The Senate and Synod Buildings

Two buildings on Senate Square, next to the Bronze Horseman, are linked by a grand arch spanning Galernaya Street. The complex was erected in 1829–1834 in the late Classicist style; it was Carlo Rossi's last major work, while the architect Alexander Staubert took direct charge of the construction. The foundation of the Senate building was laid on 24 August 1829, that of the Synod in 1830, and both buildings were completed by 1834.

Before this, the site was occupied by a half-timbered house belonging to Prince Menshikov, which later passed to Vice-Chancellor Osterman; in 1744 Empress Elizabeth Petrovna presented it to Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, for whom a Baroque mansion was built. After Catherine II came to the throne the house passed to the state treasury, was rebuilt by the architect Alexander Vist, and became home to the Senate; at the end of the eighteenth century the façades received a new, Classicist finish, presumably to designs by Ivan Starov. The plot later occupied by the Synod building had previously been the site of the merchant's wife Kusovnikova's house. New buildings became necessary after the Admiralty was erected in 1806–1823, which transformed the appearance of the square: the old structures no longer matched its scale, and an architectural competition was announced.

Both buildings are adorned with eight-column Corinthian porticoes featuring loggias and granite staircases, and the structures reach a height of 17 metres. The arch connecting them rests on four pairs of columns; together with its sculptural crown it rises to 26 metres, the span of the opening is 20 metres, and the height of the vault is 12 metres. The arch is crowned by the sculptural group Justice and Piety, symbolising the unity of state and church; the sculptural decoration was the work of Vasily Demut-Malinovsky, Stepan Pimenov, Pyotr Svintsov and other masters, while the interiors were finished by B. Medici, F. Richter, A. I. Solovyov and V. G. Shiryaev.

From 1925 to 2006 the buildings held the holdings of the Russian State Historical Archive. Since May 2008 one wing has housed the Constitutional Court of Russia, which held its first session here on 27 May 2008. The other wing has accommodated the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library since May 2009; on the day of its opening, Patriarch Kirill consecrated the restored house church of the Holy Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and, for the first time within these walls, presided over a session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.