The Mansion on the Moika

It took the Yusupovs' Palace, or, more precisely, their sprawling downtown estate - one of the very few similar properties extant in St. Petersburg - nearly two centuries to shape up. Like other aristocratic estates in the historical city center, the Yusupov Palace was associated with many prominent figures in St. Petersburg's history, not just the Yusupovs. In fact, its pre-Yusupov period had lasted more than a century. In the early 18th century, a small palace was built for Princess Praskovia, Peter the Great's niece, on the left bank of the Moika River. In 1726, Praskovia gave her estate to the Semyonovsky Royal Guard Regiment, which would make the palace its headquarters until 1742.

Family Nest

Countess Alexandra Branitskaya, the wife of the Crown Hetman of Poland, owned the palace for 35 years before selling it to her relatives, the Princes Yusupov, for a hefty 250,000 rubles. The deed was made in favor of Branitskaya's nephew, Boris Yusupov. The date the palace changed hands, March 5, 1830, spelled the beginning of a new, much more dynamic and glamorous era for the old palace, which would go down in Russian history and St. Petersburg's architectural chronicles under the name "Yusupov Palace". The new owners began with a full revamp of the estate, which they entrusted to Andrei Mikhailov, an eminent Classicist architect and "architectural mentor" of the Arts Academy.

Years of Ruin and Revival

Bolshevik government officials G. Zinoviev and A. Lunacharsky issued a decree for the Yusupov Palace to be nationalized on February 22, 1919, but fortunately for the palace, the Museum Committee under the Education Commissariat decided to conserve it as a public museum. The Yusupov Gallery, featuring art from the family collection, was opened to the general public on September 20, 1919. Tours of the historical rooms related to the assassination of Grigory Rasputin began in 1924. But the period when the Yusupovs' treasures were on display in their ancestral trove turned out to be pitifully short-lived.