The
General Staff Building is an edifice with a 580 m long bow-shaped facade, situated on
Palace SquarePalace Square , connecting Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge leading to Vasilievsky Island, is the central city square of St Petersburg and of the former Russian Empire...
in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, in front of the
Winter PalaceThe Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian Tsars. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...
.
The building was designed by
Carlo RossiCarlo di Giovanni Rossi, was a Russian architect, of Italian origin, who worked the major portion of his life in Russia. He was the author of many classical buildings and architectural ensembles in Saint Petersburg and its environments...
in the Empire style and built in 1819-1829. It consists of two wings, which are separated by a tripartite
triumphal archA triumphal arch is a structure in the shape of a monumental archway, in theory built to celebrate a victory in war, but often used to celebrate a ruler....
adorned by sculptors Stepan Pimenov and Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky and commemorating the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812.
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The
General Staff Building is an edifice with a 580 m long bow-shaped facade, situated on
Palace SquarePalace Square , connecting Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge leading to Vasilievsky Island, is the central city square of St Petersburg and of the former Russian Empire...
in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, in front of the
Winter PalaceThe Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian Tsars. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...
.
The building was designed by
Carlo RossiCarlo di Giovanni Rossi, was a Russian architect, of Italian origin, who worked the major portion of his life in Russia. He was the author of many classical buildings and architectural ensembles in Saint Petersburg and its environments...
in the Empire style and built in 1819-1829. It consists of two wings, which are separated by a tripartite
triumphal archA triumphal arch is a structure in the shape of a monumental archway, in theory built to celebrate a victory in war, but often used to celebrate a ruler....
adorned by sculptors Stepan Pimenov and Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky and commemorating the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812. The arch links Palace Square through Bolshaya Morskaya St. to
Nevsky ProspektNevsky Prospekt , or the Nevsky Avenue, is the main street in the city of St Petersburg. Planned by Peter the Great as beginning the road to Novgorod and Moscow, the avenue runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and, after making a turn at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander Nevsky...
. Until the capital was transferred to
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
in 1918, the building served as the headquarters of the General Staff (western wing), Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry (eastern wing). The western wing now hosts the headquarters of the
Leningrad Military DistrictThe Leningrad Military District is a military district of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. As the Russian Military of Defence site officially states, it traces its history from the Petersburg Military District of Imperial Russia...
. The eastern wing was transferred to the
Hermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture situated in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
in 1993.
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