AMBER ROOM, a unique interior of the Great Catherine Palace, and 18th century arts and crafts monument. The walls of the Amber Room are decorated with the amber panels (the only example of amber used in Russian architecture). In 1716, Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I granted an amber study to Peter the Great staying in Habelberg (near Berlin), but the attempt to establish it straightaway failed. For the first time in St. Petersburg the Amber Room was arranged for the future Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in the Third Winter Palace. In 1745, Friedrich II who had ascended the Prussian throne presented Empress Elizaveta Petrovna the forth Amber Room, executed at his behest in Konigsberg (in addition to the three presented to Peter the Great). In the same years F. Rastrelli, reconstructing the Grand Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, included the Amber Room in the premises of the Gala Palace. To make assurance doubly sure, panels and frames treasured in the Summer Palace of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg were moved to Tsarskoe Selo under armed guard. To set the Amber Room the premises of 96 square metres turned out to be too spacious. Rastrelli offered a three-tier composition of the decor and placed the already existing panels and frames in the middle tier. Above and below it the walls were covered with canvas and painted by I.I. Belsky to look like amber. In 1758, Prussian amber master F. Roggenbuck headed the production of new amber articles in the workshops created on the spot. In the course of four years eight shields of the lower tier and eight panels were made (450 kg of amber was used). A Florentine mosaic was made in Italy in Petroduru workshops to the sketches of G. Zocchi. During the Great Patriotic War the decor of the Amber Room was taken by German authorities to Konigsberg, in 1944 it was lost. In the 1990s, in Germany two items of the Amber room resurfaced, those were given over to Tsarskoe Selo Museum. Work on the reconstruction of the Amber Room started in 1986 (under the direction of architect A. A. Kedrinsky). The reconstructed Amber Room was solemnly opened in March of 2003.

References: Овсянов А. П. Янтарная комната: Возрождение шедевра. Калининград, 2002; Янтарная комната: Три века истории / И. П. Саутов, А. А. Кедринский, Л. В. Бардовская, Н. С. Григорович. СПб., 2003.

O. A. Chekanova. Belsky Ivan Ivanovich
Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress
Friedrich II, King
Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke
Peter I, Emperor
Rastrelli Francesco de
Roggenbuck F.
Zocchi Guiseppe

BERNSTAM Leopold-Bernhard (Leopold Adolfovich) (1859-1939), sculptor. He lived in St. Petersburg in 1872-85. He studied under David Jensen at the Drawing School of Artists Encouragement Fund and in the Academy of Arts (an external student in 1877-83). From 1885 he worked in Paris, often returning to St. Petersburg for commission work. He painted approximately 300 portraits of Russian and European representatives of culture, science and politics, and sculpted many busts and monuments, including sculptures on the ancient and biblical subjects. He created busts of Fedor Dostoevsky (from Dostoevsky’s death mask, 1881), Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (the early 1880s; erected at the writer's grave in 1900), Denis Fonvizin, Alexander Pushkin, and Alexander Ostrovsky for the foyer of the Alexandrinsky theatre (the early 1880s); monuments to Anton Rubinstein (put up in the Conservatory foyer in 1902), Alexander Pushkin (1911, today at the Egyptian Gates to Pushkin) and Peter the Great: Peter the Great kisses the Infant Lois XV (put up in a Peterhof park, not preserved), Peter the Great Saving the Drowning in Lakhta in 1724; Peter the Great Learning Shipping Trade in Saardam, Holland in 1697 (The Tsar-Carpenter, put up in the Admiralty Embankment in 1909 and 1910; removed in 1918; a copy of the latter was erected in the same place in 1996). He made portraits of Nicholas II and members of the Imperial family (1896). His last work for St. Petersburg was the bust of Emperor Alexander III (erected in the garden of the Russian Museum, removed in 1918).

Reference: Северюхин Д. Я. Любимый скульптор Государя // Невский архив: Ист.-краевед. сб. М.; СПб., 1993. [Вып. 1]. С. 246-259.

