Pillar of Alexandria (Alexandrovsky, Alexandrinsky) - a monument to Alexander I, the winner of Napoleon in the war of 1812-1814. The column, erected according to the design of Auguste Montferrand, was installed on August 30, 1834. It is crowned with the figure of an Angel, made by the sculptor Boris Ivanovich Orlovsky.

The Pillar of Alexandria is not only an architectural masterpiece in the Empire style, but also an outstanding achievement in engineering. The tallest column in the world made of monolithic granite. Its weight is 704 tons. The height of the monument is 47.5 meters, the granite monolith is 25.88 meters. It is higher than Pompey's column in Alexandria, Trajan's column in Rome and, what is especially pleasant, the Vendome column in Paris - a monument to Napoleon.

Let's start with a brief history of its creation.

The idea for the construction of the monument came from the famous architect Carl Rossi. When planning the space of Palace Square, he believed that a monument should be placed in the center of the square. The column's installation point from the side looks like the exact center of the Palace Square. But in fact, it is located 100 meters from the Winter Palace and almost 140 meters from the arch of the General Staff building.

The construction of the monument was entrusted to Montferrand. He himself saw it a little differently, with an equestrian group below and with many architectural details, but he was corrected)))

For the granite monolith - the main part of the column - a rock was used, which the sculptor had outlined in his previous trips to Finland. Extraction and preliminary processing were carried out in the years 1830-1832 in the Puterlak quarry, which was located in the Vyborg province (the modern city of Puterlahti, Finland).

These works were carried out according to the method of S. K. Sukhanov, the production was supervised by the foremen S. V. Kolodkin and V. A. Yakovlev. It took half a year to trim the monolith. 250 people worked on this every day. The stone craftsman Eugene Pascal was appointed supervisor of the works by Montferrand.

After the masons, having examined the rock, confirmed the suitability of the material, a prism was cut off from it, which was much larger than the future column. Gigantic devices were used: huge levers and gates in order to move the block from its place and topple it onto a soft and resilient bed of spruce branches.

After separating the blank, huge stones were cut out of the same rock for the foundation of the monument, the largest of which weighed about 25 thousand poods (more than 400 tons). Their delivery to St. Petersburg was carried out by water, for this a barge of a special design was involved.

The monolith was duped on the spot and prepared for transportation. The ship's engineer, Colonel K.A. Glazyrin, who designed and built a special bot, named "Saint Nicholas", with a carrying capacity of up to 65 thousand poods (almost 1065 tons).

During loading, an accident occurred - the weight of the column could not withstand the beams on which it was supposed to roll onto the ship, and it almost collapsed into the water. The monolith was loaded by 600 soldiers, who made a 36 miles long march from a nearby fortress in four hours.

A special pier was built to carry out loading operations. Loading was carried out from a wooden platform at its end, which coincides in height with the side of the vessel.

Having overcome all the difficulties, the convoy was loaded aboard, and the monolith went to Kronstadt on a barge towed by two steamers to go from there to the Palace Embankment of St. Petersburg.

The central part of the column arrived in St. Petersburg on July 1, 1832. For all of the above work, the contractor, the merchant's son V.A.Yakovlev, was responsible.

In 1829, on Palace Square in St. Petersburg, work began on the preparation and construction of the foundation and pedestal of the column. The work was supervised by O. Montferrand.

First, a geological survey of the area was carried out, as a result of which a suitable sandy continent was discovered near the center of the area at a depth of 17 feet (5.2 m).

The contract for the construction of the foundation was given to the merchant Vasily Yakovlev. By the end of 1829, the workers managed to dig a foundation pit. While strengthening the foundation for the Alexander Column, the workers stumbled upon piles, which had been used to strengthen the ground back in the 1760s. It so happened that Montferrand repeated after Rastrelli the decision on the place for the monument, hitting the same spot!

In December 1829, the site for the column was approved, and 1,250 six-meter pine piles were driven into the base. Then the piles were cut under the spirit level, forming a platform for the foundation, according to the original method: the bottom of the pit was filled with water, and the piles were cut at the level of the water table, which ensured the horizontal position of the platform. Earlier, using a similar technology, the foundation was laid for St. Isaac's Cathedral.

