Decembrists' (Senate) Square

The architectural image of Senate Square took shape towards 1834 when the Senate and the Synod were built there after a design by Carlo Rossi. Today they house the Central State Historical Archives of the Russia.

The Senate building

December 14, 1825 witnessed an incident in Senate Square which went down in the history of Russia as an event of enormous significance. The mutinous regiments refused to swear allegiance to the newly crowned emperor, Nicholas I (1796-1855), and lined up in front of Peter's monument. Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, one of the leaders of the uprising, sharpened his word against the granite pedestal.

Bronze Horseman monument and the Senate building

What were the aristocratic insurgents striving for?

While enhancing Russia's international prestige, the victory over Napoleon, the liberation campaign of the Russian Army and the capture of Paris also awakened national awareness. The best representatives of the Russian nobility embarked on a path of revolutionary struggle. The goals pursued by the secret societies which united progressive-minded officers, veterans of the 1812 war, were the overthrow of the autocracy, the introduction of constitutional rule and the ab-olition of serfdom. The Decembrists, as the participants in the December events were later called, were, however, unprepared for the uprising and were indecisive when the action reached its peak. Tsar Nicholas I controlled the situation by drawing up troops loyal to the crown. The uprising was suppressed. Its five leaders were hanged on the Kronwerk of the Peter and Paul Fortress, over a hundred officers were sentenced to penal servitude and several hundred were imprisoned. Soldiers were made to run the gauntlet and then sent to penal battalions of the army in the field.

Later, writer Alexander Hertzen (1812-1870) wrote about the courageous Decembrists: "The thunder of the cannons in Senate Square awakened a whole generation of revolutionaries."

To mark the centenary of the uprising. Senate Square was renamed Decembrists' Square.

Leaving Decembrists' Square behind you, continue to move towards St. Isaac's Square via the Trade Union Boulevard (Bulvar Profsoyuzov). At the end of the boulevard are two grey granite columns on top of which stand the statues of Victory. The statues were cast in Berlin for Nicholas I as a gift from the Prussian king in reply for the magnificent sculptures of horses and their trainers presented to him by the Russian tsar. Similar sculptures adorn Anichkov Bridge in St. Petersburg (you can't see them now because of restauration).