ALEXANDER II (1818-1881, St. Petersburg), Emperor (since 1855). He was a son of Emperor Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. Tsarevitch (from 1831), General of Infantry (1847), Honorary Member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1826). His first marriage was to the Princess of Hesse and Rhine, who took the name of Maria Alexandrovna; his second (morganatic) marriage to Princess E.M. Dolgorukova (1880), who received the title of Princess Yuryevskaya. He was a member of the Committee for the Neva Bridge Construction (1841), and the head of the Committee of the St. Petersburg - Moscow Railway Construction (1842). From 1849, he commanded the Guard and Grenadier Corps, was the head of the Main Military Schools (until 1860), and Trustee of the Chesme Military Hospital. In the 1860-70s, he carried out various reforms, such as peasant (abolishment serfdom, 1861), judicial (1864), land (1865), city (see City reform 1870), and military (the 1860-70s) reforms, all of which came to be known in Russian history as the Great Reforms of Alexander II. Many people had considerable influence on state affairs and government throughout different periods of his reign, including his brother Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolaevich, aunt Grand Princess Elena Pavlovna, P.D. Kiselev, Y.I. Rostovtsev, P.A. Valuev, D.A. Milyutin, A.M. Gorchakov, P.A. Shuvalov (see the Shuvalovs), and M.T. Loris-Melikov. In 1866-81, members of secret revolutionary societies made a number of attempts on Alexander II's life, some of them in St. Petersburg. In 1866, D.V. Karakozov shot at the Tsar through the ironwork of the Summer Garden (a chapel was built on the place of attempt; not preserved), in 1879, A.K. Solovyev made an attempt on Palace Square; in 1880, S.N. Khalturin planted an explosive in the Winter Palace. On 1 March 1881, Alexander II was fatally wounded on the Catherine Canal Embankment (today Griboedova Canal) as a result of a terrorist attack by members of the group Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), and died several hours later in the Winter Palace. He was buried in the SS. Peter&Paul Cathedral. The Holy Resurrection Cathedral was built on site of the assassination. Before taking the crown, Alexander II lived in Anichkov Palace, then in the Winter Palace. In summertime he preferred the Tsarskoe Selo (particularly the Zubov Wing of the Catherine Palace), and the Farmer Palace in Alexandria. He owned Petrovsky Island, Anichkov Palace, a cottage, a personal dacha in Peterhof (1843), the Ropsha grange in the Peterhof District, and the city of Gatchina.

References: Александр II и его эпоха: К 140-летию со дня восшествия на престол: Тез. докл. конф. СПб., 1995; Захарова Л. Г. Александр II // Романовы: Ист. портреты, 1762-1917. М., 1997. Кн. 2. С. 404-490; Толмачев Е. П. Александр II и его время: В 2 кн. М., 1998; Александр II и Царское Село: Кат. выст. / Гос. музей-заповедник "Царское Село". СПб., 2000.

