Yusupov Palace on the Moika

The Yusupov Palace on the Moika, more often simply called the Yusupov Palace, is one of the few private palaces to survive in Saint Petersburg, known above all as the site of the murder of Grigori Rasputin. The first building on this stretch of the Moika Embankment had belonged to a niece of Peter the Great, and in the 1770s a building was constructed to a design by the architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe for Count Andrei Shuvalov, forming the basis of the present-day palace. In 1830 the mansion was acquired by Prince Boris Yusupov, and from then until 1917 it belonged to five generations of one of Russia's wealthiest families, though it was just one of 57 palaces owned by the Yusupovs across the country. In 1830–1838 the building was substantially rebuilt by the architect Andrei Mikhailov the Second, who added side projections and created the palace's formal interiors — the White Column Hall, a private theater, picture galleries and the grand staircase facing the Moika.

The palace gained worldwide fame in connection with the events of the night of 17 December 1916, when in its basement rooms Prince Felix Yusupov, together with his accomplices, murdered Grigori Rasputin — a wanderer close to the imperial family whose influence over court politics provoked sharp discontent among part of the aristocracy. This murder became one of the symbolic omens of the monarchy's imminent fall in Russia. Today the palace's basement, where these events unfolded, houses a memorial exhibition with wax figures telling the story of Rasputin's life and death.

Besides the state rooms, the palace retains a unique private theater seating 180, decorated in the Baroque style — one of the few private theaters of the Russian aristocracy to survive almost in its original form to this day.

After the revolution the palace was nationalized, and in Soviet times it housed the Teachers' House, later transformed into a multifunctional cultural center. The palace's surviving private theater, decorated in Baroque style, is still used today for concerts and performances. The Yusupov Palace, with its garden extending to Ulitsa Dekabristov, remains a monument of history and culture of federal significance and one of the most visited private palaces in Saint Petersburg, where guided tours of the state rooms and historic chambers are regularly held.