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Tauride Palace
Tauride Palace (russian: Таврический дворец, translit=Tavrichesky dvorets) is one of the largest and most historically important palaces in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Construction and early use Prince Grigory Potemkin of Tauride commissioned his favourite architect, Ivan Starov, to design his city residence in a rigorous Palladian style. Starov's design called for an extensive park, later the Tauride Garden, and harbour in front of the palace, which would be linked with the Neva River by a canal. Building work began in 1783 and lasted for six years. The 13-bay front of the palace has a Tuscan portico and is topped by a shallow dome. A square vestibule leads to an octagonal hall, with the huge "Catherine Hall" beyond. This had eighteen Ionic Greek columns on either side and opens into a large, enclosed winter garden with a central circular colonnade. Considered the grandest nobleman's residence of 18th-century Russia, Tauride Palace served as a model for innumerab ...
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Townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence (normally in London) of someone whose main or largest residence was a country house. History Historically, a townhouse was the city residence of a noble or wealthy family, who would own one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year. From the 18th century, landowners and their servants would move to a townhouse during the social season (when major balls took place). Europe In the United Kingdom, most townhouses are terraced. Only a small minority of them, generally the largest, were detached, but even aristocrats whose country houses had grounds of hundreds or thousands of acres often lived in terraced houses in town. For example, the Duke of Norfolk owned Arundel Castle in the country, while his London house, N ...
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Duma
A duma (russian: дума) is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term ''boyar duma'' is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were formed across Russia. The first formally constituted state duma was the Imperial State Duma introduced to the Russian Empire by Emperor Nicholas II in 1905. The Emperor retained an absolute veto and could dismiss the State Duma at any time for a suitable reason. Nicholas dismissed the First State Duma (1906) within 75 days; elections for a second Duma took place the following year. The Russian Provisional Government dissolved the last Imperial State Duma (the fourth Duma) in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. Since 1993, the State Duma (russian: Государственная дума, label=none) has functioned as the lower legislative house of the Russian Federation. Etymology The Russian word is inherited from the Proto-Slavic word ...
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Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. The term is similar to the idea of a senate, synod or congress and is commonly used in countries that are current or former monarchies. Some contexts restrict the use of the word ''parliament'' to parliamentary systems, although it is also used to describe the legislature in some presidential systems (e.g., the Parliament of Ghana), even where it is not in the Legal name, official name. Historically, parliaments included various kinds of deliberative, consultative, and judicial assemblies, an example being the French medieval and early modern parlements. Etymology The English term is derived from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman and dates to the 14th century, coming from the 11th century Old ...
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Ball (dance Party)
A ball is a formal dance party often characterised by a banquet followed by a social dance that includes ballroom dancing. Ball dancing emerged from formal dances during the Middle Ages and carried on through different iterations throughout succeeding centuries, such as the 17th century Baroque dance and the 18th century cotillion. Several variations exists such as the masquerade and debutante ball as well as the more modern prom. Etymology The word ''ball'' derives from the Latin word , meaning 'to dance', and ''bal'' was used to describe a formal dancing party in French in the 12th century. The ''ballo'' was an Italian Renaissance word for a type of elaborate court dance, and developed into one for the event at which it was performed. The word also covered performed pieces like ''Il ballo delle ingrate'' by Claudio Monteverdi (1608). French developed the verb , and the noun ''bal'' for the event—from where it swapped into languages like English or German—and , the Span ...
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Vasily Stasov
Vasily Petrovich Stasov (Russian: Васи́лий Петро́вич Ста́сов; 4 August 1769 – 5 September 1848) was a famous Russian architect, born into a wealthy noble family: his father, Pyotr Fyodorovich Stasov, came from one of the oldest aristocratic families founded in the 15th century by the 1st Duke Stasov Dmitri Vasilevich and his mother, Anna Antipyevna, came from the prominent Priklonsky family. Biography Stasov was born in Moscow. He extensively travelled in France and Italy, where he became professor at the St Luke Academy in Rome. On his return home, he was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts (1811). One of his early works, the Gruzino estate near Novgorod, was built for Count Alexey Arakcheyev in the 1810s and was completely destroyed during World War II. While developing guidelines for other architects, Stasov advocated making even the most trivial of buildings—barracks, storehouses, stables—look imposing and monumental. H ...
