Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace
At the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and the Fontanka River stands one of the city's most ornate palaces — the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, also known as the Sergievsky Palace. Built in the Neo-Baroque style to a design by the architect Andrei Stackenschneider, the building stands out on the avenue for its coral-coloured façades and its abundance of lavish sculptural decoration.
In 1797 Princess Anna Beloselskaya bought this plot from Ivan Naryshkin, had the existing house demolished, and commissioned the architect Fyodor Demertsov to build the first, modest three-storey mansion in the classical style. The building acquired its present appearance in 1846–1848: at the request of Prince Esper Beloselsky-Belozersky, Stackenschneider rebuilt the wings facing the avenue and the embankment and erected new outbuildings in the courtyard. The patron himself did not live to see the work completed, dying just as the foundations were being dug. The new building took as its model the Stroganov Palace by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, whose Baroque devices Stackenschneider drew on generously in decorating the façades.
The figures of atlantes and caryatids on the façade were made from his own models by the sculptor David Jensen, while the interior decoration was overseen by Stackenschneider himself. The grand staircase is adorned with gilded candelabra and caryatids, and the owners' monograms are woven into the pattern of the cast-iron banisters. Among the surviving interiors, notable examples include the Oak Hall, formerly used as a library; the Picture Gallery with its half-columns; the pale blue Grand Dining Room with putti-shaped stucco decoration; and the Mirror Hall, renowned for its excellent acoustics, originally conceived for concerts and still used for that purpose today.
After the patron's death, the palace was managed by his widow, Elena Pavlovna, who hosted balls here in close proximity to the Anichkov Palace; later, due to a crisis affecting the family's Ural metallurgical works, the building had to be handed over to the state treasury. Since 1884 the mansion has borne the name Sergievsky, having become a wedding gift to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Elizaveta Fyodorovna. After the grand duke's assassination by the Socialist Revolutionary Ivan Kalyayev in 1905, the palace passed to Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. In 1916–1918 the building housed an Anglo-Russian military hospital, which admitted around 6,000 Russian soldiers.
After the 1917 revolution the palace was nationalised, and from 1920 it housed a district Communist Party committee. In 1992 the building was transferred to the St Petersburg Committee for Culture to serve as a cultural centre, and from the mid-1990s until 2004 part of the halls were occupied by a Wax Museum. Since 2003 the palace has been under the administration of the Presidential Property Management Directorate of Russia; a restoration completed in 2015 returned the Mirror Hall and the Grand Dining Room to their historical colours, as originally conceived by Stackenschneider.
Today the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace combines the functions of a concert venue, a museum of period interiors and a business centre, remaining one of the architectural landmarks of Nevsky Prospekt. The authentic mid-nineteenth-century decoration of its state rooms and the carefully considered acoustics of the Mirror Hall make it a rare example of a palace that has not been frozen into a museum exhibit, but continues to live an active part in the city's cultural life.