Alexandrian Column
(Alexander Column, Alexander's Column, Alexander Pillar, Alexander's Pillar, Александрийская колонна, Александрийский столп, Sankt-Petersurg, Санкт-Петербург) . Russian words and phrases are in Cyrillic Windows encoding. External links open in new window.
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To honor his own self and to commemorate the feats of his armies Napoleon ordered a large column to be built in the Vedome square in Paris. The external "shell" of the column was cast from captured Austrian and Russian cannon. Napoleon's own statue, clad as a Roman emperor stands atop the monument. The Alexander Column or Alexandrian Column is a kind of response to the Vendome Column, commissioned well after Napoleon's forces were destroyed, Russian army entered Paris and Napoleon himself was exiled. Alexander’s Column was erected in 1834. It took four years to cut and polish the 600 ton monolith. The Column is one of the best-known symbols of St. Petersburg and it marks the visual center of the Palace Square.
Along with St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Column is the most important work of its architect, Auguste Montferrand, and is still an impressive achievement of the engineering team that made its creation possible. Nicholas I commissioned the monument to commemorate the victories of the Russian empire under his brother, Alexander I, over Napoleon and his grand coalition. At first Montferrand proposed another type of monument, - a giant granite obelisk, but the state commission and Nicholas rejected that design. St. Petersburg has, however, a fair share of other proper obelisks. At 47.5 meters (almost 160 feet) this is reportedly the tallest column in existence anywhere, and is higher than other similar triumphal columns, both extant and historic (Colonne de Vendome in Paris, Trajan’s Column in Rome or Pompei's Pillar in Alexandria). In a certain sense, the column evokes an image of the St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which is not purely coincidental: both the column and the cathedral share the same creator and the Column is made of the same type of granite mined for construction of St. Isaac’s.
In one way, Alexandrian Column deviates from the Roman prototype (so well copied in the Parisian Place Vendome): there is no statue of emperor or any human on the top of the column. Instead, sculptor Boris Orlovski (Orlovskij, Orlovsky, Orlowski, Борис Иванович Орловский), author of numerous monuments in St. Petersburg, created a figure of cross-carrying angel. The angel’s right hand points toward the sky. Orlovski is also the author of the bronze bas-relief at the base of the column. The bronze used for the angel, sculptures, and the base came from the captured French cannon. Four bas-reliefs on the bottom depict different subjects and historic eras: from early medieval Russia themes with chain-mail armor and shields to the allegoric figures of victory, justice and peace. The huge granite monolith was cut in a quarry near Vyborg (Viborg, Viipuri, Wiburg) and in 1832 transported to St. Petersburg aboard a specially constructed barge. A structure made of 1200 pine pillars had to be built to lift the column when it was finished in 1834. The lifting and erection of the column was a public performance, a feat that took 100 minutes to accomplish, in the presence of huge crowds, which filled the area around the construction site. Another point of note about the Column is that it remains an engineering marvel. Alexandre Betancourt (Александр Бетанкур) and his team had to make some extremely precise calculations before erecting the column: for over 150 years it has stood still and unshaken without any foundation underneath whatsover. The column was placed vertically on the ground, - pretty much like a thick pencil on a table, - and remains in the vertical position supported only by its own weight.
Address: Dvortsovaia Ploshchad
Subway/Metro: Nevsky Prospekt, then walk north or take one of trolley-buses
or regular buses running along Nevsky.
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