Walks around Saint-Petersburg#8.

We will pass several hundred meters along the embankment of the Neva River past the University. Here we can see the Menshikov Palace (the Palace of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, the first governor of St. Petersburg, the approximate Emperor Peter the Great). The palace was built by the architects Giovanni Maria Fontana and Gottfried Johann Schödel in 1720. Construction was conducted for 10 years.

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After the victory of the coalition of the North European states led by Russia in the Northern War over the Swedes (1700 - 1721), new lands were added to Russia at the mouth of the Neva and on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Part of these lands and some structures of St. Petersburg were given to the companion of Peter the Great commander Alexander Menshikov. Among the buildings transferred to Menshikov was the Palace on the Neva embankment.
For the decoration of the building, both external and internal, the most expensive and modern materials of that period were used. It is necessary to say that the palace is the very first stone building of St. Petersburg.

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During the reign of Peter the Great in this palace on the first floor were the premises of Prince Menshikov, on the second floor there were rooms of the Menshikov's family.