Thecabin of Peter the Great (Russian:Domik Petra I orDomik Petra Pervogo orDomik Petra Velikogo) is a small wooden house which was the firstSt Petersburg "palace" of TsarPeter the Great.
Thelog cabin was constructed in three days in May 1703,[a] by soldiers of theSemyonovskiy Regiment.[1] At that time, the new St. Petersburg was described as "a heap of villages linked together, like some plantation in the West Indies".[2]
The design is a combination of anizba, a traditional Russian countryside house typical of the 17th century, and the Tsar's beloved DutchBaroque, later to evolve into thePetrine Baroque. Peter built similardomiki elsewhere in Russia - for example, inVoronezh, andVologda. The wooden cabin in St. Petersburg covers only 60 square metres (650 sq ft)[3] and contains three rooms - living room, bedroom, and study. It has large ornate windows and a high hipped roof of wooden tiles.[4][b] Inside, the wooden walls were painted with red oil to resemble brick, and the rooms came to be known as the "red chambers" (krasnyie khoromtsy).[5][c] There are no fires or chimneys, as it was intended to be used only in the warmer summer months. It was occupied by the Tsar between 1703 and 1708,[5] while Peter supervised the construction of the new imperial city and thePeter and Paul Fortress.
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Peter had it encased for its protection within a red brick pavilion in 1723, and ordered that it be preserved for posterity as a memorial to his modesty, and the creation of St. Petersburgex nihilo.Catherine the Great ordered the shelter for the cabin to be renovated in 1784, and the protective brick pavilion was reconstructed byNicholas I in the 1840s.[5]
Peter'sdomiki were used to mark significant dates, such as thebicentenary of Peter's birth in 1672. They became a centre of devotion to thetsar, theRussian Orthodox Church, and the Russianmotherland (rodina).
A prized national monument, the contents were removed, and the Cabin was boarded up andcamouflaged during theSecond World War. It was the first St. Petersburgmuseum to reopen in September 1944, after the end of theSiege of Leningrad. Personal and domestic objects owned and used by Peter are still displayed within, and a bust of Peter byParmen Zabello stands outside. The cabin is open to the public[3] as a branch of theRussian Museum.[6]
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59°57′12″N30°19′51″E / 59.9533°N 30.3308°E /59.9533; 30.3308