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The Zoological museum of the Russian Academy of science
It was in 1714 in St. Petersburg that Emperor Peter the Great founded Kunstkamera - the “cabinet of curiosities.” In 1831 it was decided to divide up this strange collection among seven separate museums as Kunstkamera could no longer accommodate all of the many artifacts it had acquired over the years. A year later in 1832, in the very centre of St. Petersburg on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, The Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences opened its doors to visitors. Its impressive collection includes amazing animals that have been collected from almost all of the Earth’s continents and also includes traces of extinct, prehistoric fauna and animals shrouded in tales and legends. The museum’s collection serves as a record of what man knows about the environment. Here each artifact carries with it millions of years of evolution and the hard wor...
The history of the baron Kelkh mansion
Tchaikovsky Street in the centre of St. Petersburg is home to one of the city’s most interesting and beautiful mansions, the home of the Kelch family. Nowadays most often referred to as the Lawyers’ House, at the end of the 19th century, the mansion and its grounds belonged to Barbara Kelch and her husband, Baron Alexander Kelch. They hired talented architects Vladimir Chagin and Vasily Schone to redo the house. Not only did these men rebuild the building’s façade, but they also decorated the interiors of the mansion, transforming it into a luxurious palace. Still today the elegant home preserves magnificent rooms such as the Gothic Dining Room, the White Hall, the Oak Study and the Main Staircase, which are overwhelming in their grandeur. It is obvious that when designing these rooms Chagin and Schone used styles associated with the historicism popular at the turn of the 20t...
Now on air
16:00
The history of the baron Kelkh mansion
The Hermitage hotel
Mesmerising in its lines of elegance and rich décor, the palatial splendour of Imperial St. Petersburg is characterised by fanciful baroque curves and monumental Empire style. This style was greatly admired by the Petersburg nobility, making it a popular sight not only in museums, but in everyday architecture.The shared name of The Hermitage Hotel and the world-renowned museum is no coincidence — the hotel's interior copies many of the styles and details of the Winter Palace, the heart of the State Hermitage Museum. Staying there guests can feel like royalty themselves as they compare modern hotel culture with the daily life of Russian monarchs.
Now on air
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