The Building of the Twelve Collegia

The Building of the Twelve Collegia stretches along the entire length of University Embankment on Vasilyevsky Island and is considered the longest surviving monument of Petrine Baroque architecture in the city. Its defining feature is a row of twelve identical three-storey sections, set side by side perpendicular to the embankment. The overall design belonged to Domenico Trezzini, the decoration of the upper storeys was overseen by his assistant, a man named Schwertfeger, while the construction was ultimately completed by other masters — Giuseppe Trezzini and Mikhail Zemtsov.

Construction of the complex began in 1722: Peter I intended to turn Vasilyevsky Island into the administrative centre of the new capital. The plan originally called for twelve government institutions, or collegia, to be housed here — bodies that formed an intermediate stage between the old Moscow prikazy and the future ministries, among them the departments of foreign affairs, war, the admiralty, commerce and justice. Although the number of collegia actually in operation later fell, the façade is still divided into twelve equal sections. Each section originally had its own roof and a separate porch on the eastern side, while the ground floor was taken up by an open through-gallery; the pediments were adorned with stucco coats of arms of the corresponding departments.

The collegia first convened within the new walls in 1732, and construction was completed by the mid-1730s. In the 1740s, by decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the Senate and the Synod moved into the building. Later, in the early nineteenth century, part of the premises was occupied by the Main Pedagogical Institute, and from 1830 the entire complex was finally handed over to the university and rebuilt under the direction of the architect Apollon Shchedrin.

The only room to have preserved its eighteenth-century decoration is the square, double-height Peter's Hall, decorated in the mid-1730s under Zemtsov's direction by the Rossi brothers, decorative sculptors from the Ticino region. The ceiling painting and wall panels were created by the painter Andrei Matveyev together with Grigory Musikiysky; the interior still retains its corner stoves and stucco ornaments bearing the monograms of Peter I and Anna Ioannovna. After later overpainting was removed in the 1960s, the original artwork came to light once again, and today the hall is used for formal university ceremonies. Scenes from the film Autumn Marathon were shot within the building's walls, and it remains the university's main building, housing the research library and, among its longstanding faculties, the departments of biology.