O. L. Leikind, D.Y. Severyukhin.

ELIZAVETA (Elizabeth) PETROVNA (1709-1761, St. Petersburg), Empress (since 1741), daughter of Peter the Great and Elizaveta I. Before taking the throne, she lived in a palace at the Tsaritsyn Medow in St. Petersburg, then in the Summer Palace on the Fontanka River Embankment. By order of Peter the Great, a country residence was built for Elizaveta Petrovna, called Elizavethof (1714, near Ekaterinhof). She came to power as a result of a court coup. The Academy of Arts and the Russian Drama Theatre were founded in St. Petersburg during the reign of Elizaveta Petrovna. Elizaveta Petrovna, being a passionate lover of luxury, tried to give St. Petersburg a metropolitan look supporting its development (the Baroque style that dominates the literature of the 1740-50s is called Elizabethan). Several palaces were built or started to be constructed for Elizaveta Petrovna, including the Winter Palace, the Anichkov Palace, and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Under her rule, the Smolny Convent, The St. Nicholas Cathedral, the Tuchkov and the Sampsonyevsky bridges, and other buildings were constructed; the Porcelain Plant was founded (1744), as was the Krasnoselskaya Chintz Factory (1752), and the Noble and Merchant Leverage Banks. She was buried at the SS. Peter&Paul Cathedral.

References: Анисимов Е. В. Елизавета Петровна. 3-е изд. М., 1999; Писаренко К. А. Повседневная жизнь русского Двора в царствование Елизаветы Петровны. М., 2003.

G. V. Kalashnikov.

LANSERE Nikolay Evgenyevich (1879, St. Petersburg -1942), architect and graphic artist, architectural historian and teacher. He was the brother of E.E. Lansere and Z.E. Serebryakova. He graduated from the architectural department of the Higher Arts College attached to the Academy of Arts (1904). Member of the World of Art Union. He taught architectural composition as a professor at various educational institutions, such as E.F. Bogaeva Higher Female Architectural Courses (from 1913), Female Pedagogical Polytechnic Courses (1916-1918), Higher Arts and Technical Institute (1927-30s) etc. He was one of the organisers and a secretary of the Museum of Old St. Petersburg (from 1907). In 1922-1931, he performed the functions of the curator of the historical and domestic department of the State Russian Museum. His works built in the style of retrospectivism include the Synoptic Pavilion on Malaya Konyushennaya Street (1913, restored in 1997), residential houses at 10 Pesochnaya Embankment (1913-14), 43 Tchaikovskogo Street (co-designed, 1914-1916), the School of the Folk Art (now 2A Griboedov Canal Embankment, built in 1914-1915). He participated in the designing of the Historical and Artistic Exhibition of Portraits in the Tauride Palace (1905), the Lomonosov and the Epoch of Elizaveta exhibition (1912) etc. He also practised graphics, the examination and maintenance of monuments. Lansere researched and wrote a number of historical works on architecture (Gatchina Palace, Main Admiralty, Fountain House etc.), they were published in Starye Gody (Old Years) journal and came out as separate editions. After the February Revolution of 1917, he was a member of the Special Conference upon the issues of art attached to the Provisional Government. After the Revolution he continued drafting architectural projects (the residential building of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine at 69-71 Kamennoostrovsky Avenue; "Big House", among other architects). From 1923, he was a member of the Council of Old St. Petersburg Society. Lansere was the first to perform restoration work in Alexander Pushkin's apartment on Moika River Embankment. He took part in the preparation of the exhibition in Peter the Great's Summer Palace. In 1931, he fell victim to the repression, and in 1938 was arrested for the second time. Lansere died in prison. He lived in N.L. Benois' house at 15 Glinki Street.

References: Оль Г. А., Лансере Н. Н. Н. Е. Лансере. Л., 1986; Бернер А. В. Род Бенуа и сталинские репрессии // 200 лет семье Бенуа в России: Юбил. сб. СПб., 1994. С. 29; Исаченко В.Г. Творческий путь Н. Е. Лансере // Краеведческие записки: Исслед. и материалы. СПб., 1995. Вып. 3.С. 167-169.

