WINTER PALACE

After the capital of Russia was moved to Saint Petersburg, the Kremlin was neglected. After the fire of 1701 the Tsar’s Palace was not restored and was gradually crumbling. In 1722, probably by the time of the upcoming coronation of Catherine I, Tsar Peter ordered to examine the ancient construction and make up inventory and costing for its reconstruction. However, the considerable damage didn’t allow executing all the necessary works, so only partial repair was made.

Local renovations were also carried out before the coming coronations. In 1749, the architects of Ukhtomsky's team started to reconstruct the lower tiers of the palace complex built for Ivan III by the Italian Aleviz Novy as early as 1747. It was planned to put a new palace on these basements to replace the dilapidated state chambers of the old palace. The author of the project was architect B. Rastrelli; the construction supervision was entrusted to architect D. Ukhtomsky who was also directly involved in the decoration of the palace.

By the end of the 18th century, the palace, which had stood uninhabited for many years, had proved unsuitable for habitation—it was too small and out of fashion. The two architects M. Kazakov and N. Lvov were commissioned to redesign the palace for the day of Paul I's coronation, which involved creating new volumes. None of the designs were implemented.

After the coronation in 1798, only the structure by Rastrelli was reconstructed to the design of N. Lvov. The middle part of the embankment wing and the decoration of the façades in the Classical style completely changed the appearance of the palace.

In 1812, the building was damaged by the fire caused in the Kremlin by Napoleon's retreating army.

By the time Alexander I came to Moscow in August 1816, the Palace was hurriedly restored by the Moscow architects A. Bakarev, I. Mironovsky and I. Tamansky with the participation of architect V. Stasov. It was decided to build up the entire building with the third floor, which was entrusted to Stasov. The rebuilding project submitted by the author was implemented in 1817.

In 1839, Nicholas I approved the project of the new Grand Kremlin Palace by architect K. Ton. The new residence of Russian emperors was erected on the site of the Winter Palace which had been demolished along with the basement and the arcade of the late 15th century.