The foundation of the monument was built of half-meter thick stone granite blocks. It was brought out to the horizon of the square with plank masonry. In its center was laid a bronze box with 0 105 coins minted in honor of the victory of 1812. A platinum medal with the image of the Alexander Column and the date "1830", minted according to Montferrand's project, was also placed there, as well as a mortgage board with the following text:

"In the summer of Christmas 1831, the construction of a monument erected to Emperor Alexander by grateful Russia on a granite foundation, laid on the 19th day of November 1830, was begun. Count Y. Litta chaired the construction of this monument in St. Petersburg. Volkonsky, A. Olenin, Count P. Kutaisov, I. Gladkov, L. Carbonier, A. Vasilchikov. The construction was made according to the outline of the same architect Augustine de Montferand. "

The work was completed in October 1830.

After laying the foundation, a huge four-hundred-ton monolith was erected on it, brought from the Puterlak quarry, which serves as the base of the pedestal.

The engineering problem of installing such a large monolith was solved by O. Montferrand as follows: the monolith was rolled on rollers through an inclined plane onto a platform built near the foundation. And the stone was piled on a pile of sand, previously poured next to the platform.

"At the same time, the earth shook so strongly that bystanders - passers-by, who were on the square at that moment, felt like an underground blow." Then he was moved on skating rinks.

Later O. Montferrand recalled; "Since the work was carried out in winter, I ordered to mix cement with vodka and add a tenth of soap. Due to the fact that the stone initially sat down incorrectly, it had to be moved several times, which was done with the help of only two capstans and with particular ease, of course , thanks to the soap that I ordered to mix into the solution ... "

On the basis of the developments of Lieutenant General A.A. Betancourt for the installation of the columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral in December 1830, an original lifting system was designed. It included: scaffolding 22 sazhens (47 meters) high, 60 capstans and a block system.

On August 30, 1832, masses of people gathered to watch this event: they occupied the entire square, and besides this, the windows and the roof of the General Staff Building were occupied by spectators. The sovereign and the entire imperial family came to the lift.

To bring the column to a vertical position on Palace Square, it was necessary to attract the forces of 2,000 soldiers and 400 workers, who installed the monolith in 1 hour and 45 minutes.

After installation, the people shouted "Hurray!" And the admired emperor said: "Montferrand, you have immortalized yourself!"

The granite pillar and the bronze angel standing on it are held solely by their own weight. If you come very close to the column and, lifting your head, look up, it will take your breath away - the column sways.

After the column was installed, it remained to fix the bas-relief slabs and decorative elements on the pedestal, as well as to carry out the final processing and polishing of the column.

The column was crowned with a bronze Doric capital with a rectangular brickwork abacus with bronze cladding. A cylindrical bronze pedestal with a hemispherical top was installed on it.

In parallel with the construction of the column, in September 1830, O. Montferrand worked on a statue that was supposed to be placed above it and, according to the wishes of Nicholas I, turned towards the Winter Palace. In the initial project, the column was completed by a cross, entwined with a snake to decorate the fasteners. In addition, the sculptors of the Academy of Arts proposed several options for compositions of figures of angels and virtues with a cross. There was a version with the installation of the figure of St. Prince Alexander Nevsky, but the first version that was approved was a cross on a ball without an angel, in this form the column is even present on some old engravings ..

But in the end, the figure of an angel with a cross, made by the sculptor B. I. Orlovsky with expressive and understandable symbolism, was accepted for execution - "Win this!"

Orlovsky had to redo the sculpture of the Angel several times before Nicholas I liked it. The Emperor wished that the face of the Angel was given a resemblance to Alexander I, and the snake's muzzle, trampled by the cross of the Angel, should certainly resemble the face of Napoleon. If he does, it is distantly.

Initially, the Alexander Column was framed by a temporary wooden fence with lamps in the form of antique tripods and plaster lion masks. The carpentry work from the manufacture of the fence was carried out by the "carved master" Vasily Zakharov. Instead of a temporary fence at the end of 1834, it was decided to install a permanent metal "with three-headed eagles under the lanterns", the project of which had been drawn up by Montferrand in advance.

I must say that now seemingly perfect, the monument sometimes aroused criticism from contemporaries. Montferrand, for example, was reproached with the fact that he allegedly spent the marble intended for the column on the construction of his own house, and used cheap granite for the monument. The figure of the Angel reminded the Petersburgers of a sentry and inspired the poet to write the following mocking lines:

"In Russia, everything breathes with military craft:
And the Angel makes a cross on guard. "

But the rumor did not spare the emperor himself. Imitating his grandmother, Catherine II, who inscribed on the pedestal of the Bronze Horseman "Peter I - Catherine II", Nikolai Pavlovich in official papers called the new monument "Pillar of Nicholas I to Alexander I", which immediately gave life to the pun: "Pillar of the pillar."