V. A. Frolov.

LOMONOSOV Mikhail Vasilievich (1711-1765), scientist, poet, enlightener. He came from a prosperous family based by the White Sea. In 1731-35 he studied in Moscow, from 1736 in the Academic University of St. Petersburg, from autumn 1736 until 1741 he studied abroad. From 1742 he had been a junior scientific assistant for a physics class; from 1745 he was a professor (academician) of chemistry in the Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1746 was the first person to lecture on physics in Russian at the Academic University. In 1748 he created the first Russian chemical laboratory (it was located in the so-called Botanic Garden of Academy of Sciences, close to the house where Lomonosov lived, - between the First and the Second Lines of Vasilievsky Island; not preserved). In 1753 on the initiative of Lomonosov a stained glass factory was founded in Ust-Ruditsa (it operated until 1768, there is a memorial obelisk at its location). In 1758 Lomonosov opened a mosaic workshop in St. Petersburg, where the Battle of Poltava panel was made under his guidance (1762-64; today in the building of the Academy of Sciences) and a number of mosaic portraits (in 1763 Lomonosov was elected an honorary member of Academy of Arts). From 1757 Lomonosov was an advisor for the Academy of Sciences Chancery; in 1758 he was charged with supervision over the Geographic Department, Historians Assembly, Academic University and Academic Gymnasium. Lomonosov wrote his major philological works in St. Petersburg: Short Guide for Eloquence (1748) - a general course on theory of literature; Russian Grammar (1757); Introduction to the Use of Church Books for Russian Language (1758), in which the use of three styles of Russian was explained concerning Standard Russian and Russian literary genres. By motivating theoretically syllabo-tonic system of versification Lomonosov as a poet was the creator of the Russian ode (the first sample - ode on the capture of Khotin, 1739, published in 1751), mainly of religious and philosophic content (Evening Thoughts About the Grandeur of God on the occasion of the Great Pole Star, 1743, published in 1748); he wrote satires, poems and tragedies in verse as well. According to Lomonosov's intention the first Russian scientific literary journal, Monthly Writings for Use and Amusement (it was issued in St. Petersburg from1755 to 1764). In his historical works Lomonosov highly valued the activities of Peter the Great, emphasising the importance of the foundation of St. Petersburg as an important stage in acquiring access to the Baltic Sea. From 1757 he had been living in his own house on the right bank of Moika River (it was reconstructed in 1843-45; memorial plaque on the house 61 along Bolshaya Morskaya Street). He was buried at Lazarevskoe Cemetery of Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1915 Barachevskaya Street in Rybatskoe Village (today within the limits of the city) was renamed Lomonosovskaya Street (in 1987 it was abolished). In 1948 Oranienbaum was renamed Lomonosov, Chernyshev Bridge, Chernyshev Square and Chernyshev Lane were renamed into Bridge, Square and Street of Lomonosov, Lomonosovskaya metro station and some industrial companies (including Lomonosov Porcelain Plant) were named after Lomonosov. In 1949 the Lomonosov Museum was opened in the building of Kunstkammer, where the scientist had worked from 1741 (memorial plaque). A bust of Lomonosov was installed on Lomonosov Square (1892, sculptor P.P. Zabello, architect A.S. Lytkin), a statue at Universitetskaya Embankment (1986, sculptor B.A. Petrov, V.D. Sveshnikov, architect E.A. Tyakht, I.A. Shakhov).

References: Лихоткнн Г. А. Ломоносов в Петербурге. Л., 1981; Белявский М. Т. ...Все испытал и все проник. 2-е изд. М., 1986; Ломоносов: Краткий энциклопедич. словарь. СПб., 1999; Судьба мемориального наследия М. В. Ломоносова // Петербургская Академия наук в истории академий мира: Материалы междунар. конференции. СПб., 1999. Т. 3.

