Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mikhailovsky Castle (Engineer's Castle). The son of Catherine the Great, Tsar Paul I,
was born in the wooden palace and he wanted his own residence on the same spot. He
had the current edifice built complete with defensive moat as he (quite rightly) feared
assassination. But this erratic, cruel tsar only got 40 days in his new abode before he
was suffocated in his bedroom in 1801.
The style is a bizarre take on a medieval castle, quite unlike any other building in
the city. In 1823 it became a military engineering school (hence its Soviet-era name,
Engineer's Castle, or Inzhenerny Zamok), whose most famous pupil was Fyodor
Dostoevsky. Nowadays the original name, Mikhailovsky Castle, is generally used,
though don't confuse it with the nearby Mikhailovsky Palace, the Russian Museum's
main building.
Now a wing of the Russian Museum, the castle's ground floor is used for temporary
exhibits, while upstairs there's a permanent display of work by foreign artists working
in Russia in the 18th and early 19th centuries as well as a few finely restored state
rooms, including the lavish burgundy throne room of Tsar Paul I's wife Maria Fyo-
dorovna.
MMUSSEUUM
PUSHKIN FLAT-MUSEUM
OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP
( Музей-квартира А.С. Пушкина ; www.museumpushkin.ru ; nab reki Moyki 12;
adult/student R200/80; 10.30am-5.30pm Wed-Sun; Admiralteyskaya) Alexander
Pushkin, Russia's national poet, had his last home here on one of the prettiest curves
of the Moyka River. He only lived here four months, but this is where the poet died
after his duel in 1837 (see the boxed text, CLICK HERE ). The little house is now the
Pushkin Flat-Museum, which has been reconstructed to look exactly as it did in the
poet's last days. On display are his death mask, a lock of his hair and the waistcoat he
wore when he died. You can only visit on a tour (run hourly on the hour), and these
are given in Russian only.
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