Summer Palace of Peter I

The Summer Palace of Peter I stands in the depths of the Summer Garden on the bank of the Fontanka and remains the earliest surviving royal residence in St Petersburg. The small two-storey building in Petrine Baroque style now serves as a museum — a branch of the State Russian Museum — and has barely changed in appearance over three centuries.

Construction proceeded in 1710–1714 to a design by Domenico Trezzini, with work on site directed by the architect Andreas Schlüter and his assistants, among them Johann Braunstein. Peter moved into the still unfinished house as early as 1711. The palace was conceived as a summer residence fit for habitation only from May to October, so its walls were made relatively thin and its window frames single-glazed, without allowance for winter cold. The building has just fourteen rooms and two kitchens — a modest scale compared with later imperial residences.

Almost square in plan, with a tall hipped roof and a weathervane, the building recalls the European burgher mansions of its time, in particular the Mauritshuis in The Hague; the sheet-iron roof was painted grey to imitate the slate of northern buildings. The façades are adorned with twenty-nine terracotta reliefs allegorising events of the Great Northern War, executed after German engravings based on Italian models of the late 16th century; the composition above the entrance door was modelled by the craftsman Morberg after a design prepared by Georg Mattarnovy. The interior decoration was worked out to designs brought from Paris by the architect Jean-Baptiste Le Blond and his assistant Nicolas Pineau: life-size wooden panels (lambris) with stucco moulding and gilding, mirrors, fireplaces, painted ceilings — some of the paintings were executed by Russian craftsmen.

The ground floor was occupied by the tsar himself, the upper floor was intended for Catherine; Peter spent every summer here until his death in 1725. After that, until the mid-19th century, the palace served as summer accommodation for prominent dignitaries — Chancellor Gorchakov, Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, General Miloradovich, Finance Minister Kankrin — who were given only the upper floor. Under Alexander I the palace began to be opened to visitors in the warm season, and in 1840 an inventory was drawn up of the historical items kept there.

The building's museum history began in 1903 with an exhibition marking the bicentenary of St Petersburg; in 1925 the palace was transferred to the Russian Museum, and in 1934 it became an independent museum of everyday life and history. During the Great Patriotic War a blast wave shattered the window frames and damaged the ceiling plasterwork and roof; restoration in 1946–1947 allowed the exhibition to reopen, and extensive work in the 1950s–1960s restored the palace's original appearance — the floors, stucco mouldings, ceiling paintings and fabric wall coverings were all recreated.

Today the palace halls house personal belongings and furniture of Peter I, paintings and engravings from his era, including the tsar's bed, which came from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Since 2004 the museum has formed part of the Russian Museum and remains one of the few buildings in St Petersburg to have survived to this day in almost its original form.