In honor of this event, a commemorative coin with a face value of 1 ruble and one and a half rubles was minted

The grandiose structure inspired admiration and awe in Petersburgers from the moment of its foundation, but our ancestors were seriously afraid that the Alexander Column would collapse, and tried to bypass it.

To dispel ordinary fears, the architect Auguste Montferrand, fortunately lived nearby, on the Moika, began to exercise daily around his brainchild, demonstrating complete confidence in his own safety and the correctness of calculations. Years have passed, wars and revolutions, the column stands, the architect was not mistaken.

On December 15, 1889, an almost mystical story happened - Foreign Minister Lamsdorf said in his diary that at nightfall, when the lanterns are lit, a luminous letter "N" appears on the monument.

Rumors began to creep around Petersburg that this was an omen of a new reign in the new year, but the next day the count figured out the reasons for the phenomenon. The name of their manufacturer was etched on the glass of the lanterns: "Simens". When the lamps were working from the side of St. Isaac's Cathedral, this letter was reflected on the column.

Many tales and legends are associated with it)))

In 1925, it was decided that the presence of an angel figure on the main square of Leningrad was inappropriate. An attempt was made to cover it with a cap, which attracted a fairly large number of passers-by to the Palace Square. A balloon hung over the column. However, when he flew to her at the required distance, the wind immediately blew and drove the ball away. By evening, attempts to hide the angel had ceased.

There is a legend that at that time, instead of an angel, it was seriously planned to erect a monument to Lenin. It would look something like this))) They did not put Lenin, because they could not decide in which direction to stretch out a hand to Ilyich ...

The column is beautiful both in winter and summer. And it fits perfectly into the Palace Square.

There is another interesting legend. This happened on April 12, 1961, after a solemn TASS announcement about the launch of the first manned spacecraft was heard on the radio. There is general jubilation on the streets, real euphoria on a national scale!

The very next day after the flight, at the feet of the angel crowning the Alexandrian pillar, a laconic inscription appeared: "Yuri Gagarin! Hurray!"

Which vandal was able to express his admiration for the first cosmonaut in this way and how he managed to climb such a dizzying height will remain a mystery.

In the evening and at night, the column is no less beautiful.

The Alexander Column is one of the most famous monuments of St. Petersburg

I erected a monument to myself not made by hands,
The folk path will not grow to it,
He ascended higher as the head of the rebellious
Of the Alexandrian pillar ...

A.S. Pushkin

If I remember correctly from school, then the poem sounds like this) After that, with the light hand of Alexander Sergeevich, they began to call the Alexander Column a pillar, moreover, Alexandria =) How did it appear and why is it so remarkable?

Alexander Column It was erected in the Empire style in 1834 in the center of Palace Square by the architect Auguste Montferrand by order of Emperor Nicholas I in memory of the victory of his elder brother Alexander I over Napoleon.

This monument supplemented the composition of the Arch of the General Staff, which was dedicated to the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. The idea for the construction of the monument came from the famous architect Carl Rossi. When planning the space of Palace Square, he believed that a monument should be placed in the center of the square. However, he rejected the proposed idea of ​​installing another equestrian statue of Peter I.

An open competition was officially announced on behalf of Emperor Nicholas I in 1829 with the wording in memory of the “unforgettable brother”. Auguste Montferrand responded to this challenge by erecting a grandiose granite obelisk, but this option was rejected by the emperor. A sketch of that project has been preserved and is currently in the library of the Institute of Railway Engineers. Montferrand proposed to erect a huge granite obelisk 25.6 meters high on a granite plinth 8.22 meters. The obelisk's face was supposed to be decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the events of the 1812 war in photographs from the famous medallions by Count F.P. Tolstoy. On the pedestal, it was planned to carry the inscription "Blessed - grateful Russia". On the pedestal, the architect saw a rider on a horse trampling a serpent with his feet; a double-headed eagle flies in front of the rider, the goddess of victory follows the rider, crowning him with laurels; the horse is led by two symbolic female figures. The sketch of the project indicates that the obelisk was supposed to surpass all known monoliths in the world with its height. The artistic part of the project is superbly executed with watercolor technique and testifies to Montferrand's high skill in various areas of visual arts. Trying to defend his project, the architect acted within the subordination, dedicating his essay “Plans et details du monument consacr? ? la m? moire de l'Empereur Alexandre ”, but the idea was still rejected and Montferrand was unequivocally pointed to the column as the desired shape of the monument.

