During its random staying in Tsarskoye Selo over the 19th century the Emperor Escort occupied hussar and cuirassier barracks. The first permanent wooden barracks of the Own His Emperor Majesty Escort were built in 1895 in the Alexander Park in connection with placing the permanent residence of Emperor Nicholas II in the Alexander Palace. The barracks were consecrated on 28 September 1895 in the presence of the Emperor. Each of three sotnias (a unit of a hundred soldiers) was placed with maximum comforts: in separate barracks with separate kitchens and stables, with electric lighting. Only a bakery, smithy and bathhouse were common for all three sotnias. In 1911 the centenary of “the Emperor’s guard” was celebrated. The constraction of the Fiodorovsky Emperor Cathedral (1909, the architect A.N. Pomerantsev; 1910-1912, the architect V.A. Pokrovsky) and the Officers’ Assembly building (1910-1911, the architect V.A. Pokrovsky) for needs of the Own His Emperor Majesty Escort and the Combined Infantry Regiment was dated to this centenary. Later it was decided to build new barracks for the Escort soldiers also.
The ceremonial laying of the barracks according to the design of the architect V.N. Maksimov took place on 25 June 1914 in the presence of the Emperor on the place of an old wooden building. The main building work was done for three years, but the construction, which must be finished in 1917, was not completed. However the barracks were inhabited, and as some Escort soldiers were in the Emperor Headquarters and at the front, the spare rooms were used for a hospital for wounded soldiers. The barrack building was multifunctional with two closed courtyards. The architect has provided here for all needs for placing the Escort soldiers: living barracks, stables, administrative, training, gymnastic, store rooms. Sothia buildings were separated with five arch passages and picturesque tier porches. From the 1920s until the present days the barracks of the Own Escort were occupied by the Agrarian University. The post-war restored repair was done during 1954-1957 under the direction of the architect L.Ya. Rotinov, the appearance of the building was simplified enough. The large sotnia’s yard was opened to the direction of the park and decorated with lawns and flower-beds of landscape laying according to the project of the architect N.Ye. Zakamsky. A small yard in the northern part of the building survived the originak fence and gate. The building, stretched in parallel with the front of the Menagerie eastern bastion, was successfully included in the landscape composition of the Alexander Park. Pyramidal towers, completed like ancient fortresses with conic and facetted roofs and weathercocks with the image of St. George the Victorious and a warrior with a bow, give the expressiveness to the building. Facades were stylized in forms of the ancient Russian architecture and they do not remember ordinary barrack-buildings by anything. The northern block is especially distinguished by rich mansion window surrounds and an open arch gallery of the entrance on the squat tubby pylons. The influence of the Modernist style is noticeable in the form of arches. Maksimov, Vladimir Nikolayevich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich
Pomerantsev Alexander Nikanorovich

COURT CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY FEODOROVSKAYA in Tsarskoe Selo, located at 32 Akademichesky Avenue, Pushkin, an architectural monument, attached to the unfinished complex of Feodorovsky settlement. Construction works commissioned by the Imperial family were undertaken in 1909-12, to the designs of architect V. A. Pokrovsky, who took the Holy Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin as a model. The building includes the Upper Church consecrated in the name of the Icon of Our Lady Feodorovskaya, which was a sacred, ancestral icon belonging the Romanov Dynasty, and the Lower (Cave) Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov. The facades are adorned with mosaic panels made in the workshop of V. A. Frolov. The five-tier iconostasis of the Upper Church contains icons made in Moscow in the workshop of N. S. Emelyanov according to ancient patterns, it can currently be seen in the Museum of Religious History. The church plates were made to look like those of the 17th century and were produced by Olovyanishnikov’s Company. The Lower church is decorated according to the plans of architect V. L. Maximov with 17th century icons. The walls were upholstered with dark textile and ornamented with polychrome patterns (artists I. P. Pashkov and V. S. Shcherbakov). The cathedral treasured the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov. The Imperial family of Emperor Nicholas II usually prayed here (there was also a separate chapel for the Empress). The cathedral was originally owned by His Imperial Majesty’s Escort and Household Infantry Regiment, which guarded the Imperial residence, but was transferred to government ownership in 1914. At the beginning of 1934, the cathedral was closed down and turned into a cinema theatre, decorations were either taken to museums or ransacked. In the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, the building was extensively damaged, later it functioned as a storehouse. In 1985-95, restoration was carried out. In February 1992, services in the Lower church were resumed, and in the summer of 1996 services started in the Upper church as well. In 1993, a bronze bust of Emperor Nicholas II (sculptor V. V. Zayko) was unveiled next to Court Cathedral of Our Lady Feodorovskaya.

References: Мещанинов М. Ю. Храмы Царского Села, Павловска и их ближайших окрестностей. СПб., 2000. С. 41-52; Кузнецов В. В. "Вспоминаю наш храм..." // С.-Петерб. епарх. ведомости. 2001. № 24. С. 77-87; Черновская Л. Ф. Государев собор // Там же. С. 88-95; Феодоровский Государев собор / Авт. текста: Л. В. Бардовская, Г. Д. Ходасевич. СПб., 2002.

