Anichkov Palace

Stand at the corner where Nevsky Prospect meets the Fontanka River. Traffic rushes past on one side. On the other, the dark water moves slowly under the bridge. Look up at the bronze horses rearing on their granite plinths. Then turn your head a little, toward the long, pale facade behind the railings. That quiet building is Anichkov Palace, and it is older than almost everything else you can see from here.

When the palace was begun, this spot was not the centre of anything. In the 1740s the Fontanka marked the edge of the city. Beyond it lay estates, gardens, and open land. The river was the main road, and important houses turned their faces toward the water, not toward the street. Keep that in mind as you look around. It explains why the palace seems to sit sideways to Nevsky Prospect.

The name has nothing to do with royalty. It comes from the bridge beside you. In the early eighteenth century, a battalion under an officer named Mikhail Anichkov was stationed on this bank. His men built the first crossing here, and the bridge took his name. The palace simply took the name of the bridge. So one of the grandest homes in the city is named after an army officer, not an emperor.

The palace itself began with Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great. She came to the throne in 1741 and ordered a new palace almost at once. The work took more than a decade. Mikhail Zemtsov drew up the first plans. Later the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli took part in finishing the building. Rastrelli is the same man who later designed the Winter Palace, with its rich decoration. At first, this palace carried some of that same lavish Baroque style.

Here is the first surprise. Elizabeth did not build it for herself. She gave it to Alexei Razumovsky, her favourite. He was a Cossack from Ukraine, and he first came to court as a singer in the choir. His voice brought him to the palace chapel. His charm brought him much further. Many historians believe he and Elizabeth were secretly married, though no document has ever proven it. So treat that part as a long-standing story, not a certainty.

The palace kept passing between powerful favourites. Catherine the Great later gave it to Grigory Potemkin, her closest partner in government. Potemkin did not keep it long. Soon after, the building was rebuilt. The architect Ivan Starov gave it a calmer, more classical look. Much of the Baroque decoration disappeared. What you see today is the result of these many changes. The palace you are looking at was rebuilt again and again over more than a century.

Now look along the river bank. The long building with a row of columns, facing the Fontanka, is the Cabinet building. The architect Giacomo Quarenghi designed it in the late eighteenth century. At first it was planned as a shopping arcade. Later it became the home of the Imperial Cabinet, the office that managed the private property of the royal family. Its quiet line of columns gives the river front a steady, even rhythm.

In the nineteenth century, the palace found its true role. It became the home of the heir to the throne, or of a young grand duke. Nicholas the First lived here before he became emperor. Later, Alexander the Third chose to stay here even after he was crowned. He liked it more than the huge Winter Palace. To him, this was a family home. It was smaller, warmer, and easier to live in.

The second surprise comes from the ballroom. In the 1830s, the poet Alexander Pushkin was a regular guest at court balls here. He did not always enjoy them. The emperor had given him a minor court title, usually given to much younger men. Pushkin felt humiliated by it. Picture him here, a famous poet in a uniform he resented. He moved through the music and candlelight of these halls in a world he never fully trusted.

After Alexander the Third died, his widow, Maria Feodorovna, stayed on here. She was born a Danish princess, and she made the palace her own. She lived here until the revolution of 1917 swept the old order away. After that, the building lost its royal purpose. For a few years it served various institutions. Then, in the late 1930s, it was given a new life that very few visitors would guess.

In 1937 the palace became the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers. The Pioneers were the Soviet youth organisation, a little like scouts. Suddenly, rooms built for empresses and grand dukes filled with children. They studied chess, music, dance, science, and model building. That tradition continues today. The building is now a city centre for young people's creative activities. Children still climb the old staircases every afternoon.

Walk around toward the square behind the palace, and you will reach the garden. Along the edge stand two matching pavilions, designed by the architect Carlo Rossi in the early nineteenth century. Rossi shaped much of the area around here, including the theatre square nearby. His pavilions are calm and balanced, with sculptures standing between the columns. From the square, you can see how the old palace garden connects to the wider city around it.

The interior is not usually open like an ordinary museum, because the building is still in daily use. A small museum about the palace's history works inside. Guided visits are sometimes organised, but it is wise to check before you come. Even from the outside, though, you can read the story. Look for the old orientation toward the river, the classical lines on the facade, and the gardens behind the railings.

Before you leave, come back to the bridge. Stand again among the bronze horses and their young tamers. Behind you, the traffic of Nevsky Prospect keeps moving. In front of you, the Fontanka flows past the palace walls, as it did for Elizabeth and Razumovsky. Listen for a moment. Somewhere inside, a child may be practising piano scales. That sound belongs here now, just as the music of royal balls once did.