St. George's (Great Throne) Hall of the Winter Palace

Due to the fact that the Rastrelli Throne Room was not completed, in 1774 a decision was made to fundamentally transform the Light Gallery , located near the apartments of Catherine II, into the White Gallery , on the site of which the White Gallery was created, designed by architect Felten . However, the empress for some reason did not satisfy the empress, and already in 1776 a decision was made to decorate the gallery with colored stone. The idea of ​​using colored natural marble in ceremonial interiors Felten expressed in 1764, but approval came only after twelve years. Unprecedented in domestic construction, the decoration of the grand hall with a “Russian stone” coincided with the idea of ​​glorifying the power of the empire. In 1776, a contract was signed for the manufacture of marble parts: 52 columns, 48 ​​pilasters and 165 arshins of entablature with a balustrade ^[1] . However, Giacomo Quarenghi , who had built a separate building for the Throne Hall adjacent to the eastern facade of the Rastrelli Winter Palace, had already realized his plan.

Amazing in size (about 800 square meters), the two-room hall looked extremely solemn: the paired columns located along the walls made it look like an ancient temple . In the design was used only natural marble of white, gray, pink and bluish shades, gilded details and a bright pictorial ceiling. Along the throne in the semicircular niches of the longitudinal walls stood allegorical statues “Faith” and “Law”, symbolizing the foundations on which Russian statehood is based. The Apollon Hall located behind it became a passage to the Art Gallery , which was located in the building of the Small Hermitage .

The Quarenghiev decoration was completely destroyed during the fire of 1837 . At the direction of Emperor Nicholas I, when restoring the hall, the architect V. P. Stasov and N. E. Efimov used white marble ^[2] . The representative of the Russian Embassy in Rome, P.I. Krivtsov, managed to convince the architects to use not just Carrara marble , but to order the manufacture of all parts from Italian craftsmen, who, in fact, requested a less amount for the work than the St. Petersburg marble workers. However, the process was delayed due to communication difficulties of that time, and all the details arrived in St. Petersburg only in November 1839. P. I. Krivtsov also introduced some adjustments to the project ^{[3] [4]} . The ceiling of the hall consisted of 42 flat steel beams, " riveted into three sheets of thin boiler iron ." In the summer of 1841 the hall was ready.

On August 9, 1941, the ceiling of the hall collapsed, as a result of which the decoration just completed was damaged, the chandeliers and parquet were lost. Iron beams vomited from the wall, as they were not deep enough. Despite the fact that the commission, which investigated the causes of the disaster, did not find a flaw in the applied ceiling system, it was decided to improve it - the ceiling of the hall was made tent-shaped, the walls were added.

The monumentality of the architectural solution was emphasized by breaking the metal ceiling into deep caissons , the inner surfaces of which are decorated with ornamental compositions of embossed gilded copper. By order of Nicholas I, the parquet pattern repeated the breakdown and ornamental motifs of the ceiling. The unique parquet of the hall contains a drawing of 16 species, which clearly stands out against the background of mahogany (for the Throne Hall, an exception was made by using such a soft, quickly wearing breed). The pattern of gilded ornaments of the ceiling of the hall repeats the pattern of parquet from 16 species of colored wood. Upon repeated restoration, the weight of the chandeliers was corrected, revealing a central view of the bas-relief: a huge marble bas-relief “George the Victorious, striking a dragon with a spear” was placed above the throne place.

Under the St. George Hall there were kitchens with utility rooms. In the western corner there was a lift for delivering food from the main buffet, located in the mezzanine floor under the hall. This place is now easy to detect by the characteristic structures of the parquet. In the basement was built the main glacier of the palace. But because of the nearby pneumatic furnaces, the ice melted prematurely, creating dampness, so in 1855 the glacier was abolished.

In the years 1915-1917. the hall was occupied by a military hospital of the Red Cross . Here is a distribution point, from which food was transported through the halls, turned into chambers. A lift operated by means of which food was delivered from the kitchen for distribution ^[5] .

In 1917, the symbols of the Russian Empire were removed from the throne place, and in the 1930s, it was completely dismantled. After the Great Patriotic War , instead of a throne place, a gem of the Soviet Union made of gems, made for the 1937 Paris World Exhibition, was placed in the hall. After the collapse of the USSR, the map was dismantled. It is alleged that its remains are stored in the vaults of the Mining Museum.

In 1997-2000, the throne place was restored. The Great Imperial Throne was executed in London 1731-1732. N. Clausen commissioned by Empress Anna Ivanovna .

In this hall, official ceremonies and receptions were held, ceremonial dinners were held.

On April 27, 1906, deputies of the State Duma and members of the State Council were invited to a ceremonial reception at the Winter Palace, where Nicholas II addressed them with a throne speech in the George Hall. For the first time in the walls of the imperial residence one could see "groups of provincial lawyers and doctors dressed in frock coats", peasants in their front caftans, workers in blouses, priests in robes; many met the birth of the Russian parliament in “home-made” and “home-made” folk costumes.

In 2013, the State Hermitage Museum revived the tradition of celebrating St. George's Day , which takes place annually on December 9 in the St. George Hall ^[6] . During the ceremony, genuine banners and standards of the Russian Imperial Army are carried out.

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  K. A. Ukhtomsky . St. George's Hall. Watercolor. 1862 year

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  Imperial throne

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  View of the hall in 2009

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  Chandelier. Detail

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  Apollon Hall

• V. M. Glinka, Yu. M. Denisov, M. V. Johansen and others; Under the total. ed. B. B. Piotrovsky. Hermitage. The history of construction and architecture of buildings .. - L .: Stroyizdat , Leningrad branch, 1989. - 560 p. - ISBN 5-274-00375-3 .
• T. L. Pashkova. Emperor Nicholas I and his family in the Winter Palace. - SPb. : Gos. Hermitage, 2014 .-- 464 + 524 p. - ISBN 978-593572-585-3 .
• The Hermitage / Under the general editorship. - M .: Ivan Fedorov, 2006.

• Description of the St. George (Great Throne) Hall on the Hermitage website