PALACE SQUARE, Palace Square

Hi, my name’s Jill, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the Wonders of the World: the magnificent Palace Square.

Palace Square is one of the main squares in St. Petersburg, and one of the most beautiful in the world.

Originally a military zone, it was turned into an area used for celebrations and banquets by Tsar Peter the Great. The 18th century saw the construction of  the palaces you can admire today, making the square the most important in the city.

To appreciate the square to the full, stand towards the center, next to the  Alexander Column, built in 1834 in honor of Tsar Alexander I for his victory against Napoleon's troops in 1812.

This pink granite monolith, 47 and a half meters high and weighing 600 tons, stands on an elegant gray granite pedestal, adorned with bas-reliefs, supported simply due to its huge mass. It is topped with an angel holding a cross.

From here, you can admire the semicircular monumental complex of the General Staff Building, spread out over an impressive 580 meters. The building is separated in the center by the elegant 28-meter-high, 17-meter-wide triumphal arch, topped with a Chariot of Victory, sculpted  in 1829 to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon. One wing of the building currently hosts part of the exhibitions of the Hermitage.

On the opposite side of the square is the Winter Palace, completed in 1761 and the residence of the tsars from 1762 to 1917. Today it is the main building of the Hermitage.

Let me leave you with an interesting fact: This square, where military parades often took place in imperial times, was the scene of a number of historical events of fundamental importance, such as "Bloody Sunday" in January 1905, when dozens of workers died at the hands of the tsar's guards during a peaceful demonstration, and the coup d'état in 1917 during the Russian Revolution, which led to the fall of the tsar.