Grand Kremlin Palace

[ThomB]

Courtesy of the digital collection of the New York Public Library...
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=578801&imageID=1229800&total=1&num=0&word=1229800&s=1&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=0&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&imgs=20&pos=1&e=w
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=578802&imageID=1229801&total=1&num=0&word=1229801&s=1&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=0&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&imgs=20&pos=1&e=w

[richard_1990]

What's that shaded area i the middle of the Grand Palace courtyard? Was there a building there?

[pers]

Is it possible to get a hold of the legend/key to the plans?  That would be very interesting.  Thank you so much for posting ThomB!!!

[CHRISinUSA]

I can't figure out how to do a plan, but I can identify some of the rooms in the plan for you.  Looking at the upper level plan:

G:  Is St. George's Hall
K:  Is St. Andrew Hall (the Throne Room)
D:  Is St. Vladamir Hall
J.  Is St. Alexander Hall

The rest is a mystery to me.

[ThomB]

(I assume the shaded area in the middle of the courtyard was a pre-existing church, judging from it's outline. However Google Earth does not show it so apparently it did not survive although the one to the outside appears to.)

[ThomB]

Ah! The guidebook also answered this question...

The new construction is made up of ancient parts and forms with them a square in the interior courtyard in which the old church of the Savior-in-the-Forest is located.

[Greg_King]

The print identifying some of the rooms is too small, but below are at least some designations of which I am sure from my own visits to the palace rooms:

GROUND FLOOR

A (at bottom of Grand Kremlin Palace): Main Entrance
B (opening from above): State Parade Antechamber (which leads to the Parade Staircase to the principal floor)
D: Dining Room in the Private Apartments
E (at least I think it’s an E-immediately to the left of the above): Empress’s Reception Room in the Private Apartments
F: Corridor
G (Can’t read but immediately to left of above): Empress’s Drawing Room in the Private Apartments
And immediately to left of that: Corridor
J: Empress’s Boudoir in the Private Apartments
(Can’t read, but immediately to the left of the above): Imperial Bedroom in the Private Apartments
(Then immediately to the left): Passage to the Imperial Bathroom
(At corner, to left of above): Emperor’s Study in the Private Apartments
N (I think-directly above the Study): Emperor’s Reception Room in the Private Apartments

PRINCIPAL FLOOR

C: Palace of Facets
B: Holy Vestibule
D: Hall of St. Vladimir
E: Parade Vestibule
F: Parade Staircase
G: Hall of St. George
H: French doors to terrace overlooking Cathedral Square
J: Hall of St. Alexander Nevsky
K: Hall of St. Andrei (Imperial Throne Room)
N: Chevalier Guards Room
O: Hall of the Order of St. Catherine (Empress’s Throne Room)
P: State Drawing Room
Q: State Bedchamber
(and directly above Q): Walnut Dressing Room

[BobG]

Here's a plan of the main floor with some rooms idenitfied.


BobG

[IvanVII]

Looking at the plans for the ground floor along the right side, beneath the area of St Vladimir's hall and Hall of St George, there appear to be some good sized rooms. Does anyone know what they might be?

[Grand Duchess Ayla]

Hi! I found the online tour by the Kremelin in this site:
http://voiceofrussia.com//kremlin_rus/

[Inok Nikolai]

Ah! The guidebook also answered this question...

The new construction is made up of ancient parts and forms with them a square in the interior courtyard in which the old church of the Savior-in-the-Forest is located.

Yes, it was the second stone church built in the Kremlin (after the Dormition Cathedral). It was there long before the Palace was erected, and so it was preserved in the inner courtyard.
It was torn down in 1933 by order of the Politburo.

In 1997, while work was being done on the Palace, archaeologists found part of the church’s foundations and related materials.

More pictures here:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Собор_Спаса_на_Бору

[Joanna]

Photographs of the Empress Alexandra’s baise-main in the St. Andrew Hall in Kremlin Palace on April 10th, 1900

https://winterpalaceresearch.blogspot.ca/2016/11/empress-alexandras-baise-main-hand.html

Joanna

[Превед]

As far as I can see, the walls of the Alexandrovsky Hall is decorated with the various quarterings or arms that make up the great arms of the Russian Empire, thus including the arms of such (nowadays) independent countries like Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Georgia etc. and foreign regions like Schleswig, Holstein, Oldenburg, Kiev, Vitebsk etc.

The Andreyevskiy Hall (the throne hall) is decorated with the arms of all? guberniyas? of the Russian Empire, in addition to the middle imperial arms on the canopy wall behind the dais with the thrones.. On the wall close to the throne I've spotted the arms of the Volynskaya Guberniya (a silver cross on red), which today is in Ukraina, so I guess it's the former imperial guberniyas, not the current Russian oblasts. But does it include the guberniyas in Poland, Finland etc.?

Can anybody confirm this or even better: Have a list or plan of which arms are displayed where?

[DNAgenie]

Quarterings on a coat of arms represent marriages, so the quarterings referred to here would represent the arms of the individual families whose women married into the Romanov royal line, not countries within the Russian Empire.

[Превед]

Quarterings on a coat of arms represent marriages, so the quarterings referred to here would represent the arms of the individual families whose women married into the Romanov royal line, not countries within the Russian Empire.

Sorry, that's very Anglocentric and more or less wrong with regard to the Imperial House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov (not "the Romanov royal line"). In British heraldry quarterings mostly represent unions with heraldic heiresses (not just any "women" who married into the line). The German tradition which dominates Russian heraldry and the practice concerning arms of dominion like the imperial arms are not concerned with cognatic family lines (unless the woman is a semi-Salic heiress) or arms of alliance, but only with territories and titles which the dynasty can claim, because of actual possession, conquest, cession (after a treaty) (shared agnatic) inheritance etc.. Hence the presence of the arms of Holstein (Dukes of Holstein), Norway (Heir to Norway), Siberia (Tsar of Siberia) etc.

I was not asking why the different charges are found in the imperial arms, but about their presence in these halls of the Grand Kremlin Palace. I should perhaps not have spoken of quarterings, as they seldom are represented as quarterings on one, great shield (but here is an early 19th century example), but usually as separate smaller shields (some with their own quarterings, though) orbiting around the main imperial arms.