A magnificent Empire-style palace with charming gardens on the banks of the Moika River, the Mikhailovskiy Palace has for more than a century housed the main collections of the State Russian Museum.
The palace was originally built for Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, whose father, Emperor Paul I set aside special funds for the building on the birth of his youngest son in 1798. Work did not begin on construction of the palace until Mikhail Pavlovich reached the age of 21, by which time his elder brother, Alexander I, was on the throne. Alexander chose Carlo Rossi, the Italian-Russian master of neoclassicism in St. Petersburg, to design the palace, and work construction work began in the summer of 1819.
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