The second project, which was later implemented, consisted in the installation of a column higher than Vendôme (erected in honor of Napoleon's victories). Below in the photo - a fragment of a column from the Place Vendome (author - PAUL)

As a source of inspiration for Auguste Montferrand was offered Trajan's Column in Rome

The narrow scope of the project did not allow the architect to escape from the influence of world famous designs, and his new work was only a slight modification of the ideas of his predecessors. The artist expressed his individuality by refusing to use additional decorations, like the bas-reliefs that spirally wrapped around the pivot of Trajan's antique column. Montferrand showed the beauty of a giant polished pink granite monolith 25.6 meters high. In addition, Montferrand made his monument higher than all existing ones. In this new form, on September 24, 1829, the project without sculptural completion was approved by the sovereign. Construction was carried out from 1829 to 1834.

For the granite monolith - the main part of the column, a rock was used, which the sculptor had outlined in his previous trips to Finland. Extraction and preliminary processing were carried out in 1830-1832 in the Puterlak quarry, which was located between Vyborg and Friedrichsgam. These works were carried out according to the method of S. K. Sukhanov, the production was supervised by the foremen S. V. Kolodkin and V. A. Yakovlev. After the masons, having examined the rock, confirmed the suitability of the material, a prism was cut off from it, which was much larger than the future column. Gigantic devices were used: huge levers and gates in order to move the block from its place and topple it onto a soft and resilient bed of spruce branches. After separating the blank, huge stones were cut from the same rock for the foundation of the monument, the largest of which weighed more than 400 tons. Their delivery to St. Petersburg was carried out by water, for this a barge of a special design was involved. The monolith was duped on the spot and prepared for transportation. The ship's engineer, Colonel Glasin, was in charge of the transportation, who designed and built a special boat, named “Saint Nicholas”, with a carrying capacity of up to 1100 tons. A special pier was built to carry out loading operations. Loading was carried out from a wooden platform at its end, which coincides in height with the side of the vessel. Having overcome all the difficulties, the convoy was loaded aboard, and the monolith went to Kronstadt on a barge towed by two steamers to go from there to the Palace Embankment of St. Petersburg. Arrival of the central part Alexander Column Petersburg took place on July 1, 1832.

In 1829, on Palace Square in St. Petersburg, work began on the preparation and construction of the foundation and pedestal of the column. The work was supervised by O. Montferrand. First, a geological survey of the area was carried out, as a result of which a suitable sandy continent was discovered near the center of the area at a depth of 5.2 m. In December 1829, the site for the column was approved, and 1,250 six-meter pine piles were driven into the base. Then the piles were cut under the spirit level, forming a platform for the foundation, according to the original method: the bottom of the pit was filled with water, and the piles were cut at the level of the water table, which ensured the horizontal position of the platform. This method was proposed by Lieutenant General A. A. Betancourt, an architect and engineer, organizer of construction and transport in the Russian Empire. Earlier, using the same technology, the foundation was laid for St. Isaac's Cathedral. The foundation of the monument was built of half-meter thick stone granite blocks. It was brought out to the horizon of the square with plank masonry. A bronze box with coins minted in honor of the victory of 1812 was laid in its center. In October 1830, the work was completed.

After laying the foundation, a huge four-hundred-ton monolith was erected on it, brought from the Puterlak quarry, which serves as the base of the pedestal. Of course, at that time, installing a 400-ton stone was, to put it mildly, not easy) But I don’t think that this article should be described this process, I’ll just note that it was hard for them ... By July 1832, the column monolith was on its way and the pedestal has already been completed. Now is the time to begin the most difficult task - placing the column on a pedestal. This part of the work was also carried out by Lieutenant General A.A. Betancourt. In December 1830 he designed the original lifting system. It included: scaffolding 47 meters high, 60 capstans and a block system, and he took advantage of all this in the following way: the column was rolled along an inclined plane onto a special platform located at the foot of the scaffolding and wrapped with many rings of ropes to which the blocks were attached ; another block system was at the top of the forest; a large number of ropes, encircling the stone, skirted the upper and lower blocks and, with their free ends, were wound on capstans placed in the square. At the end of all the preparations, the day of the solemn ascent was appointed. On August 30, 1832, masses of people gathered to watch this event: they occupied the entire square, and besides this, the windows and the roof of the General Staff Building were occupied by spectators. The sovereign and the entire imperial family came to the lift. To bring the column to a vertical position on Palace Square, engineer A.A. Betancourt needed to attract the forces of 2,000 soldiers and 400 workers, who installed the monolith in 1 hour and 45 minutes. The stone block rose obliquely, slowly crawled, then lifted off the ground and was brought to a position above the pedestal. On command, the ropes were released, the column smoothly lowered and fell into place. The people loudly shouted "Hurray!" And Nicholas I then declared to Montferrand that he had immortalized himself.

