Stroganov Palace

This guide to Stroganov Palace in Saint Petersburg traces architect Andrei Voronikhin's path from a serf born in the Urals in 1759, owned by the Stroganov family and rumored to be Count Alexander Stroganov's own son, to the freed architect the count hired to rebuild these very rooms he once served in. It follows Voronikhin from study in Moscow, France, and Switzerland to the neoclassical interiors that replaced Rastrelli's baroque gilding, and to his later commission for Kazan Cathedral nearby. Look for the carved profile on the pink facade that nobody has ever identified for certain.