Y. A. Kuzmin.

The Tsarskoye Selo Women College of the Saint Petersburg eparchy department was founded according to the Emperor order by Grande Duchess Olga Nikolayevna, later the Queen of Württemberg. The college opening took place on 22 October 1843 in the presence of all tsar’s family firstly in renting stone house of the Full State Councilor Obolensky (it was built in the 1820s according to the design of V.P. Stasov and V.P. Geste). The college was conceived as the exemplary one and was under the patronage of Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna and under the trusteeship of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolayevna. Later tens women religious colleges were founded per its sample in different places of the Russian Empire.
In 1846 the college was granted by the Emperor a plot of 4 desyatinas (11 acres) of the palace land - the garden of the School Gardening establishment at the Kuzmisky Gate. Until 1917 it was used for kitchen garden and meadow as well as for pupils walking and named “pepiniere” (now it is the garden near the Monument to A.S. Pushkin).
The former house of Obolensky, bought in the college ownership, was enlarged and rebuilt for educational aims in 1847-1851 according to the design of the architect D.Ye. Yefimov. A domestic chapel, consecrated in the honour of the Intercession of the Mother of God by Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg and Novgorod Nicanor in 1849, was constructed in the building. At the corner from the side of the Alexander Park a garden was laid out, it was surrounded with the fence on the stone foundation and with massive posts.
In 1881-1883 in the connection of the increase in the number of the college staff the building was overbuilt with the third floor and enlarged to the yard side according to the design and under the direction of A.F. Vidov. The engineering equipment was made at the plant of San-Galli.
All tsar family often spent the time among the college pupils, attended at public services in the domestic chapel, visited the college kitchen garden – “pepiniere”. The Tsesarevna and then Empress Maria Fiodorovna was the last august trustee since 1879, Emperor Alexander III often was here.
In the honour of the Tercentenary of the House of the Romanovs the eparchy department supposed to transform the college into a theological-pedagogical institute. For this aim in 1916 the civil engineer A. Pavlov developed a design of enlarging the building up to Tserkovnaya Street, where at the corner there was a two-storied house bought from A.P. Merder, the principal of the college. In 1916-1917 the college garden – “pepiniere” supposed to allot for constructing the Institute of Experimental Surgery to the design of S.A. Danini. However these projects had been not had time to finish in the connection of the events of 1917. After 1918 the college and chapel was liquidated, the building has been used for a school until the present time. Alexander III, Emperor
Alexandra Fedorovna, Empress
Danini Silvio Amvrosievich
Efimov Dmitry Egorovich
Hastie Vasily Ivanovich (William)
Maria Fedorovna, Empress
Stasov Vasily Petrovich
Vidov Alexander Fomich
Dvortsovaya Street/Pushkin, town
Moskovskaya Street/Pushkin, town

19 September. Dowager Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna died at Tsarskoye Selo.

21 September. Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich - a future dweller of Palei's palace in Tsarskoye Selo, the sixth son - was born in the family of Alexander II in Tsarskoye Selo.

A bakery of G.I. Gollerbakh, the grandfather of the famous arts critic E.F. Gollerbakh, was opened in the house bought from the Engelgards in Leontyevskaya Street. Alexandra Fedorovna, Empress
Hollerbach Erich Fedorovich
Pavel Alexandrovich, Grand Prince

15 January. The new city slaughterhouse with the recycling plant, designed by the architect A.R. Bach, began to work.

23 March. Erik Fiodorovich Gollerbach, the future art historian and literary critic, was born in the family of the owner of the famous bakery - cake shop.

28 March. Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, the future famous Soviet poet, was born in the family of the Tsarskoye Selo priest.

2 April. Illegal meeting of the Petersburg Marxists took place in the house of Silvin at the corner of Oranzhereynaya Street and Malaya Street. V.I. Ulyanov, N.К.Krupskaya, М.А.Silvin, V.V.Starkov, P.К.Zaporozhets, А.L.Malchenko, А.А.Yakubova took part at this meeting.

Decorating of the inhabited rooms of the Alexander Palace , Palisander Room, Study of Emperor Nicholas II had been completed by the firm of F. Melzer.

The autumn. The writer Lidia Ivanovna Veselitskaya (Mikulich), she was the addresse of the poet epistle "The faces have severity on portraits there …" of I.F. Annensky, settled in Tsarskoye Selo.

17 September. The ceremonial laying of the Church of St. Julian of the Life-Guard Cuirassier His Majesty Regiment to the design of the archtect V.N. Kuritsyn took place in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna and Archpriest Ioannof Kronstadt .

3 November. Grand Duke Olga Nikolayevna was born in Tsarskoye Selo, she was the firstborn of the family of Nicholas II. Alexandra Fedorovna, Empress
Bach Alexander Romanovich
Hollerbach Erich Fedorovich
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna
Kuritsyn Vladimir Nikolaevich
Lenin (real name Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich
Malchenko, A.L..
Nicholas II, Emperor
Olga Nikolaevna, Grand Princess
Rozhdestvensky Vsevolod Alexandrovich
Sergiyev (Kronshtadsky) Ioann Ilyich, the Saint
Silvin Mikhail Alexandrovich
Starkov Vasily Vasilievich
Veselitskaya (Mikulich), Lidia Ivanovna
Yakubova, A.A.
Zaporozhets Peter Kuzmich