Sheremetev Palace (Fountain House)

The palace on the Fontanka embankment, which Petersburgers have long called the Fountain House, belonged for more than two centuries to the senior, comital branch of the Sheremetev family. In 1712 Peter I granted this marshy plot to Field Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, on condition that he build a manor here. First, on the site of an excavated pond and wooden outbuildings, a single-storey house was built for his son Pyotr Borisovich, and in the early 1750s the architects Savva Chevakinsky and the serf craftsman Fyodor Argunov added a second floor, giving the building the appearance characteristic of Russian Baroque. The facade facing the main courtyard is marked by pilasters and a mezzanine with a segmental pediment bearing the owners' coat of arms, while the side wings are topped with avant-corps crowned by triangular pediments.

Count Nikolai Petrovich, who settled here in 1796, renovated the interiors with the help of the architects Ivan Starov, Giacomo Quarenghi and Andrei Voronikhin; the estate kept a serf theatre and orchestra. Under his son Dmitry Nikolayevich, who served in the Chevalier Guard Regiment, the palace was famed for its hospitality — fellow officers lived here at their host's expense. The painter Orest Kiprensky, a friend of the family, painted portraits of Chevalier Guard guests at the palace, and in 1827 created his famous portrait of Alexander Pushkin in his studio there. In the 1830s–1840s the architect Ivan Corsini rebuilt the interiors and erected a cast-iron fence with gates decorated with the family coat of arms; Glinka, Berlioz and Liszt all performed at musical evenings here.

After Dmitry Nikolayevich's death in 1871, the estate was divided between his sons: the ceremonial part along the Fontanka remained with Sergei Dmitrievich, while income-generating buildings were erected on the side facing Liteiny Prospekt. Under Sergei Dmitrievich, who assembled an extensive family archive in the house, learned societies met here, including the Society of Lovers of Ancient Letters. After the revolution, the last owner voluntarily handed the estate over to the state.

In Soviet times the building successively housed a museum of noble everyday life, Yakov Perelman's House of Entertaining Science, and the Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Research. From the mid-1920s until 1952, the poet Anna Akhmatova lived in the south wing together with the art historian Nikolai Punin, who was later subjected to political repression. Since 1990 the main building has housed the Museum of Music with its collection of antique instruments, whose ceremonial second-floor halls have been restored and opened to visitors, while one of the wings now houses a museum dedicated to Akhmatova.