The Stroganov Palace

The palace’s origins date back to the 1720s, when a one-storey house was built near the Green Bridge over the Moika River for one of the Stroganovs, possibly for the entire family. In 1742, Baron Sergei Stroganov purchased an unfinished two-storey house in the same area. Subsequently, all the buildings were unified into a single structure by architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who designed and completed the palace between 1753 and 1754. The Stroganov dynasty retained ownership of the palace until 1918.

The Stroganov Palace has been the site of numerous events significant to Russian history. In the 1760s, the initiators of the establishment of the Public Library in St Petersburg gathered in the Grand Hall. In December 1766, in the presence of Empress Catherine II, elections of members to the Commission for Drafting the New Code were held there as well.