The cabin of Peter the Great
The cabin of Peter the Great - Russia Tour
Saint
Petersburg was born
under the harsh conditions of the conduct of the Northern War. Therefore all
the first buildings in the city were built of wood. Only in the 1710s, after
some important victories, when it became clear that the Swedes would sink to
these lands again, a thorough stone construction began in Saint Petersburg, and the cabin of Peter the
Great house was no
exception. The cabin was a rather obscure house, a very small wooden house
which surrounded by a forged fence. The house was the first building which intended
for a short-term stay of the Russian Emperor and was the home of the tsar
during 1703-1708. The cabin was a unique monument which built in a
combinational architecture, Izba and traditional Russia house. According to the
documents of Peter’s time, the house was called the “Initial Palace” or
“Red Mansion.”
The house of Peter I had
a simple building design, reminiscent of the traditional peasant dwelling with
the hallway in the center. There were more spacious rooms on the sides – study
room (on the right) and dining room (on the left). Walls cut by large windows
with fine parchment bindings, retained traces of coloring under the brick. The
house with an area of only 60 square meters and was externally beautiful even
from a distance fascinated the attention. Its outer walls were painted with red
oil paint to show that the house was made of bricks. The windows were cast in a
special light of the “moon” glass.
After the construction
of the Summer and Winter Palace, Peter no longer lived in the house. The
building stood abandoned until 1731. In 1784 Catherine the Great ordered to
protect the house with a stone cover on a solid foundation with an iron roof.
In 1844, the building was completely disassembled and reconstructed by order of
Nicholas I – with sixteen columns with arches; he also converted the bedroom
into a chapel. In 1875, in front of the house, a bronze bust of Peter I was
erected by the sculptor P. P Zabello an N. F. Gillet which originally designed
by B.C. Rastrelli. In the second half of the nineteenth century, a small
garden was built around the cabin. On especially significant occasions, the
members of the imperial family planted oaks in it with a special silver shovel,
which was kept in the house until the revolution of 1917. Some of those trees
are still alive.
In 1930, the house was given the status
of a national museum. During the Great Patriotic War (siege of Leningrad), the
museum was shut down. Its windows and doors were boarded up with sheets of
plywood, and to mask as much as possible, they painted the house with gray oil
paint, for the camouflage preservation of the museum. In September 1944, the
museum was the first among all museums in Leningrad to open to visitors.
Nowadays the house of Peter I belongs to the State Russian Museum and hosts
many visitors around the world.
By traveling to Russia , you
can visit the personal things of Peter the Great which are represented in the
museum. For example, you can find a uniformed dress of red cloth, a smoking
pipe which made of boxwood with agate inserts (AD Menshikov’s gift), and a
boat-bench which built by Peter and serving him for crossing the Neva. By
according to the legends, there is a pear tree chair at the table which was
made by the Emperor.
Our Russia tour package provides
a visit to the exposition of the museum. Traveling to Russia gives
you an opportunity to walk through history and see the first residence of the
Emperor which dates back to 300 years ago. For further information, explore our
website and find more about our Russia
tour package.
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