Polovtsov Mansion on Kamenniy Island
The mansion of Alexander Polovtsov the younger on Kamenny Island is one of the finest examples in St. Petersburg of the Russian neoclassical revival of the early 20th century. This majestic, strictly symmetrical building was constructed 1911-1913 by the architect Ivan Fomin. Given the site of the mansion, at the western tip of the island, Fomin was faced with the formidable task of creating a building worthy to match the Kamennoostrovsky Palace at the eastern end of the island and capable of blending harmoniously with two outstanding pieces of earlier neoclassical architecture, the Yelagin Palace and the Kamennoostrovsky Theatre, which can be seen together with the mansion in a panorama from the waters of the Srednaya Neva River. Fomin was also charged with retaining part of the previous building on the site, the wooden dacha of Baron Ludwig von Stieglitz, Polovtsov's father-in-law.
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