than to build an imperial palace,” noted the Swedish scientist K. R. Berk in 1735. The Prussian official J. G. Fokkerodt, who apparently visited the palace during Peter's lifetime, even calls the Trezenian creation "a miserable house, in no way commensurate with everything else." According to him, the Summer Palace was "so cramped that a wealthy nobleman would probably not want to fit in it." Fokkerodt considered the reason for this to be the bad taste of the Russian monarch, who loved small, low chambers. “The drawing presented by one Dutch architect, with cramped rooms and successfully gaining free space,” writes an official about some Peter the Great building, “permanently retained Peter’s advantage over the plan that one Italian or French architect drew with great taste.” Sometimes the opinion is expressed that the tsar, who built himself such an outwardly inconspicuous palace, wanted to live in it as a private person, while the palace of Prince A. D. Menshikov had “representative functions”. This is hardly true. Sources report: the summer residence of Peter I was visited by foreign ambassadors, prominent dignitaries, and architects. For example, in October 1722, “in the Summer House of His Imperial Majesty<…> there was a consultation” on stone construction in St. Petersburg, where, in addition to the tsar, the head of the office of city affairs U. A. Sinyavin and architects D. Trezzini and Stefan van Zwieten were present. Amusements also took place here: the Scot P. G.Bruce, who served under Peter I, reports that he often gave balls and arranged receptions in his Summer Palace, “and not at Prince Menshikov’s, as before.” Audiences of ambassadors also took place in the Summer Palace, which is mentioned by one of the participants in the Polish embassy who visited St. Petersburg in 1720. The testimony of an unknown author, who appears in the literature as an “eye-witness Pole”, is extremely valuable, since it is the only description of the inner chambers of the Summer Palace of the era of Peter I. The Tsar led the ambassador to the palace, “very beautifully decorated with various Chinese upholstery.” In three rooms, the Pole saw velvet beds with a wide braid, a lot of mirrors and decorations. The floor is marble. The kitchen is “like rooms in other palaces.” In the kitchen there are pumps for water supply, cabinets for silver and pewter utensils. Getting acquainted with the "equipment" of the royal kitchen, you involuntarily come to the conclusion: it was with the construction of the Summer Palace that Peter finally got a well-established life. In any case, now the words of the Danish envoy J. Yul, who wrote the following about the first Winter Palace in 1709, are now an anachronism: “The king ate at his house. It is curious that his cook ran around the city from house to house, borrowing dishes from someone, tablecloths from someone, plates from someone, food supplies from someone, because the king did not bring anything with him. The following fact is also noteworthy: although Peter had already lived in his new residence for several years, it was still not finished - obviously, the constant absence from the capital due to the wars prevented Peter from controlling the process of finishing the palace. At the same time, the monarch could not fail to notice how quickly the palace of A. D. Menshikov was being rebuilt and modified, which caused the highest discontent. The Austrian resident in Russia, O. Pleyer, reports on the scolding that Peter I arranged for the Most Serene Prince on the name day of the latter, November 23, 1714. Having reproached the favorite for numerous wastes, the tsar in anger threw to him: “You, prince, always build well: at the end of summer you ordered half of your house to be demolished, and by winter it has already been rebuilt again, and not like the old one, but better and taller. You also started a guest house at the end of the summer, which is larger than mine, and yours is more than half finished, but mine is not.” Researchers often agree that the palace of Peter I in the Summer Garden is an imitation of country Dutch villas. Indeed, in the explication to the plan of the 1740s from the collection of Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland), this palace is designated as “the Dutch estate in which Tsar Peter I lived with his whole family.” By the way, a statement on this score by the owner of the “Dutch estate”, heard by an eyewitness, has been preserved. Apparently, Peter did not consider the Trezzinian chambers as the final option, but thought in the future - probably after the end of the war with Sweden - to build a residence in the garden more appropriate to his dignity: “Let's live for a while, as good Dutch citizens live,” he said to Catherine, “But as soon as I manage my affairs, I will build you a palace, and then we will live, as it is proper for sovereigns to live.” According to the Travel Journals of Peter I, the royal family moved from the Winter Palace to the Summer Palace in April or May (apparently, depending on the weather). For example, in 1715 the move took place on April 16, and in 1720 on May 21. They returned to the "winter apartments" with the first cold weather, which came in October. Following the family, the "Cabinet-Chancery" headed by A. V. Makarov moved, apparently occupying the first floor of the People's Chambers adjacent to the palace (in the inventory of this building on the first floor, under No.