Description of the attraction
Aviaries are two pavilions in the Lower Park of the Peterhof palace and park ensemble. According to the famous art critic Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, they are unique park buildings, the likes of which “no longer exist in our country or in Europe”.
The Western and Eastern Aviaries are the only utilitarian wooden pavilions of Peter's time that have survived to this day. The name of the buildings speaks for itself: the French word "volier" means "poultry house". During the summer, they were used to keep songbirds, which were placed in gilded copper cages. In the 18th century, tap dance, nightingales, bullfinches, blackbirds were delighted here. There were many foreign birds, mainly canaries and parrots.
Both Aviaries are designed in the same way: in the form of 12-sided arbors with a dome over the central part, the iron roof is completed by an octagonal turret made for natural light, and large window openings give the special lightness and transparency characteristic of park arbors of that time. But this was done from a practical point of view: the birds in the Aviaries required a lot of light and air.
The western Aviary is located on the other side of the Monplaisir Alley, and the eastern one is on the opposite bank of the Menagerie pond, ending the Menagerie Garden complex. The construction of the pavilions was started in 1721 by the architect Niccolo Michetti, and a year later they were already erected. The walls of the enclosures were decorated with tuff, izgar (waste that was obtained during the smelting of cast iron) and shells. This "spoke" about their connection with nature. The interior painting of the walls and domes was done by Louis Caravacc. Here were depicted mythical hunters - Diana and Actaeon, as well as patterns of branches, leaves, blossoming flowers and wreaths.
Only in 1821 I. Kelberg restored the plafond in the eastern enclosure, and renewed the ornament in the western one. Aviaries have survived in this form from the times of Peter the Great to the present, except that at first canvas was stretched on their domes, and in 1751 it was replaced by sheet iron, removed during the reconstruction of the Great Peterhof Palace.
In 1772-1774, the eastern Aviary was built into a wooden Bath. Probably, since that time, these buildings have lost their original purpose, turning only into a decorative completion of the formed ensemble. And when in 1926 the building of the bathhouse was dismantled, the pavilion was preserved, but completely lost its tuff decoration.
Like all the park buildings of Peterhof, the Aviaries were seriously damaged during the Great Patriotic War, and only in 1959 the western Aviary was restored, and the eastern one, until recently, remained without external decoration.
Now the Western Aviary is inhabited by the birds of our forests: siskins, finches, tits, buntings, goldfinches, grosbeaks, and, in addition, overseas "guests": risovki, finches, astrilds, white-headed munias, canaries. In the eastern Aviary, loud cries of various parrots are heard: gray, macaw, cockatoo, rosella, amazon, pionites, cockatiels and others. Near the eastern Aviary, a pond has been recreated, in which Canadian geese, swans, northern white-fronted geese, shelled, ogary ducks, mandarin duck, and Bahamian pintail swim.
