Description of the attraction
The eighties of the eighteenth century were fanned with the glory of the victories of the Russian army and navy over Turkey. It was during these years that a palace was built in St. Petersburg for the most famous favorite in the entire history of the Russian imperial house - Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin-Tavrichesky, a diplomat, a major statesman and military leader. Architect I. E. Starov in the project of this palace sought to embody the idea of the greatness of the Russian state. And he succeeded: the palace became the largest and richest manor in the northern capital at the end of the 18th century.
The building, following the canons of strict classicism, is simple in its external appearance. It is a strictly axial composition, when symmetrical wings extend from the central building, forming a ceremonial courtyard, in the depths of which is the main entrance to the palace with a six-column Roman-Doric portico. Through it you can go to the central building with its ceremonial halls, which form a suite, which is oriented along the main axis of the building and leads to the winter garden of the palace, the windows of which are facing the park. Side buildings, extended towards the street, are connected to the central building by one-story intermediate parts of the building. They have their own entrances with four-column porticoes of the Tuscan order from the side of the front yard. The main building of the palace, decorated with a powerful dome and a portico with a pediment, opposes the low wings and dominates the ensemble.
The facades of the side buildings are of a strict style, there is no decor, the windows are rectangular, without platbands, the walls are smooth. However, this simple appearance of the building hides the luxury of the interiors of the state halls of the palace, which brought him worldwide fame.
Immediately behind the vestibule, an octahedral domed hall opens up; next to it, on its long side, there is a columned hall - the Great Gallery. Then a magnificent evergreen conservatory - a rectangular room with a semicircular ledge with a glass roof and walls, in which exotic and tropical plants grow. It is, as it were, a continuation of the magnificent park located behind the buildings of the palace. This park, once spread over an area of 30 hectares, was designed by the English master Gould, and was laid out at the same time as the palace.
In 1906, Emperor Nicholas II handed over the palace to the State Duma. Half of the winter garden was rebuilt as an amphitheater, and a meeting room was set up here. After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government sat in the Tauride Palace, and after 1918, the Bolshevik Party congresses were held here.
Since 1992, the headquarters of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS member states has been located in the Tauride Palace.