After the column was installed, it remained to fix the bas-relief slabs and decorative elements on the pedestal, as well as to carry out the final processing and polishing of the column. The column was crowned with a bronze Doric capital with a rectangular brickwork abacus with bronze cladding. A cylindrical bronze pedestal with a hemispherical top was installed on it. In parallel with the construction of the column, in September 1830 O. Montferrand worked on the statue, supposed to be placed above it and, according to the wishes of Nicholas I, facing the Winter Palace. In the initial project, the column was completed by a cross, entwined with a snake to decorate the fasteners. In addition, the sculptors of the Academy of Arts proposed several options for compositions of figures of angels and virtues with a cross. There was a variant with the installation of the figure of St. Prince Alexander Nevsky. As a result, the figure of an angel with a cross, made by the sculptor B. I. Orlovsky with expressive and understandable symbolism, was accepted for execution - “Win ​​this!”. These words are associated with the story of the acquisition of the life-giving cross. The finishing and polishing of the monument took two years.

The opening of the monument took place on August 30, 1834 and marked the end of the work on the design of the Palace Square. The ceremony was attended by the sovereign, the royal family, the diplomatic corps, the one hundred thousandth Russian army and representatives of the Russian army. It was carried out in an emphatically Orthodox setting and was accompanied by a solemn divine service at the foot of the column, in which the kneeling troops and the emperor himself took part. This open-air service drew a parallel with the historic prayer service of the Russian troops in Paris on the day of Orthodox Easter, March 29, 1814. In honor of the opening of the monument, a commemorative ruble was issued with a circulation of 15,000 coins.

The Alexander Column resembles samples of the triumphal structures of antiquity; the monument has an amazing clarity of proportions, laconic form, beauty of silhouette. On the plaque of the monument is engraved "Alexander I grateful Russia". It is the tallest monument in the world, made of solid granite and the third highest after the Column of the Great Army in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Trafalgar in London (Column of Nelson). It is higher than similar monuments in the world: the Vendome Column in Paris, Trajan's Column in Rome and the Pompey Column in Alexandria.

The monument is crowned with the figure of an angel by Boris Orlovsky. In his left hand the angel holds a four-pointed Latin cross, and in his right hand he raises to the sky. The angel's head is tilted, his gaze fixed on the ground. According to the original design by Auguste Montferrand, the figure at the top of the column rested on a steel bar, which was later removed, and during the restoration of 2002-2003, it turned out that the angel is held by its own bronze mass. Not only is the column itself taller than the Vendome, the figure of an angel is taller than the figure of Napoleon I on the Vendome column. The sculptor gave the facial features of the angel a resemblance to the face of Alexander I. In addition, the angel tramples on the snake with a cross, which symbolizes the peace and tranquility that Russia brought to Europe by defeating the Napoleonic troops. The light figure of an angel, the falling folds of clothing, the clearly defined vertical of the cross, continuing the vertical of the monument, emphasize the slenderness of the column.

"Pillar of Alexandria" was surrounded by a decorative bronze fence, designed by Auguste Montferrand. The height of the fence is about 1.5 meters. The fence was decorated with 136 double-headed eagles and 12 trophy cannons, which were crowned with three-headed eagles. Between them were placed alternating spears and flagstaffs, crowned with guards' double-headed eagles. Locks were hung on the gate of the fence in accordance with the author's plan. In addition, the project involved the installation of a candelabrum with copper lanterns and gas lighting. The fence in its original form was installed in 1834, all elements were completely installed in 1836-1837. In the northeastern corner of the fence there was a sentry box, in which there was a disabled person dressed in a full guard uniform, who guarded the monument day and night and kept order on the square. The entire space of the Palace Square was paved with end faces.

Imperial fine linen
And the chariot motors
In the black pool of the capital
The pillar-angel is lifted up ...

