The Mikhailovsky Castle is both a beautiful and unusual architectural
phenomenon for St. Petersburg and was a silent witness to some
interesting episodes in the dramatic story of the short-lived reign of
Emperor Paul I, son of Catherine the Great.
Catherine overthrew her husband Peter III to gain access to the Russian
Imperial throne and then ruled the country until her death in 1796. By
then her son Paul was 42 years old and would normally have already taken
over the mantle of power from his mother. However, neither the nobility
nor the royal guards liked or respected Paul and he lived his life in
constant fear of assassination. In order to allay these fears he ordered
a fortified palace (a castle surrounded by deep ditches) to be built
for him. According to a legend, one of the soldiers guarding the
construction site experienced a vision of the Archangel Michael guarding
the castle alongside him. This was reported to the Emperor and the
castle was given the name Mikhailovsky (St Michael's).
The paranoid Emperor Paul did not live in his new palace for long. In
1801 he was assassinated in his own bedroom by a group of officers who
organized a coup, inspired by Paul's son Alexander. Later the castle was used for the Army Engineers School and became know was the Engineer's Castle. Today the building hosts a branch of the Russian Museum.
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