Page 24 - RUSSIA (10)

St. Petersburg

Date of Visit: 26 June 2022

Place: The Winter Palace

St. Petersburg's most famous building, the Winter Palace not only physically
dominates Palace Square and the south embankment of the Neva River,
but also plays a central political, symbolic, and cultural role in the three-
century history of the city. The Winter Palace was declared part of the State
Hermitage Museum on 17 October 1917. Although initial Bolshevik policy
was to remove all Imperial symbols from the palace and use the premises
as a museum of the Revolution, the restoration project of the 1940s and
1950s, which followed further extensive damage to the building during the
Siege of Leningrad, saw the beginning of an ongoing process to return the
Imperial splendor of many of the palace's rooms. The State Rooms of the
Winter Palace now form one of the most popular sections of the Hermitage,
and are essential viewing for all visitors to St. Petersburg.
Date of Visit: 26 June 2022

Place: Church of Savior on the Spilled Blood

Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is known to Petersburgers as
the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood - or even just the Church on
the Blood - as it marks the spot where Alexander II was fatally wounded in
an assassination attempt on March 1, 1881. Designed by Alfred Parland in
the style of 16th and 17th-century Russian churches, the Church of the
Resurrection provides a stark (some would say jarring) contrast to its
surroundings of Baroque, Classical and Modernist architecture. One of the
most impressive elements of the church is the extravagant shrine
constructed on the spot where Alexander II was fatally wounded, which
has maintained a special place within the church's interior. It was
constructed to Parland's design, and completed in July 1907. Four columns
of gray violet jasper serve as the base of the shrine. Rising up the shrine,
small rectangular columns unite the carved stone awning and the
decorated mosaic icons with images of the patron saint of the Romanov
family. The columns are supported by a frieze and cornice and stone-
carved pediment with vases of jasper along the corners.