Winter Palace, Imperial palace and museum in Dvortsovy District, St. Petersburg, Russia.
The Winter Palace is an elongated rectangle of pale green walls with white columns and gold detailing, its principal façade 215 metres long and 30 metres high. The central section rises above the roofline under a dome and flagpole, with statues and urns along the roof. Inside are 1,500 rooms, 1,945 windows and 117 staircases.
The present palace is the fourth on the site, built by Bartolomeo Rastrelli from 1754 to 1762 for Empress Elizabeth I in Elizabethan Baroque style. It was the official winter residence of the Romanovs from 1762 until 1904, when Nicholas II moved to the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. After the February Revolution of 1917 the Provisional Government sat here, and that October Red Guard soldiers and sailors stormed the building.
The palace has housed the Hermitage collections since 1920, when the State Museum of Revolution shared the building with them until 1941. Its name comes from its role as the Romanovs' winter residence, occupied from 1732. Cats kept against rodents since Peter I's day still live in the cellars, where 50 were counted in 2008.
The palace stands between Palace Embankment and Palace Square; the Hermitage entrance for visitors is on the courtyard side, reached from Palace Square. The building holds 1,500 rooms and 117 staircases, so pick a few galleries rather than trying to cross it all. The Winter Canal runs along the west side toward the Neva.
The 1837 fire required complete interior reconstruction, with architects Stasov, Briullov, and Staubert completing restoration in just 15 months while incorporating more modern heating and ventilation systems into the redesigned spaces.
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