1981: Opening of a museum in the Menshikov Palace, a new branch of the State Hermitage

In 1981 the palace of Prince Alexander Menshikov, the first governor of St Petersburg, was opened to the public as a museum.

The building on Vasilyevsky Island was started in 1710 and had acquired its final appearance by 1727. A number of Western European architects and craftsmen were involved in constructing and decorating the palace: Giovanni Fontana, Johann Gottfried Schadel, Domenico Trezzini, Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Georg Johann Mattarnovy and Jean-Baptiste LeBlond.

The rooms were finished and furnished using marble, decorative painting and moulding, ancient and modern Italian sculpture, carved and inlaid wood, cobalt-painted Dutch tiles and Russian stove tiles, painted and tooled leather, expensive fabrics and tapestries. The palace housed collections of painting, sculpture, works of applied art, books and numismatic items, as well as being the centre of cultural life in the new capital.

After Menshikov's fall in 1727, all his property was confiscated, the palace on Vasilyevsky Island being given to the First Cadet Corps. Many outstanding Russians of the 18th century and first half of the 19th studied here, including the great military commanders Piotr Rumiantsev and Alexander Suvorov, the poet and dramatist Alexander Sumarokov and the celebrated actor Fiodor Volkov.

This new chapter in the palace's history lasted almost 200 years. The building gradually lost its original appearance and interior decoration, becoming part of a complex of buildings occupied by the Cadet Corps. The Corps museum created in the 1880s lasted until 1924. It included a few surviving interiors, among them the personal apartments of Alexander Menshikov. In Soviet times the building was used by a variety of institutions.

Research on the palace began in the 1950s. A many-sided restoration project aimed at returning the edifice to the condition it had in the first quarter of the 18th century was drawn up in 1976.

After the building and restoration work was complete, the palace was transferred to the State Hermitage. An exhibition entitled “The Culture of Russia in the first third of the 18th century” was created in the building.

Mansion of Prince Alexander Menshikov
Rostovtsev, Alexei Ivanovich
Image in the Digital collection

Portrait of Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov
Musikiysky, Grigory Semyonovich (?)
Image in the Digital collection

The Study between the Antechamber and Varvara's Chamber
Larger view