Walks around Saint-Petersburg#60. Vorontsov Palace.

We are still in the central part of St. Petersburg in front of the Large Gostiny Dvor on Sadovaya street https://steemit.com/art/@megamax/walks-around-saint-petersburg-54-large-gostiny-dvor-on-nevsky-prospekt
Opposite the garden line of the Gostiny Dvor, we can see a luxurious palace with a smart decoration of the facade and a magnificent exterior decoration. From the Sadovaya Street, the palace is separated by an elegant cast-iron fence and a front yard. This is Vorontsov Palace, built in 1749 - 1757, according to the project of the Russian architect of Italian origin Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli.

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The palace was built for Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov (chancellor, Russian statesman and diplomat, closest to the entourage of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna). The costs of building the Vorontsov Palace became so burdensome for the future owner that Count Vorontsov, for his debts in 1763, lost the palace to the State Treasury.
When Paul the First ascended the throne, the Vorontsov Palace in the late 1790s was given to the Order of Malta.
At the Vorontsov Palace, the Church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist was built in 1798 - 1800 by the architect Giacomo Antonio Domenico Quarenghi, and the Maltese Chapel was attached to the back of the palace in the garden.

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The Maltese Chapel of the Vorontsov Palace.

From 1810 to 1918 in the building of the Vorontsov Palace housed a prestigious military educational institution of the Russian Empire - the Pagets Corps.
Since 1937 in the building of the palace was created the Leningrad Infantry School named after Kirov. And in 1955 the Suvorov Military College, which was established on the basis of the Kirov School, for young men aged 14 to 15, was also located here.

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You have learned about another magnificent building of St. Petersburg - the Vorontsov Palace.
I wait for you again on walks together on a city.