Moscow Triumphal Gate

The Moscow Triumphal Gate, on Moskovskiye Vorota Square, is a monumental arch in the form of a twelve-column Doric propylaea-style portico, dedicated to the victories of the Russian army in the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, and the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830–1831. At the time of its construction, it was the largest structure in the world built entirely of metal.

The idea of a triumphal gate at the city's approach from Moscow first arose under Catherine II, who in 1780 commissioned a design from the French architect Charles Clérisseau, though it was never realized owing to its cost. The idea was revisited several times until, in 1833, Nicholas I approved a revised design by the architect Vasily Stasov. The gate, 23.2 meters high and more than 36 meters wide, was built in four years and formally opened on 16 October 1838. Twelve cast-iron columns, 15 meters tall and assembled from hollow drum-shaped sections weighing several tons each, support a massive entablature with a frieze adorned with copper figures of winged geniuses holding shields bearing the coats of arms of Russian provinces, modeled by the sculptor Boris Orlovsky. The composition is crowned by eight decorative groups of military trophies, and the attic bears a dedicatory inscription in gilded letters, in both Latin and Russian, commemorating the victories in Persia, Turkey, and Poland. Two guardhouses were placed symmetrically beside the gate for the sentries.

By the 1860s, the outpost had lost its significance as the city grew, and the guard was withdrawn. After the revolution, the dedicatory inscription was removed from the gate as ideologically inappropriate, and in 1936 the structure was dismantled and its parts stored in various locations to make way for the widening of the street, while the guardhouses were simply demolished. Plans to reassemble the arch on a new site were interrupted by the Great Patriotic War, and it was not until 1959 that the Moscow Triumphal Gate was reassembled on its historic site.

The gate remains one of the symbols of Saint Petersburg's southern districts and, at the same time, a monument to 19th-century engineering: its construction of cast-iron and copper elements, including a service spiral staircase hidden inside one of the columns, was innovative for its time and had no equivalent anywhere in the world's practice of monumental construction.