Chicherin's house description and photos - Russia - Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg (Topic)

Chicherin's house description and photos - Russia - Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photos and a map showing the nearest significant objects.

Photo and description

At the beginning of Nevsky Prospekt there is a huge old house No. 15, nicknamed by the Petersburgers of the 18th century "the house with columns". The history of the land plot occupied by this house (now it is called "Chicherin's house") is very interesting. At the beginning of the 18th century, on the site between the present Nevsky Prospect and Moika, there was a mud market Mytny market, where food was sold. The market burned down in a fire in 1736 and never recovered.

For nearly 20 years the site remained undeveloped and only in March 1755 the architect V.V. Rastrelli began construction of a temporary wooden Winter Palace on it for the sovereign's daughter, Empress Elizabeth. The need to build a temporary palace was due to the redevelopment of the main Winter Palace. Over time, a stone opera house was added to the wooden palace. By order of Catherine II, the palace was dismantled and transported to Krasnoe Selo, and the Empress granted part of the vacated plot to the Senator, Chief of Police and General N.I. Chicherin, who by 1771 had built on it a spacious house in the style of Russian classicism, with a noticeable Baroque influence - this was exactly the idea of the architect A.F. Kokorinov.

The key element of the facade of the house is the colonnades in the center and in the corners, with a composite order in the upper tier and a Tuscan one in the lower tier. The circular courtyard was built up with utility and service buildings, which were connected on both sides with the main building. Thirty-six columns that adorned the facade of the building gave rise to its popular name - "house with columns". The main ceremonial rooms of the house (a large two-story hall and five smaller halls, symmetrically built along Nevsky Prospect) were on the third floor. Two staircases led to the ceremonial premises: one - the corner one, to the auxiliary halls, and the other - the main one, to the concert hall.

The spacious Chicherin house, due to its favorable location in the city center, immediately began to be rented by entrepreneurs and organizations ... In the basement floor, as early as 1774, there was a "Free Printing House", on the ground floor there was a bookstore of the merchant Sharov and a vegetable store "Bologna" of the Italian Bertolotti. Later, they were replaced by the Amsterdam shop. The ceremonial halls of the house in 1778 were occupied by the Musical Society "Club House". A little later, Chicherin's house was rented by the Burger Club.

From 1792 to 1799, the building belonged to Prince A.B. Kurakin, attached to it a three-story wing with a large number of windows. The people immediately called Chicherin's house Kurakin's house. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the house was in the possession of the banker A. Peretz, and then - the eminent Petersburg bourgeois A.I. Kosikovsky. He also remodeled the old building, completing the extensive 4-storey building, which is closely connected with the main building. A pompous portico of 12 Ionic columns, architect V.P. Stasov boldly installed it on the second floor. The famous Talion restaurant, named after its owner, was located in this house. A.S. was a regular at this restaurant. Pushkin, who mentioned him in the novel “Eugene Onegin”.

In 1826, in Chicherin's house, a 40x23 meter model of St. Petersburg made by Anton de Rossi was exhibited for wide viewing. By the middle of the century, the house housed a bookstore, a library, and the best printing house in St. Plushar, publisher of the first in Russia "Encyclopedic Lexicon". The “Noble Assembly”, which also occupied part of the mansion, invited musical celebrities of that time to perform: F. Liszt, Mauer, Serne, Rubinstein and others, even the Moscow gypsy choir came, and the Masonic lodge held its mysterious meetings in Chicherin's house.

In 2005-2010, a comprehensive reconstruction of the house was carried out. Now the building houses the elite hotel Taleon Imperial.

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Topic: Chicherin's house description and photos - Russia - Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg.