Walking around St. Petersburg with the Presidential Library. Senate Square

The city of white nights and drawbridges, palaces and parks, granite embankments and golden spiers gazing into the sky. The city that has changed its name three times over the 320 years of its existence and returned to the name given by its founder, Peter the Great. Walking the streets of St. Petersburg, sometimes we don’t even know what secrets of the past this amazing city keeps. Today we welcome everyone on an exciting journey through St. Petersburg together with the Presidential Library.

Our first stop will be located in the center of St. Petersburg, one of the oldest squares in the city – Senate Square. We will start with a story about the historical buildings of the Senate and the Synod, which today house the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the Presidential Library.

• The first building on the corner of Senate Square and English Embankment was the so-called "half-timbered house" of His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Menshikov, built in the first quarter of the 18th century. After the death of Peter the Great and Menshikov's exile to Siberia, Vice Chancellor Andrey Osterman became the owner of the house. However, as a result of the palace coup of 1741 and the accession of Elizabeth Petrovna, he also fell into royal disgrace and was deprived of titles and property. Three years later, the site was donated to the Count, Chancellor Alexei Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who planned to build a palace here. But he did not please the empress and went into exile. And although Catherine II later pardoned the former chancellor, all his property, including the palace on Senate Square, went to the treasury.
• The site occupied by the historical building of the Synod belonged to the Admiralty Shipyard until the 1780s. From the south it was limited to the Admiralty Canal. It housed rope sheds, later converted into a rope yard. In the 1790s, this territory became the property of the merchant Usteev, and then the house was transferred to the merchant P. A. Kusovnikov as a dowry to his daughter. The new owner rebuilt the house and significantly expanded it - the building reached the embankment of the Admiralty Canal. When the construction of the buildings of the Senate and the Synod began according to the project of Carlo Rossi, the house of the merchant's widow, Anna Kusovnikova, ended up in the development zone. The owner was offered a huge amount for those times from the state treasury. After the purchase, the merchant's house was demolished, in its place in 1830 the construction of the Synod building began.
• On August 10, 1827 Emperor Nicholas I visited the Senate and decided to build a new, more monumental and representative residence for the Senate and the Synod on the same site. The leading St. Petersburg architects of that time joined the competition of projects for new buildings of the Senate and the Synod: V. P. Stasov, S. L. Shustov, A. A. Mikhailov, P. P. Jacot, V. A. Glinka. Carlo Rossi did not want to participate in the competition; he submitted his drawings for consideration last, only after persistent reminders. It was the project of Rossi that was brought to life.
• One of the main requirements of Emperor Nicholas I was the construction of the buildings of the Senate and the Synod in the image and likeness of the building of the General Staff. The architect Paul Jacot proposed to build one common building, reminiscent of the Louvre gallery. Vasily Stasov planned to rebuild only the Senate building. Rossi also drafted two new buildings, in the forms and style desired by the tsar. Several times this project was revised by the architect, and as a result, the final project of two buildings connected by an arch appeared. Rossi managed to convincingly solve the main task of the competition - "to give the building a character corresponding to the vastness of the area".
• After the laying of the building of the Synod, Carlo Rossi visited the construction site only occasionally, since at the same time he was engaged in the construction of the ensemble of Alexandrinsky Square. The architect A. E. Shtaubert worked together with his assistant T. A. Ugryumov. Up to 800 people worked at the construction site daily.
• Emperor Nicholas I personally approved the project for the sculptural decoration of the buildings. The sovereign ordered the figures to be depicted not in full growth, but seated, dressed in antique togas, or turned into artistic allegories. He ordered that images of trophies be removed from the design elements, and the books of laws in the hands of allegorical characters should be freed from any inscriptions. The entrances to the buildings are decorated with granite stairs, on the sides of which it was planned to place cast-iron lions. However, the Synod spoke out against the appearance of such sculptures.
• The center of the entire composition of the buildings of the Senate and the Synod is an arch richly decorated with sculptures, thrown over Galernaya Street, in the design of which Rossi used an unrealized version of the project of the General Staff Arch on Palace Square. The height of the arch together with the sculpture is 26 meters, the height of the vault is 12 meters, the width of the arch is 20 meters. Its scope includes the transition between the Senate and the Synod. This arch personified the unity of church and state, secular and church authorities. No wonder it is crowned by the sculptural group "Justice and Piety" with the coat of arms of the Russian Empire.
• In 1918, after the October Revolution, the Holy Synod was abolished, and the building was occupied by a historical archive. In 2006, he moved to a new building on Zanevsky Prospekt, and on May 27, 2009, the Presidential Library was opened in the historic Synod building after restoration and preparatory work.
• The Electronic Reading Room of the Presidential Library at Senate Square 3 is located on the third floor of the Synod's historical building overlooking St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Bronze Horseman. The decor of these halls was partially recreated by the restorers. At various times, this part of the building housed the Chancery Department, the General Assembly Hall, and even the apartments of the Synod officials. The furniture of the reading room is modern, but stylized to match the interiors of the first half of the 19th century.

One can learn more interesting facts from the Internet project The Ensemble of Buildings of the Senate and the Synod as well as the collections St. Petersburg: Pages of History and Senate Square in Postcards which are available on the Presidential Library’s portal.