In the entire palace I was most impressed by four things - Oak dining
room, Roman Hall, Grand staircase, and these doors. First I wanted to
also mention the theatre (see bellow), but it is too festively
decorated.
Prezioso hall.
Despite its name, it
looks quite modest. Interestingly enough, in a 1996 booklet the walls
are painted red. And this is definitely not a defect of my camera :)
… the fire on the right wasn't there
either. Strange.
I tried to suppose, that was Nicholas hall (it looks
similar), but many details didn't match.
The interior of Prezioso hall was done by
A. A. Stepanov at the end of the 19th century.
Moving on - Antique hall.
The author of
the ceiling ornament is A. I. Travin.
The fireplace in the distance is Carrara marble.
The lamps (firs half of the 19th century) are designed in the style
of Greek oil lamps.
Roman hall.
A distinctive feature is
the stairway in the middle. I would even say it works to the hall's
advantage :)
On the left is a fireplace of yellow marble (early 19th century
Italian sculptor V. Maderni).
The stairway takes us down to the Yusupov
Palace Theatre (by the way, if we went through the arch in the picture
above, we would find ourselves not in the parterre but in the prince's
box).
We can see the stage.
The parterre.
The style is a modern imitation of Rokoko.
The prince's box.
The theatre was
designed in the 1830's by A. A. Michailov.
In the 1860's it wad redesigned by I. A. Monighetti, and in the 1890's
by A. A. Stepanov.
Sources say that among people who performed here were F. List, F.
Chopin, P. Viardo, F. I. Shalyapin, L. V. Sobinov, A. A. Blok, S. A.
Esenin, V. V. Mayakovskiy, conductors M. I. Glinka, A. S. Dragomijskiy,
L. F. Minkus, A. F. Napravnik.
The musical drawing room.
Created in
1858 - 1860 by I. A. Monighetti.
This room is part of prince's living quarters.
The ceiling in the musical drawing room.
The prince's study.
Simultaneously it
was the library (and even had a "second level" of book shelves).
All together, there were about eight thousand volumes in the palace
(after nationalization they were divided between the Public Library and
the Academy of Sciences Library).
The ceiling was decorated over a hundred
years ago (I wouldn't say that you can see it very well in the picture
:).
Somewhere around here there is also a
secret door, behind which 26 letters from A. S. Pushkin were found.
In the next four pictures - The Drawing
room of Henry II.