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Carlo Rossi (architect)
Carlo di Giovanni Rossi (''Karl Ivanovich Rossi''; russian: Карл Иванович Росси; – ) was an Italian architect who worked in Imperial Russia. He was the author of many classical buildings and architectural ensembles in Saint Petersburg and its environs. Biography Carlo Rossi was born in Naples (his stepfather was the famous ballet artist Charles le Picq) and was brought to Russia in his childhood when his mother Guertroude Rossi-Le Picq, a well-known ballerina, was invited into Russia to perform. From youth he was connected with the world of the arts. He trained in the studio of architect Vincenzo Brenna. In 1795 he entered the service of the admiralty board of architecture; as the assistant to Brenna, together with whom, it is assumed, he participated in the construction of Saint Michael's Castle in Saint Petersburg. From 1802 to 1803 Rossi studied in Italy. In 1806 he obtained the title of architect and an office. In 1808 he was dispatched to the Kreml ...
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Barracks
Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are usually permanent buildings for military accommodation. The word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes, and the plural form often refers to a single structure and may be singular in construction. The main object of barracks is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training, and ''esprit de corps''. They have been called "discipline factories for soldiers". Like industrial factories, some are considered to be shoddy or dull buildings, although others are known for their magnificent architecture such as Collins Barracks in Dublin and others in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, or London. From the rough barracks of 19th-century conscript armies, filled with hazing and illness and bare ...
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Stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the American-style barn, for instance, is a large barn with a door at each end and individual stalls inside or free-standing stables with top and bottom-opening doors. The term "stable" is also used to describe a group of animals kept by one owner, regardless of housing or location. The exterior design of a stable can vary widely, based on climate, building materials, historical period and cultural styles of architecture. A wide range of building materials can be used, including masonry (bricks or stone), wood and steel. Stables also range widely in size, from a small building housing one or two animals to facilities at agricultural shows or race tracks that can house hundreds of animals. History The stable is typically historically the se ...
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Emperor Paul
Paul I (russian: Па́вел I Петро́вич ; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination. Officially, he was the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great, although Catherine hinted that he was fathered by her lover Sergei Saltykov.Aleksandr Kamenskii, ''The Russian Empire in the Eighteenth Century: Searching for a Place in the World'' (1997) pp 265–280. Paul remained overshadowed by his mother for most of his life. He adopted the laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules that lasted until the end of the Romanov dynasty and of the Russian Empire. He also intervened in the French Revolutionary Wars and, toward the end of his reign, added Kartli and Kakheti in Eastern Georgia into the empire, which was confirmed by his son and successor Alexander I. He was ''de facto'' Grand Master of the Order of Hospitallers from 1799 to 1801 and ordered the construction of a number of Maltese thrones. Paul's pro-German sentiments and unpredictable ...
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Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of largest art museums, largest art museum in the world by Art gallery, gallery space. It was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day. It has been open to the public since 1852. The ''Art Newspaper'' ranked the museum 6th in their list of the List of most visited art museums, most visited art museums, with 1,649,443 visitors in 2021. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items (the numismatics, numismatic collection accounts for about one-third of them). The collections occupy a l ...
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Venus Tauride
The Venus Tauride or Venus of Tauris is a 1.67 m high sculpture of Aphrodite. It is named after the Tauride (Tavrichesky) Palace in St Petersburg, where it was kept from the end of the eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth. It is now in the Hermitage Museum. It shows the goddess rising from her bath (with a column on the right on the piece, to her left-hand side, with her towel or clothing draped over it). It lost both arms in antiquity and her nose has been restored, but is otherwise complete (including an elaborate ancient hairstyle popular amongst classical upper-class women, with locks falling down onto her shoulders, and an original ankle bracelet on her left ankle). It was thought to be a 2nd-century AD Roman copy from a Greek original, but recent research suggests it is in fact a Greek original dating from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. It is by an unknown sculptor, who takes inspiration from the Aphrodite of Cnidus (particularly of the Capitoline Venus type) but d ...
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