Leningrad region > Gatchina > Arsenal Hall

Arsenal Hall

The Arsenal Hall is one of the largest rooms in the Gatchina Palace — it occupies an area of 600 square meters. Initially it was used to exhibit a collection of arms which gave the Hall its name.

Formidable pillars were used to break the space into several smaller, cozily furnished parts. One of them had a swing fixed to the ceiling, another — a wooden slide; in a third one ladies could read aloud and do their needlepoint sitting in soft armchairs upholstered with red velvet and arranged in a circle; in a fourth one men could play billiards and discuss politics, and so on.

The decoration of the Hall has always been simple yet expressive. At the time of Empress Maria Feodorovna, the widow of Paul I, the walls were painted in two colors and modestly decorated with murals. In the middle of the 19th century, when the Palace was being rebuilt, the architect Roman Kuzmin made the arches higher and decorated the ceiling with stucco floral patterns.

At the time of Maria Feodorovna, Nicholas I, Alexander II and Alexander III during the visits of the imperial family to Gatchina the Arsenal Hall became the center of Court life. Preparations for the visit usually began well in advance, because at the Palace everybody was supposed to wear evening clothes even in the daytime. A lady-in-waiting wrote in her memoirs: “The lifestyle here is unique though it resembles living in the country a little bit”. The festive mood and absence of many formalities made these short visits one of the favorite pastimes of the imperial family. In the morning both guests and the Palace owners attended to their own affairs. But at midday they all gathered for lunch and spent the rest of the day together — went out for walks or drives in carriages and in the evening came to the Arsenal Hall.

Here, on the boards, of a small private theater, they staged vaudevilles and played charades. Later they had dinner together. Young people had fun dancing, playing blind man’s buff and sliding down the slide “up to twenty people at once”. Older guests played cards, chess and lotto, engaged in conversations with each other and listened to music.

During World War II the Arsenal Hall was severely damaged. However, a large number of preserved historical documents allowed to restore it.