Menshikovskiy Dvorets
Oval Petrine Baroque palace begun for a disgraced imperial favorite, remade for royal owners.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Menshikovskiy Dvorets palace in Saint Petersburg follows Alexander Menshikov, the baker's-son-turned-confidant of Peter the Great who rose to command armies and govern the city. It traces the roughly seventeen years his architects spent raising this lavish palace on the Neva, while accusations of theft and fraud trailed its owner the whole time. Best heard while standing in the gilded rooms that once impressed a touring French visitor.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Marble Palace
First stone-faced palace in the city, sheathed in thirty-two marbles as a gift for an empress's favorite.
Sheremetiev Palace
Riverside baroque-and-classical palace where a count secretly married his serf soprano, who died there weeks later.
The State Museum-Reserve "Gatchina"
Neoclassical imperial palace built as a hunting lodge, with a lakeside grotto reached by an underground stone passage.
Tauride Palace
Golden-columned palace built for an empress favorite, later home to Russia first elected parliament.
Stroganov Palace
Baroque townhouse turned neoclassical showcase, its architect once a serf owned by the family who built it.
Catherine Palace
Baroque palace of gilded halls and a legendary amber chamber lost to war and rebuilt from memory.