Zimniy Dvorets

Description

The "Winter Palace" in #SaintPetersburg served as the official residence of the Romanov emperors from 1732 until 1917. Its present form, the fourth on the site, is a masterpiece of Elizabethan Baroque designed chiefly by Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli under Empress Elizabeth in the 1750s. Built on a colossal scale as an elongated rectangle, its principal façade stretches 215 meters long and 30 meters high, richly decorated with white stucco ornament, statues, pilasters, and projecting bays. Earlier versions began with Peter the Great's modest Petrine Baroque palace (1711–1712) by Domenico Trezzini, a two-story structure rejecting traditional Russian styles in favor of European classicism. Subsequent enlargements under later rulers incorporated neighboring buildings, evolving through Petrine Baroque phases until Rastrelli's grand redesign symbolized imperial Russia's immense power and prestige. A major fire in 1837 destroyed much of the interior, but Nicholas I swiftly rebuilt it, preserving the unchanged baroque exterior while introducing diverse neoclassical and eclectic interiors.