O. N. Ansberg.

NARTOV Andrey Konstantinovich (1693-1756, St. Petersburg), mechanic. Worked at the Moscow Mint for the artillery department. In 1712, he settled in St. Petersburg, becoming Tsar Peter the Great's private lathe operator. Upon the Tsar's death in 1725, Nartov, as well as his turnery, came under the supervision of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He invented and built a number of original lathes, also coming up with new cannon foundries, machines for bore drilling, and some original ignition devices. The lathes and machines that Nartov invented are kept at the State Hermitage, the Military and Historical Museum of Artillery, the Sappers and Signal Troops, and the Summer Palace of Peter the Great; his manuscript treatise, entitled Theatrum Machinorum, is stored at the National Russian Library. He was buried by the Holy Annunciation Church on Vasilievsky Island, and reburied at the Necropolis of the 18th Century in the 1930s.

References: Данилевский В. В. Нартов и "Ясное зрелище машин". М.; Л., 1958; Гизе М. Э. Нартов в Петербурге. Л., 1988.

V. V. Cheparukhin.

PUSHKIN Alexander Sergeevich (1799-1837, St. Petersburg), poet, prose writer, playwright, historian, journalist. Studied at the Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo (1811-17; memorial plaque; presently a memorial museum). It was the public performing of his ode Remembrances in Tsarskoe Selo at the Lyceum examination, presided by G. R. Derzhavin on 8 January 1815, that Pushkin consideres the beginning of his literary career. Upon graduation from the Lyceum Pushkin served at the Foreign Affairs Collegium. In 1820 was exiled from St. Petersburg to Chisinau (Kishinev), Odessa, subsequently to the village of Mikhailovskoe in the Pskov province. From 1827-31 occasionally visited St. Petersburg (stayed at the Demutov Traktir). In 1831 after marrying Natalia Goncharova moved to St. Petersburg. Pushkin was a member of the Arzamas society, Zelenaya Lampa (Green Lamp) circle; was closely associated with the Free Society for the Friends of the Russian Philology. Pushkin intermingled with numerous literary figures, was acquainted with А. А. Delwig, V. K. Kuchelbecker, P. Y. Chaadaev, V. A. Zhukovsky, P. А. Vyazemsky, N. М. Karamzin, Е. А. Baratynsky, K. N. Batyushkov, P. А. Pletnev, N. V. Gogol, А. S. Griboedov and many others. During different periods visited salons of Princess Е. I. Golitsyna, А. N. Olenina, Karamzina's salon, D. F. Fikelmon's salon, Odoevsky's salon, the Wednesdays of Smirnova-Rosset and others. Appeared in the Syn Otechestva, Biblioteka dlya chtenia journals, Polyarnaia Zvezda almanac, Severnye Tsvety almanac and others. Took active part in the publication of the Litaraturnaya Gazeta newspaper; founder of the Sovremennik journal. Pushkin's first book - the poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820), first poems collection Poems (1826), a lifetime collection of works - Poems by Alexander Pushkin in four volumes (1829-35), first separate full edition of Evgeny Onegin (1833), The Narratives Published by Alexander Pushkin (1834), Poems and Narratives by Alexander Pushkin in two volumes (1835) and many others were published in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is considered the city of the poet's early literary fame and the place where his last drama occurred. Pushkin was mortally wounded at a duel in the surroundings of St. Petersburg, in the vicinity of the Chernaya Rechka River [in 1937 an obelisk was erected at the supposed site of the duel (architect А. I. Lapirov, sculptor М. G. Manizer)]. The burial service was read in the Holy Face Church of the Court Stables (1 Konyushennaya Square; memorial plaque). Continuing the traditions of the 18th century, Pushkin harmonically merged diverse genres and styles both in poetry and prose, thus creating a new literature language and a new writing manner, which determined the development of Russian literature in the 19th and 20th centuries. For the first time in Russian literature Pushkin gave a complex, manifold description of St. Petersburg; the poet illustrates the city's past and present, revealing their continuity. The city becomes one of the characters