Archeological Excavation in Palace Square

During a short period from 17 July to 17 August, 2002, while cobbles were replaced in Palace Square, the Section of Architectural Archeology of the Hermitage Chief Architect Department had a chance to carry out an archeological excavation in the place where once stood a large outbuilding known as ''Young Couple's Palace''.
The wooden wing on a stone foundation which looked like a stone house because of special plaster was built beside the palace of Empress Anna Ioannovna in the late 1740s. It was intended for the young couple, the heir, future Peter III, and his wife Catherine. The palace was built by architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The couple moved to the palace in 1750 but did not stay there for long. In the early 1760s the building was dismantled and its details used in the construction of the existent Winter Palace built by Rastrelli to order of Elizabeth Petrovna.
The palace is depicted in one of engravings made for the St. Petersburg 50th anniversary album according to drawings of Mikhail Makhayev (1718-1770). Rastrelli later used the plan of the church in the Young Couple's Palace as the basis for the design of the Winter Palace's Big Church.
Small-scale excavation was carried out by the foundation of the garden fence built beside the west facade of the Winter Palace in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The Hermitage archeologists unearthed the stone foundation of the palace. A pit probably intended for a tethering or lamp post was found in the north-west section of the excavation site. The brick vault which possibly formed part of a sewage system built after the palace demolition was destroyed by a waste pit dating from the late 18th century. Archeologists found there interesting objects like coins, pieces of Chinese porcelain, Dutch faience, window glass, wine bottles and stone vessels.
The excavations shed new light on buildings which were previously known only from historical records.

View of Anna Ioannovna's Winter House from the Admiralty meadow
Mikhail Makhayev
Larger view

Excavation site

Stone foundation of the Young Couple's Palace