V. V. Antonov. Emelyanov Nikolay Sergeevich
Frolov Vladimir Alexandrovich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Olovyanishnikov P.I.
Pashkov Ivan Vasilievich
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich
Shcherbakov Valentin Semenovich
Zayko Viktor Vladimirovich
Akademichesky Avenue/Pushkin, town, house 32

The Emperor Own Railway branch line and a wooden railway station pavilion, intended for supplying an imperial residence in the Alexander Palace, was constructed in 1895 for safeguarding Emperor Nicholas II. The railway station, to which the road from the Alexander Palace was built across the park, was located to the north of the Alexander Palace on the former agricultural lands of the village of Bolshoye Kuzmino. The railway lines from it run to the Warsaw (Varshavsky) and Tsarskoye Selo railway lines. All building work on constructing the Own railway branch line was done by the Moscow-Vindavo-Rybinsk Railway Company. In 1911 the first railway station pavilion was burned and its place in 1912 the new building in the Old Russian architecture style was built to the design of the architect V.A. Pokrovsky. The Russian state symbolism – double-headed eagles, cities’ coats of arms, heraldic plots, Old Russians ornamental patterns – were used in decoration of the railway station. Sketches of the interiors’ paintings were done by the artist M.I. Kurilko. The design of the Emperor Railway Station in Saint Petersburg, erected in 1902 by the architect S.A. Brzhozovsky, exerted influence on the planning and construction design. The arch porch with hipped roof, decorated in the foundation with two rows of kokoshniks and crowned with the state double-headed eagle, stood out against the main façade appearance. The main interiors were stylized like chambers with ponderous stone vaults. In the center there was an entrance hall, the Tsar’s hall from the southern side and the Retinue hall from the northern side were intended for the Head of the State and his retinue. A metal landing-stage over the platform and railway tracks , used for receiving trains (it was dismantled in the 1920s), adjoined to the eastern façade of the railway station. The attic under the high roof was equipped with a system of forced-air heating. The rich decoration of facades of facades and interiors corresponded to the ceremonial and representative destination of the railway station, being a model of synthesis of architecture, monumental painting and arts and crafts, in which the Old Russian architecture forms of the 17th century were well harmonized with building technologies and materials which were typical for the Modernist style epoch. Here official representatives of foreign states, visited the emperor residence in Tsarskoye Selo, were met, the President of France R. Poincare visited the residence in 1914. During 1914 – 1917 in the period of World War I the Tsar’s pavilion was used for delivering wounded soldiers into a hospital opened in the Fiodorovsky Gorodok. In 1918 the Tsar’s pavilion was named the Uritsky pavilion and used firstly as a dormitory for workers of the Railway Repair and Engineering Works, opened on the base of an imperial railway depot (“Remputmash”), then a dormitory of the Agriculture Institute was placed here, it was settled apart in the 1970s. The building has survived until the present time (35b Akademichesky Prospekt), but now it is in the emergency state. Nicholas II, Emperor
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich

17 January. In the Alexander Palace, Crown Prince of Serbia Alexander was received.

3 February. In the Alexander Palace, Nicholas II received Maurice Paleologue, the new French ambassador, and all members of the French Embassy.

24 June. The laying of the new barracks of the 2nd Infantry Regiment, the 3rd Infantry Regiment and the Escort Unit took place in the presence of Nicholas II.

20 July. The Manifesto declaring the war against Germany was signed .

August. Princess V.I. Hedroitz re-equipped the Tsarskoye Selo palace hospital for the surgery of wounded men and she taught the Empress, Grand Duchess Olga and Grand Duchess Tatyana to work as nurses, then they regularly nursed in a hospital from 1914 until the summer of 1917.

5 August. А. Akhmatova , N.Gumilev (he was dressed in military uniform) and A. Blok had dinner at the Tsarskoye Selo Station in Petersburg.

28 August. The hospital "Their Majesties Grand Duchesses Maria Nikolayevna and Anastasia Nikolayevna was opened at the Fiodorovsky Cathedral" . During 1914 only in Tsarskoye Selo more than 50 hospitals were opened, including the hospitals in private houses.

1 September. The information about the defeat of Austria troops in Galitsia and along the front was received in Tsarskoye Selo.

6 November. Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna with her daughters Olga and Tatyana, together with 42 nurses of the 1st military graduates, succefully passed the examination and received nurse certificates in the building of the Red Cross Society in Leontyevskaya Street.

Architect V.А. Pokrovsky constructed barracks of the 3rd Life-Guard Infantry Regiment, in Kadetsky Boulevard, designed in the spirit of the old defence constructions of Russian towns.

November. Artist О.L.Della -Vos- Kardovskaya finished the portrait of А.Akhmatova and drew the statue of " Rome Matrona" of the Catherine Park into the album of the poet; А.Akhmatova, in her poem "In Tsarskoye Selo", named this statue as "her marble twin"

The end of November. Funerals of warriors, who perished in battles of WWI or died from injuries later in the hospitals of Tsarskoye Selo, were began on the plot near the Kazansky cemetery, on the initiative of Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna. More than 1,000 warriors were buried here from 1914 until 1917. Akhmatova Anna Andreevna
Alexandra Fedorovna, Empress
Blok G.P.
Della-Vos Kardovskaya, Olga Ludvigovna
Gedroits, Vera Ignatyevna, princess
Gumilev Nikolay Stepanovich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Olga Nikolaevna, Grand Princess
Paleologue Georges Maurice
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich
Tatyana Nikolaevna, Grand Princess
Kadetsky Boulevard/Pushkin, town
Leontievskaya Street/Pushkin, town