Senate Palace

The Senate Palace is a Catherine-era Neoclassical building on the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin, built to a design by the architect Matvei Kazakov; today it houses the office of the head of the Russian state. The building is considered the architect's largest realized work and one of the model monuments of Russian Neoclassicism of the late 18th century.

Construction began in 1776 by order of Empress Catherine II on an awkward triangular plot of land wedged between the fortress wall, the Arsenal, and the grounds of the Chudov Monastery, for which the estates of the princes Trubetskoy and Baryatinsky were bought out. The budget, together with Kazakov, was drawn up by the architect Karl Blank, who supervised construction in its early stages, but the work was then led by Kazakov himself and completed by 1787. The building was originally intended for assemblies of the nobility and some Senate institutions, but by the mid-19th century one of its halls was already being used as a storeroom and later as an archive of the military department.

In plan, the building has three floors set within the outline of an isosceles triangle with an outer perimeter of about 450 meters. The facades are decorated with projecting bays featuring Doric pilasters and a motif of triumphal arches at the corners, while the ground and basement floors are rusticated for a monumental effect. On the side facing Senate Square, an arch with a portico of four Ionic columns leads into the courtyard, and the building is crowned by a green hemispherical dome over the round Catherine Hall.

In 1865, as the country prepared for judicial reform, the building was converted for new judicial institutions — the District Court and the Judicial Chamber. At that time the dome was topped by a symbol of justice — a pillar bearing a crown and the inscription “Law” — but when the Soviet government moved to Moscow in 1918, this symbol was removed and replaced with a flagstaff. From that time on, the leaders of the Soviet state worked in the palace: it housed the apartments and offices of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, and later the working premises of the general secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, up to and including Mikhail Gorbachev.

Until 1812, the dome was crowned with a sculptural group depicting the rider St. George the Victorious, which was taken to France on Napoleon's orders during the occupation of Moscow. A large-scale restoration of the building was carried out in 1992–1996: only the Catherine and Oval Halls retained their original appearance, while the other rooms were redecorated in the Kazakov style, with their stucco molding and high-relief carving restored. In 1996, the Russian tricolor on the dome was replaced with the presidential standard.

Today the presidential residence in the Senate Palace is divided into business and ceremonial sections, including the head of state's working office, the meeting hall of the Security Council, and a library. In May 2023, the building's roof was damaged in a drone attack on the Kremlin grounds. Despite numerous rebuildings and changes of function, the palace remains one of the most recognizable architectural symbols of Russian state power.