THE PALACE KITCHENS

The immense palace kitchens are unique among all the palaces of St. Petersburg. They are built in a large half circles with a porte cochere as the only entrance with a lovely courtyard in the center. For sanitary reasons palace kitchens were usually detached from Russian palaces.

The walls of the palace kitchens do not have outside windows, they are replaced with niches ornamented with sculpture and decorative vases. Two Doric porticoes with six columns and friezes are among the best of Rossi's many creations and were widely admired and copied.

For the installation of the interior kitchen facilities, two consultants were employed by Rossi, M. Riquetti, Imperial Maitre d'hotel of the Court, and M. Belardelli, Imperial Confectioner. Later, two others came on, the "Cafe-schenk" (Master of the Coffeehouse) and the "Mundschenk", two important persons, who also gave their advice, each for his own specialty. This building was expensive to build and outfit, ending up with a cost of 237,771 rubles.



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