Osip Mandelstam

The opening of the column and its installation on a pedestal were carried out on the same day - August 30 (according to the new style, September 10). This day was not chosen by chance - this is the day of the transfer of the relics of St. Prince Alexander Nevsky, one of the patrons of St. Petersburg.

The Alexander Column was erected in 1834 by the architect Auguste Montferrand by decree of Nicholas I in memory of the victory of his older brother Alexander I over Napoleon.
The monument is crowned with the figure of an angel by Boris Orlovsky. In his left hand the angel holds a four-pointed Latin cross, and in his right hand he raises to the sky. The angel's head is tilted, his gaze fixed on the ground.

According to the original design by Auguste Montferrand, the figure at the top of the column rested on a steel bar, which was later removed, and during the restoration of 2002-2003 it turned out that the angel is held by its own bronze mass.
Not only is the column itself taller than the Vendome, the figure of an angel is taller than the figure of Napoleon I on the Vendome column. The sculptor gave the facial features of the angel a resemblance to the face of Alexander I. In addition, the angel tramples on the snake with a cross, which symbolizes the peace and tranquility that Russia brought to Europe by defeating the Napoleonic troops.
The light figure of an angel, the falling folds of clothing, the clearly defined vertical of the cross, continuing the vertical of the monument, emphasize the slenderness of the column.

At first, Montferrand wanted to install an obelisk on Palace Square, but the tsar did not like this idea. As a result, the 47.5 m column became taller than all similar monuments in the world: the Vendôme Column in Paris, Trajan's Columns in Rome and Pompey's Columns in Alexandria. The diameter of the pillar is 3.66 m.

Alexander Column in the woods

The column is made of pink granite, weight - 704 tons, crowned with a gilded angel with the face of Alexander I. P

Column lifting

The pedestal of the monument is decorated with bronze bas-reliefs with ornaments from bronze armor, as well as allegorical images of the victories of Russian weapons.

The angel at the top of the column symbolizes heavenly intercession, protection from above.

After the opening of the column, residents of the city for a long time were afraid to come close to it - they were afraid that it would fall. These fears were not unfounded - the column had no fasteners. The blocks of power structures, on which the angel is fixed instead of granite, were made of brickwork. To confirm the safety and reliability of the installed column, Montferrand (project architect) walked every morning with his dog at the foot of the column.

During perestroika, there were rumors that there was a project to replace the angel figure with a bust of Lenin and Stalin.
With the appearance of the Alexander Column, there is a rumor that this is one of the failed columns for St. Isaac's Cathedral. According to rumors, it was decided to use a longer column than all the others as a monument on Palace Square.

For a long time, a legend went around the city that it was located on the site of an extensive oil storage, which is closest to the surface of the earth precisely in the area of ​​Palace Square. They even said that experts knew this back in the 19th century. It was they who advised to use the heavy Alexander Column as a "plug". They believed that if the column was pushed aside, a fountain of oil would allegedly spill out of the ground.

Solemn consecration of the Alexander Column on Palace Square in St. Petersburg on August 30, 1834

The French envoy at the St. Petersburg court reports curious information about this monument: “Concerning this column, one can recall the proposal made to Emperor Nicholas by the skilful French architect Montferrand, who was present at its excision, transportation and staging, namely: he suggested that the emperor drill a helical a ladder and required only two workers for this: a man and a boy with a hammer, a chisel and a basket, in which the boy would carry out fragments of granite as it was drilled; finally, two lanterns to illuminate the workers in their difficult work. In 10 years, he argued, the worker and the boy (the latter, of course, would grow a little) would have finished their spiral staircase; but the emperor, justly proud of the construction of this one-of-a-kind monument, feared, and perhaps thoroughly, that this drilling would not pierce the outer sides of the column, and therefore rejected this proposal. - Baron P. de Burgoen, French envoy from 1828 to 1832. "

In 2002 - 2003, when the restoration of the column began, there were reports in the media that the column was not monolithic, but consisted of very meticulously fitted fragments.
According to the modern wedding tradition, how many times the groom walks around the column with the bride in his arms, so many children will be born to them.

They say that Countess Tolstaya always ordered the coachman to go around the Palace Square side - she was afraid that the Alexander Column, not fixed in any way and held in place only by the force of its gravity, would fall right on it. Some Petersburgers also feared the same. Therefore, the architect Auguste Montferrand every evening demonstratively walked his beloved dog around his masterpiece. Gradually the fears subsided. And now the Alexander Column is one of the most striking and recognizable sights of the Northern capital. But a great many mysteries are associated with it.

