The main square of St. Peters­burg. The ensem­ble of the Square includes: the Win­ter Palace (Her­mitage), the semi­cir­cle of the Gen­er­al Staff build­ing with the Tri­umphal Arch, the Alexan­der Col­umn.

In 1704, Peter I found­ed the Admi­ral­ty ship­­yard-fortress on the banks of the Neva, in front of which they orga­nized a space with an embank­ment for artillery maneu­vers in case of an ene­my attack from land. Over time, the ship­yard lost its impor­tance. The place for mil­i­tary oper­a­tions fell into dis­re­pair and was over­grown with grass, which is why it received the name “Admi­ral­ty Mead­ow.” Until the mid­dle of the 18th cen­tu­ry, herds were grazed on it, oats were plant­ed, and even small game was hunt­ed.

But in 1753, the archi­tect Bar­tolomeo Ras­trel­li includ­ed this ter­ri­to­ry in the design of the Win­ter Palace. Under Cather­ine II, the square in front of the façade of the Win­ter Palace began to be called the Palace Square. The Small Her­mitage pavil­ion and the build­ing of the Free Eco­nom­ic Soci­ety appeared here, and the square itself became the venue for cel­e­bra­tions.

Palace Square acquired its mod­ern appear­ance in the first half of the 19th cen­tu­ry, when Alexan­der I, in hon­or of the vic­to­ry over Napoleon, start­ed a grandiose recon­struc­tion. The work was car­ried out under the direc­tion of the archi­tect Carl Rossi. The for­ma­tion of the archi­tec­tur­al ensem­ble was com­plet­ed under Nicholas I.

From 1918 to 1944, the land­mark bore the name of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary Moi­sei Urit­sky.

Over the course of two cen­turies, the main square of the cap­i­tal of the Russ­ian Empire became the scene of many his­tor­i­cal events. Here, twice — in 1879 and 1880 — an assas­si­na­tion attempt was made on Alexan­der II, and both times the emper­or sur­vived. In Jan­u­ary 1905, on Palace Square, tsarist troops shot a col­umn of work­ers who were going to Nicholas II with a peti­tion to improve work­ing con­di­tions — the episode went down in his­to­ry as Bloody Sun­day. And final­ly, in Octo­ber 1917, Palace Square became the epi­cen­ter of the rev­o­lu­tion: dur­ing the storm­ing of the Win­ter Palace, the Bol­she­viks over­threw the Pro­vi­sion­al Gov­ern­ment and pro­claimed the estab­lish­ment of Sovi­et pow­er.