The General Staff Headquarters
(General Staff building, Ãåíåðàëüíûé øòàá, Saint-Petersbourg, Sankt-Petersburg, Sankt-Petersurg, Ñàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðã) . Russian words and phrases are in Cyrillic Windows encoding. External links open in new window.
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Over 600 meter long semi-circular General Staff building occupies the southern part of the Palace Square. The structure is one of most impressive buildings of its kind in Europe (and reportedly is the longest building in Europe). Its architect, Karl Rossi (who is also sometimes referred to as Carlo Rossi, perhaps to accentuate his Italian origins, although he never called himself Carlo and was born in St. Petersburg to mixed parentage) is the author of several other famous landmarks of the Russian capital: St. Michael’s Palace (which is the home of the Alexander III Russian Museum), Alexandrian Theater, southern facade of the Public Library (now repository of the National Library of Russia) and the Ministry of the Interior are among his best known works.
When constructing right wing of the General Staff headquarters, Carlo Rossi enclosed several existent older buildings, with their own interiors and history inside the new grand facade, which acts like an architectural treasure chest. The General Staff headquarters to the right is paralleled by two buildings of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the left, all enclosed within the same facade. A triumphal arch links these two wings together. The arch itself acts as a bridge between two buildings and is a monument to the Russia’s victories in the preceding 40 years of almost uninterrupted warfare with Turkey, Sweden and its allies, and Napoleon’s coalition, although popularly the arch is considered to be the testament to the triumph in Napoleonic wars. Because the approaching Bolshaia Morskaia street is curved, instead of constructing one arch, Rossi built three arches on an angle, so if you enter the Palace Square from Bolshaia Morskaia and Nevsky, the impression is that of passing underneath very wide and bent triumphal arch. Nike, the Goddess of Victory, rides the chariot of glory, drawn by six bronze stallions atop the triumphal arch. If you look at the building from a distance, you will see a massive glass dome over it. The dome, that makes the structure asymmetric, like a giant glass lantern covers the Library of the General Staff. The library is still off limits to the general public. At the turn of the century, it was one of the most important military and military history libraries in Europe, housing thousands of rare warefare-related volumes, manuscripts, prints, drawing and plans from the Middle Ages until early 20 century, in Russian, Latin, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, English and other European languages.
The Hermitage Museum is now the owner of the left wing of the building. Quite fittingly for Rossi’s creation, Hermitage exhibition on Empire style in architecture, furniture and design is housed in the former Foreign Ministry and apartments of foreign ministers and their staff. With time the giant General Staff Headquarters will become a physically integral part of the Hermitage complex, a pedestrian tunnel with exhibition space will link the General Staff building with the Winter Palace across the square. Plans exist for a new subway station with entrance to the Palace Square and what will then be the Greater Hermitage. Guggenheim Museum also plans to open Guggenheim St. Petersburg jointly with the Hermitage in the General Staff building. Guggenheim St. Petersburg will then be the freshest addition to Guggenheim’s museum family with siblings in New York, Bilbao, Venice and Berlin.
Address: Dvortsovaia Ploshchad,
8 - 8 (6-8 Palace Square, Äâîðöîâàÿ ïëîùàäü, 6-8).
Subway/Metro: Nevsky Prospekt, then walk north or take one of trolley-buses
or regular buses running along Nevsky.
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on, next (Alexandrian Column)
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