Aleksandr Menshikov The First Governor of St. Petersburg

On 20 May, 2003, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, in the Menshikov Palace was opened an exhibition dedicated to Aleksandr Menshikov, the first Governor and organizer of the construction of the Northern capital.

The exhibition is organized by the Hermitage and the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the participation of the Federal Archive Service of Russia, Russian National Archive of Ancient Documents, Russian National Archive of the Navy, Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Narva Museum (Estonia) and the Prince Aleksandr Menshikov Memorial Foundation.

The exhibition shows unique documents telling about the construction history of the city and its suburbs from its inception till 1725 and the Governor’s role in it. Building of the new capital may be traced from 1706 due to various printed and handwritten drawings and plans of St. Petersburg including a detailed plan of the area along the rivers Karpovka and Malaya Neva dating from 1724, which has never before been displayed.

Autographs of Peter I and Aleksandr Menshikov deserve special mention.

The illustrated catalogue of the exhibition prepared by the Hermitage has been published by ARS. It includes an introduction written by the Hermitage Director Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, articles about Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov and his palace, and a review of documents preserved at the Russian National Archive of History and other Russian archives related to Menshikov’s construction activities.

“The Menshikov Palace is one of the most remarkable museums of St. Petersburg. This Hermitage division recreates the age of Peter I through the figure of his closest comrade-at-arms and favorite. Prince Menshikov embodied in his life the transformations wrought by the great Czar. Russia taught Europe to respect her in her own European traditions rather than merely emulated them.

The prominent personality of Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov holds its place of honor in the Hermitage pantheon. We are happy to be able on the occasion of the city’s tercentenary to build a monument to him and to show a new exhibition in the Prince’s palace for the sake of whose beauty, if we believe the legend, he changed the direction of the Twelve Colleges,” says the Hermitage Director Mikhail B. Piotrovsky in his introduction to the exhibition catalogue.

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Georgy V. Vilinbakhov, Deputy Director Research of the State Hermitage Museum opening the exhibition

At the exhibition

At the exhibition