of his works, and the literary phenomenon, later called Petersburg text, is established; it was cultivated in Gogol's, Dostoevsky's works, as well as of other writers. The St. Petersburg theme is closely associated with the evaluation of Peter the Great's reforms (the unfinished novel The Negro of Peter the Great , 1827; The Bowl of Peter the Great, 1835; preparatory material to The History of Peter the Gtreat, 1835; others); the architectural regalia embody the various aspects of Russian history and statehood (see, e.g., Mikhaylovsky Palace as a symbol of tyranny in the ode Freedom 1817, written according to the legend in the house of the A. I. Turgenev and N. I. Turgenev brothers at 20 Fontanka River Embankment); the city's manifold modern life is exposed (the aristocratic, high-society, cultural St. Petersburg in Evgeny Onegin's first chapter, saturated with topographic regalia; an insight into the life of Petersburg outskirts is given in the poem The House in Kolomna, 1830; and others). The image of St. Petersburg is impregnated in The Bronze Horseman with strong symbolic tension (Petersburg Narratives — according to Pushkin's genre definition) (1833; was first published in 1837 after the poet's death with considerable distortions). The explicit apologia of St. Petersburg develops in the poem into the theme of fatal menace and catastrophic downfall of the city over God's elements, the triumph of Peter the Great's historic genius, intellect and his will's creative potency, Russian glory, embodied in the image of St. Petersburg, stand as a rigorous and tragic ordeal measured by the sufferings of an individual. The narrative The Queen of Spades, (1834) with its fantastic atmosphere and a special genuine Petersburg type (Dostoevsky) of character played an important part in the evolution of the Petersburg Text technique in Russian literature (Princess N. P. Golitsina's House at 10 Morskaya Street is traditionally considered the house where Pushkin's old countess lived). Pushkin's Petersburg addresses are: from 1817-20: 185 Fontanka River Embankment (memorial plaque); 1831 - Tsarskoe Selo, Kolpinskaya Street (the town of Pushkin, 2 Pushkinskaya Street; memorial plaque; (today Pushkin summer cottage museum); 1831-32: 53 Galernaya Street (memorial plaque); 1832 — Furshtatskaya Street (the house has not survived, section of house 20); 1832-33: 26 Bolshaya Morskaya Street; 1833-34: 5 Panteleymonovskaya Street (today Pestelya Street), 1834-36 — 32, Frunzenskaya Embankment (today Kutuzova Embankment), (memorial plaque); 1836-37 —12, the Moika River Embankment (memorial plaque; today Pushkin memorial museum-flat). Pushkinskaya Street (since1881) and a number of streets in Pushkinsky, Pavlovsky, Kolpinsky, Kurortny, Krasnoselsky districts are named after Pushkin. In 1937-89 Birzhevaya Square was called Pushkinskaya. The Children's Library, the Russian State Academic Drama Theatre (see Alexandrinsky Theatre), the Russian Literature Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin's House), where the poet's manuscript legacy is reposited, a metro station and a number of other objects are also named after Pushkin. In 1937 Detskoe Selo (formerly Tsarskoe Selo) was renamed into Pushkin. See also the article Pushkin's monuments.

References: Гордин А. М., Гордин М. А. Путешествие в пушкинский Петербург. Л., 1983; Осповат А. Л., Тименчик Р. Д. Печальну повесть сохранить...: Об авторе и читателях Медного всадника. М., 1985; Иезуитова Р. В., Левкович Я. Л. Пушкин и Петербург: Страницы жизни поэта. СПб., 1999; Сурат И. З., Бочаров С. Г. Пушкин: Крат. очерк жизни и творчества. М., 2002.

Д. Н. Ахапкин, D. N. Cherdakov.

Peter I granted towns of Koporye and Yamburg to A.D. Menshikov. Among estates of the Koporye Uyezd there was the Saari grange with one-storied wooden house and utility constructions. Peter I, Emperor

According to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna the famous Amber Room, which was presented by the Prussia King Frederick- William I of Prussia to Peter I in 1716, was brought to Tsarskoye Selo. Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress
Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke
Peter I, Emperor