The public significance of Menshikov’s palace as the residence of the Governor of St Petersburg demanded high standards in everything, a demonstration of all the achievements of contemporary European culture. Thus, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the Menshikov Palace, on a par with the Summer Palace of Peter I and Monplaisir at Peterhof, was fitted with a piped water supply and flushing drains.
During the reconstruction of the building in the cellars fragments of two main water-supply pipes made of wood has been found. One of them crossed the palace from north to south and was apparently connected with the fountain system in the garden. The other ran along the northern enfilade of the basement and connected with brick wells providing water for the various “household services” in the palace: kitchens, laundries and so on.
We can assume that the palace was fitted with precursors of our modern toilets as was Menshikov’s Le Fort Palace in Moscow. There, in 1707–08, the architect Giovanni Fontana installed 39 latrines in the thickness of the outer walls of the new blocks. It has been suggested that the idea and designs for a water-supply and flushing drains in dwellings came from the architect Jean-Baptiste LeBlond. This became a practice in French construction only by the 1730s.