The Field Marshals' Hall of the Winter Palace

Winter Palace

The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. 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...

 in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint 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...

 was built to honor Imperial Russia's greatest military leaders—Russian generals who attained the rank of Field Marshal. (The only higher rank was that of Generalissimo, attained by four generals and, in the Soviet period, bestowed on Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

).

This great hall and the adjacent throne room are part of the suite of rooms that were created in the western part of the Winter Palace for Tsar Nicholas I in 1833 by architect Auguste de Montferrand

Auguste de Montferrand

Auguste de Montferrand was a French Neoclassical architect who worked primarily in Russia. His two best known works are the Saint Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg.-Family:...

.

The great fire, which destroyed the interior of the Winter Palace, began in this hall on 17 December 1837. It destroyed all in its path for over thirty hours. Following the fire, the hall was rebuilt in its original style by the architect Vasily Stasov

Vasily Stasov

Vasily Petrovich Stasov was a Russian architect.-Biography:Stasov was born in Moscow....

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Today, as part of the State Hermitage Museum, this room retains its recreated decoration by Stasov.