ALEXANDER COLUMN

From the creator of St. Petersburg's marvelous St. Isaac's Cathedral came this monument to the Russian military victory in the war with Napoleon's France. Named after Emperor Alexander I, who ruled Russia in 1801-25 (during the Napoleonic Wars), the column is an excellent piece of architecture and engineering.

The Alexander Column (Aleksandrovskaia Kolonna), which is the focal point of Palace Square, was designed by the French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand and built in 1830-34. The monument is 155' 8'' high and on top of it there is a statue of an angel with a cross (the face of the angel is said to be modeled on the face of Emperor Alexander I). The body of the column is made of a single monolith of red granite which is 83' 6'' high and about 11' 5'' in diameter. Try to imagine that such a heavy column (weight - about 1,322,760 pounds (600 tons)) was erected in only 1 3/4 hours at a time, when there were none of the cranes or other machinery that we are used to today.

The pedestal of the Alexander Column is decorated with symbols of military glory. The monument is particularly impressive on a sunny St. Petersburg evening shortly before dusk, when the last beams of sunlight are reflected in the polished red granite of the column.

Metro: Nevsky Prospekt / Gostiny Dvor, exit to Kanal Griboyedova and along Nevskiy prospect to the Palace Square, opposite the Hermitage Museum