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The subject index / Ice House

Ice House


Categories / Population/Urban Living

ICE HOUSE, or ICE PALACE, was constructed in December 1739 - January 1740 (architect P.M. Eropkin, engineer G.V. Kraft) by the order of Empress Anna Ioannovna at the bank of the Neva, near the Winter Palace, to celebrate the mock wedding of prince M.A. Golitsyn and A.I. Buzheninova. It was made of ice blocks joined with water and designed a la Baroque (the house was 17.1 meters long, 5.3 meters wide and 6.4 meters high). The interior decoration, including baths, cannons, a life-sized elephant etc. was moulded from ice. The strange wedding took place on February 6, 1740. Two representatives from every Russia's ethnic minority (300 people in total) were specially taken to the celebration. V.K. Trediakovsky recited a jocular welcoming poem. During the construction of the building some scientific experiments were conducted, including attempts at glaciology. In March 1740 the House of Ice melted away. Its story was reflected in I.I. Lazhechnikov's novel House of Ice (1835), Y.M. Nagibin's story Kvasnik and Buzheninova (1986). In the winter of 1888 in the pleasure garden Aquarium an exact life-sized replica of the House of Ice was made of ice.

References: Крафт Г. В. Подлинное и обстоятельное описание построенного в Санкт-Петербурге в генваре месяце 1740 года Ледяного дома... СПб., 1741; Алянский Ю. Л. Веселящийся Петербург. СПб., 1992. Т. 1. С. 65-68.

Y. N. Kruzhnov.

Persons
Anna Ioannovna, Empress
Buzheninova A.I.
Eropkin Peter Mikhailovich
Golitsyn Alexander Mikhailovich, Duke
Kraft Georg Wolfgang
Lazhechnikov Ivan Ivanovich
Nagibin Yury Markovich
Trediakovsky Vasily Kirillovich

Bibliographies
Алянский Ю. Л. Веселящийся Петербург. СПб., 1992
Крафт Г. В. Подлинное и обстоятельное описание построенного в Санкт-Петербурге в генваре месяце 1740 года Ледяного дома... СПб., 1741

The subject Index
Winter Palace

Chronograph
1740


Eropkin P.M. (about 1698-1740), architect.

EROPKIN Peter Mikhailovich (about 1698-1740, St. Petersburg), architect, urban planner, architecture theorist. In 1716-24 on the order of the Tsar Peter the Great he was trained in Italy, in 1725 he was conferred a title of architect

Tatishchev A.D. Chief of Police General in 1745-60

TATISHCHEV Alexey Danilovich (1697-1760, St. Petersburg), statesman, general en shef (1757). Since 1712 he had been in the military service, took part in the Great Northern war of 1700-21, since 1718 a batman of tsar Peter the Great