"The eyes of these people are extremely accurate."

According to the official version, the Alexander Column in the center of the Palace Square of St. Petersburg was erected in 1834 by the architect Auguste Montferrand by order of Emperor Nicholas I in memory of the victory of his older brother Alexander I over Napoleon. At the same time, the king certainly wanted the monument to be higher than the Vendôme column in Paris, exalting the French emperor. And this wish was fulfilled, although not without difficulty.

A suitable granite rock from which the column was hewn was found in Finland, in the Puterlak quarry. Master masons S. V. Kolodkin and V. A. Yakovlev examined it and came to the conclusion that the stone is good. Somehow a timber weighing about 1600 tons was sawed off from the rock, they managed to move this lump from its place with the help of levers and collars and overturn it on a bed of spruce branches, which softened the impact on the ground and reduced the risk of stone splitting. And then by hand, by eye, they chopped off everything superfluous, chiselled, polished - and we got a perfectly flat cylinder with a diameter of 3.5 meters at the base and 3.15 meters at the top, 25.6 meters high and weighing 600 tons.

How did they do it? After all, modern stone craftsmen almost in chorus say that even today, with perfect machines and precise measuring instruments, it is practically impossible to perform such work with such high quality and accuracy. And the peasants managed! But, firstly, they worked for at least three years. Secondly, they used the technique of Samson Ksenofontovich Sukhanov - a legendary personality, whose artel created almost all the granite wonders of the Northern capital: huge balls on the spit of Vasilyevsky Island, and the columns of the Kazan Cathedral, and the famous one, now vegetating in the ruins of the Babolovsky Palace in Tsarskoye Selo ... One foreign traveler wrote to the work of Sukhanov's artel: “They, these men in simple torn sheepskin coats, did not need to resort to various measuring instruments; glancing inquisitively at the plan or model indicated to them, they copied them accurately and gracefully. The eyes of these people are extremely accurate. " Unfortunately, the secrets of this technique were later forgotten, like the name of the most brilliant master who ended his days in poverty.

The column was lifted by ... the deceased

In St. Petersburg, the column, as well as the huge stones for the foundation, the largest of which weighed more than 400 tons, were delivered by water. For this, the ship's engineer Colonel Konstantin Andreevich Glazyrin designed a special barge. A special pier was built for loading operations. Note that the Russian craftsmen already had a similar experience: after all, it was in this way that the famous Thunder Stone, the pedestal for the Bronze Horseman, was delivered. And therefore, without any special incident, the barge with a column, towed by two steamers, reached Kronstadt, and then to St. Petersburg.

1250 six-meter pine piles were driven under the column foundation. Then the bottom of the pit was flooded with water, and the piles were cut at the level of the water table, which made it possible to make the site perfectly horizontal. And only then a 400-ton block of foundation was erected on it.

This method was allegedly proposed by the architect and engineer Avgustin Avgustinovich Betancourt. He also designed the original device for lifting the column to the pedestal. It included scaffolding with a height of 47 meters, 60 capstans (capstan is a winch with a drum mounted on a vertical shaft) and a block system. 2000 soldiers and 400 workers were involved in the installation of the column. This entire operation was completed in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Moreover, according to some sources, Betancourt himself supervised the work. But there is one catch: the column took a vertical position in 1832, and Augustin Avgustinovich ... died in 1824.

Naturally, the deceased could not manage the construction site. Probably, a mistake has crept into the historical documents. Most likely, the builders only used the achievements of the talented engineer, which he used, for example, during the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Nevertheless, this mistake is one of the "holes" in the official version of the construction of the Alexander Column.

Temple ruins barrel

Grigory Gagarin. "Alexander's Column in the Woods". 1832-1833 years. At the bottom are the remains of an ancient temple?

The second tangible "hole" was made by an innocent drawing. It depicts the Alexander Column in the woods, and the signature under it reads: D'aperes nature r. le P-le Grigoire Gagarine. Priutino, ce 4 juine 1833. That is, translated from French: “From nature by Prince Grigory Gagarin. Completed in Priyutino. This June 4, 1833 ". So, in the figure, the column's trunk seems to grow out of some kind of capital structure, similar to a church, partially already dismantled. Some historians are trying to prove that this is, they say, a temporary utility room, which was used by the builders in the next two years after the installation of the column. After all, its final finishing continued: fine-tuning the form, polishing, building the capital, installing the figure of an angel, finishing the pedestal, installing metal elements, etc. All this time, it was necessary to store the tool somewhere, to shelter the builders from the bad weather. One could agree with this point of view, if it were not for the thickness of the walls, which is clearly excessive for a makeshift. It can also be assumed that the artist, paying tribute to romanticism, ennobled the nondescript structure, giving it the appearance of ancient ruins. But if this is indeed the remains of an ancient temple?

