St Isaac's Square
Encyclopedia
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
is a major city square sprawling between the Mariinsky Palace
Mariinsky Palace
Mariinsky Palace, also known as Marie Palace , was the last Neoclassical imperial palace to be constructed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was built between 1839 and 1844 to a design by the court architect Andrei Stackensneider....
and Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor in Saint Petersburg, Russia is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city...
, which separates it from Senate Square. The square is graced by the equestrian Monument to Nicholas I
Monument to Nicholas I
The Monument to Nicholas I is a bronze equestrian monument of Nicholas I of Russia on St Isaac's Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia...
.
The Lobanov-Rostovsky House (1817-20) on the west side of the square was designed by Auguste de Montferrand
Auguste de Montferrand
Auguste de Montferrand was a French Neoclassical architect who worked primarily in Russia. His two best known works are the Saint Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg.-Family:...
. It may be described as an Empire style building that has an eight-column portico facing the Admiralty building
Admiralty building, Saint Petersburg
The Admiralty building is the former headquarters of the Admiralty Board in St. Petersburg, russia.-History:The building you see now was re-built in the nineteenth century to support the Tsar's maritime ambitions. The original design was a fortified ship yars which was later surrounded by four...
. The main porch features the twin statue
Statue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
s of Medici lions
Medici lions
The Medici lions are two lion sculptures placed around 1600 at the Villa Medici, Rome, Italy, and since 1789 displayed at the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. The sculptures depict standing male lions with a sphere under one claw, looking to the side...
on granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
pedestals; they were made famous by Pushkin in his last long poem, The Bronze Horseman
The Bronze Horseman (poem)
The Bronze Horseman: A Petersburg Tale is a narrative poem written by Aleksandr Pushkin in 1833 about the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. Widely considered to be Pushkin's most successful narrative poem, "The Bronze Horseman" has had a lasting impact on Russian...
. Nearby is Quarenghi
Giacomo Quarenghi
Giacomo Quarenghi was the foremost and most prolific practitioner of Palladian architecture in Imperial Russia, particularly in Saint Petersburg.- Career in Italy :...
's Horse Guards' Riding Hall (1804-07), in part inspired by the Parthenon
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...
and flanked by the marble statues of the Dioscuri, by Paolo Triscorni.
Opposite the cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
is the Mariinsky Palace, built in 1829-1844 for Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna. Currently the palace houses the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly. In front of the palace is the 97-metre-wide Blue Bridge
Blue Bridge (Saint Petersburg)
The Blue Bridge , is a 97.3 metre wide bridge that spans the Moika River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Blue Bridge is the widest bridge in Saint Petersburg and is sometimes claimed to be the widest bridge in the world — a claim, however, that has not been recognized by international reference...
, which used to be the widest in Saint Petersburg. Spanning the Moika River
Moika River
The Moyka River is a small river which encircles the central portion of Saint Petersburg, effectively making it an island. The river, originally known as Mya, derives its name from the Ingrian word for "slush, mire"...
, the bridge is usually perceived as the extension of the square, although in fact it forms a separate square, called Mariyinskaya. To the right from the bridge is so-called Neptune's Scale, with a granite top. This is a stele which marks water levels during major floods.
To the east of the cathedral is the six-storey Hotel Astoria
Hotel Astoria
Hotel Astoria is a five-star hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia opened in 1912. It has 213 bedrooms, including 52 suites.It is located on Saint Isaac's Square, next to Saint Isaac's Cathedral and across from the historic Imperial German Embassy...
, designed by Fyodor Lidval
Fyodor Lidval
Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval was a Russian architect of Swedish ethnicity.-Life:Lidval was born in St. Petersburg into a family of Russified Swedes. In 1882 he attended elementary school at the Swedish Church of St. Catherine, and then the second Petersburg Technical High School in 1888...
. It opened in 1912 and was one of the most luxurious hotels in the Russian Empire. Adjacent to the Astoria is the hotel Angleterre
Angleterre Hotel
The Angleterre Hotel is a modern, luxury business-class hotel on Voznesensky Prospekt at Saint Isaac's Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia originally built in the 1850s...
, which is remembered as the deathplace of poet Sergei Yesenin
Sergei Yesenin
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin was a Russian lyrical poet. He was one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century but committed suicide at the age of 30...
. The building found at the corner of Malaya Morskaya Street is associated with Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who lived there in 1848-1849. At this period, he published his first work of fiction, White Nights.
The Russian Institute of Plant Breeding named after Academician Nikolai Vavilov
Nikolai Vavilov
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was a prominent Russian and Soviet botanist and geneticist best known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants...
is located in two neo-Renaissance buildings. The institute has a unique collection of 160,000 cultivated plants, which Vavilov collected while travelling in every continent from 1921 to 1940. After the end of the war, a journal published in London reported that Vavilov's collection was lost during the Siege of Leningrad
Siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
. However, the report was false: although many starved to death, the institute's staff would not consume a single grain of rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
or potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
tuber from the collection.
One of the last buildings to be erected on the square was the trapezoidal red-granite German Embassy
Embassy of Germany in Saint Petersburg
The Embassy of Germany in Saint Petersburg was the diplomatic mission of the German Empire to the Russian Empire in Saint Petersburg. After the relocation by the Bolsheviks of the Soviet capital from Petrograd to Moscow, it served as a consulate of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany...
(1911-12), by the architect Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens was a German architect and designer. He was important for the modernist movement, as several of the movements leading names worked for him when they were young.-Biography:Behrens attended the Christianeum Hamburg from September 1877 until Easter 1882...
. The building is a reference point in the history of Western architecture, as it was the first specimen of stripped classicism, a style that enjoyed immense popularity in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.