Description of the attraction
The Mariinsky Palace was built in 1750 - 1755. designed by the chief court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli by order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The daughter of Peter I personally chose the site for the construction of the palace in the Pechersk part of the city. Over the years, representatives of the royal family and representatives of the highest nobility stayed in the palace during their visits to Kiev.
Throughout its long history, the palace was reconstructed several times, in 1870, after a fire that destroyed the wooden second floor, a second stone floor was added. In 1874, the wife of Tsar Alexander the Liberator, Maria Alexandrovna, stayed in the palace, she suggested setting up a park in front of the palace. It was in her honor that the Mariinsky residence was later named.
After the 1917 revolution, a revolutionary committee and a council of deputies were housed in the palace, then the headquarters of the military district, the agricultural museum and the Shevchenko museum. During World War II, a bomb hit the palace, destroying the central part of the building, but after the war, the building was rebuilt. After the approval of Ukrainian independence, the Mariinsky Palace became the official residence of the president.
The palace complex has a strictly symmetrical composition. The main two-story building and one-story side wings form a wide courtyard. Important elements of the decoration of the palace are objects of decorative and applied art, as well as furniture and chandeliers (old and made by modern masters in the spirit of the XVIII-XI centuries), paintings by famous masters of painting. In some rooms, small fragments of wall paintings by the artist K. Alliaudi have been preserved.
