The first stock exchange was housed in a wooden building constructed in the 1730s. The port on Vasilevsky Island needed a place where local merchants could engage in merchant. As time passed, a one-story building became insufficient for the traders. A new exchange was erected in 1755, but it turned out to be too cramped. In 1781, a new stock exchange building was commissioned, this one to be made of stone. Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi was chosen to build it. Construction was ongoing for six years, until 1787, but the project was suspended due to a lack of funding prompted by the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War
John Atkinson
The unfinished and severely dilapidated building was not torn down until 1803. In 1804, Frenchman Jean Thomas de Thomon was approved to build a stone stock exchange on the banks of the Neva River. On June 23, 1805, Czar Alexander I placed the first stone at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new exchange
Гравюра И. Ческого с рисунка М. Шотошникова.
Construction was completed in 1812, but another war, this time with Napoleon, forced the building to remain closed. Only June 15, 1816, the grand opening and dedication of the building stock exchange took place in the presence of the czar and members of the royal family. De Thomon was not there. He had been killed in a fall from scaffolding at the Bolshoi Theater
Иван Айвазовский
«All the big-name merchants and the leader of the city welcomed the distinguished guests by the stairwell, and before that, they met with Metropolitan Ambrose. After the litany with genuflection, horn music played, and the ships in the waters off the spit fired their cannons and raised their flags. The merchants of the exchange enjoyed a sumptuous dinner in the great hall with the czar and his regal family. The czar drank a toast to a prosperous trade and to the St. Petersburg merchants. Everyone cheered, and it was so majestic. After the feast, the distinguished guests made their way across the Isaakievsky Bridge to the Winter Palace. The merriment continued in the illuminated hall of the stock exchange» (from the diary of a merchant named Polilov)
Б. Уткин/ Фотоархив журнала «Огонек»
In the course of construction, the coastline of the spit on Vasilevsky Island was pushed forward about 100 meters. In front of the stock exchange, a plaza and walkways leading to the Neva were built and topped with majestic spheres made of granite
Коммерсантъ / Александр Коряков
In accordance with de Thomon's project, two rostral columns 30 meters high sit in front of the exchange to symbolize the power and greatness of the Russian Navy. De Thomon himself wrote «the base of each column decorated with gigantic figures that represent the gods of the sea and commerce». Until 1885, glowing beacons on the pillars allowed ships to keep their bearings in the fog and the nighttime darkness
Коммерсантъ / Никита Инфантьев
The facade of the exchange is decorated with the sculpture «Neptune and the Two Rivers». In the center, the god Neptune rides in a chariot driven by sea horses. A woman signifies the Neva River, an old man the Volkhov River (the Neva and the Volkhov link Russia to the sea). On the other side of the stock exchange building is the sculpture «Navigation with Mercury and the Two Rivers». The sculptures denoted the exchange as a center of maritime trade
Коммерсантъ / Денис Вышинский
Several other allegorical statues were put into place: Time, Abundance, Justice, Trade, Commerce and Navigation
Коммерсантъ / Евгений Павленко
The building interior is decorated with marble slabs
Коммерсантъ / Евгений Павленко
Surrounded on its perimeter by 44 white Doric columns, the exchange rests on a huge granite stylobate. The building's enormous size (the main building has an area of about 900 square meters) is a testament to the volume of trade at the time
«Every day at three o'clock in the afternoon, Russian and foreign merchants from all Petersburg gather in the hall. Here people do not speak to one another for nothing, do not shake hands for nothing. When they speak, they are negotiating; when hands are clasped, the deal is done. ... The people are numerous but quiet; there is a buzz, but nary a loud word can be heard. Samples of goods are handed from one person to another: they sniff, test on a tooth, rub hands, examine in the light — and then they go to another room to conclude the transaction» (from the memoirs of P.P. Svinyin)
Коммерсантъ / Александр Коряков
Коммерсантъ / Александр Петросян
For most of the 18th century, the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange was the only one in Russia
Коммерсантъ / Александр Коряков
All trading activity in Russia was regulated by decrees issued by Peter the Great. He also introduced an attendance requirement for the merchants. This rule was abolished in 1746, when it was declared that merchants may come to the stock exchange as they wish
Коммерсантъ / Александр Петросян
Bigger ships eventually reduced the significance of the port on Vasilevsky Island. Goods from the large ships had to be reloaded onto smaller ships at Kronstadt. Thus a saying arose: The route from London to Kronstadt is shorter than the route from Kronstadt to Vasilevsky Island. In 1885, the seaport was moved to Gutuevsky Island, and by 1860, the Vasilevsky Island facility had switched from a mercantile exchange to a bourse
Коммерсантъ / Евгений Павленко
The need for the storehouses diminished. In 1894, the South storehouse was placed under the auspices of the Zoological Museum, while the Northern storehouse and the Customs house were transferred to the care of the Mineralogical Museum and the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences
Коммерсантъ / Александр Коряков
Before World War II, in 1939, the Central Naval Museum was moved from the Admiralty to the exchange, which was forced to accommodate about 800,000 items. The reconstruction was undertaken by architect Modest Shepilevsky
Коммерсантъ / Александр Коряков
In the early 2000s, the St. Petersburg authorities decided to return the building to its original purpose and restore its status as the old commodities exchange. In 2010, the naval museum moved into the building Krukov naval barracks
Коммерсантъ / Евгений Павленко
In 2013, St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko decided to hand over the stock exchange building to the Hermitage for the creation of the Museum of Heraldry and Awards
Коммерсантъ / Александр Петросян
© 2014 SPIMF |
||
16+ | ||