Is the angel a woman?

The figure of an angel with a cross, made by the sculptor Boris Ivanovich Orlovsky, raises many questions. Historians unanimously argue that the face of an angel was given the features of Emperor Alexander I. Therefore, the column is called Alexander's. And although it is easy to be convinced that even an approximate resemblance between the angel and the emperor is not (just look at the lifetime portraits of the latter), most researchers do not try to challenge the generally accepted point of view. However, the profile of the statue is very Greek. And if you look closely at the figure? Chest, hips, smooth curves of the body - everything suggests that we are facing a woman, not a man. By the way, there is a version that the St. Petersburg poet Elisaveta Kuhlman served as a model for the sculpture. This would explain the peculiarities of the angel's figure, but his face also does not look too much like the famous sculptural portrait of the poetess.

There is another version: the column is crowned with a statue of an ancient goddess, only slightly "improved" for the sake of the royal personage - the figure is given a four-pointed Latin cross, the base of which is trampled by an angel on a snake, which symbolizes the victory over the "antichrist" Napoleon. But, most likely, Orlovsky sculpted an original sculpture. At the same time, it is quite possible to assume that the column is much older than it is believed. Drawings of Palace Square, made earlier than 1830, are known. And what? The column stands, and the angel is in place, only without the cross, and the snake is not visible. And if this is really a statue of a goddess that has come down to us from a civilization much more ancient than the Greek and even Egyptian?

Peter's predecessors

"On the shore of desert waves ..." - we repeat after Pushkin. But were the Neva waves so deserted? Now historians and archaeologists have proven that Peter I did not build his city from scratch. There were both Old Russian and Scandinavian settlements. But there are structures in this area, the construction technology of which baffles researchers. For example, the Kronstadt forts. There are about a dozen of them in the Gulf of Finland, and all of them are faced with granite blocks weighing up to two tons. Moreover, the blocks were laid without mortar and fitted to each other so precisely that a piece of paper would not enter between them. On the blocks you can see the same "poke" - protrusions as on the Peruvian Sacsayhuaman. Such precision in manufacturing is only possible with mass machine production. But who actually built these defensive fortifications and when? The answer to this question, as well as to when and by whom the Alexander Column and some other structures in the north of Russia were erected, we are unlikely to get in the foreseeable future.

In the 19th century, construction machinery in Europe did not differ much from ancient Egyptian. Thousands of boulders were lifted by hand.

Original taken from ikuv in The raising of the Alexander Column in 1832

Leafing through an old magazine, I found an article about how our ancestors, who lived 200 years ago, without any Komatsu, Hitachi, Ivanovtsev and other cutters, successfully solved a difficult and today engineering problem - they delivered the blank of the Alexander column to St. Petersburg, processed it, lifted and set up vertically. And it still stands. Vertically.

Prof. N. N. Luknatsky (Leningrad), magazine "Construction Industry" No. 13 (September) 1936, pp. 31-34

The Alexander Column, standing on Uritsky Square (former Palace) in Leningrad, with a total height from the top of the foundation to the top of 47 m (154 ft.), Consists of a pedestal (2.8 m) and a column shaft (25.6 m).
The pedestal, as well as the column shaft, is made of red coarse-grained granite mined in the Pitterlack quarry (Finland).
Pitterlack granite, especially polished granite, is very beautiful; however, due to its coarse grain, it is easily degraded by weathering.
The gray Serdobolsk fine-grained granite is more durable. Arch. Montferand wanted to make a pedestal out of this granite, but, despite intensive searches, he could not find a stone without cracks of the required size.
When mining columns for St. Isaac's Cathedral in the Pitterlack quarry, Montferand discovered a piece of rock without cracks, up to 35 m in length and up to 7 m thick, and left it untouched, just in case, and when the question arose about the delivery of the monument to Alexander the First, he, having It was this stone that made the design of the monument in the form of a column from a single piece of granite. The extraction of stones for the pedestal and the column shaft was entrusted to the contractor Yakovlev, who already had experience in the extraction and delivery of columns for St. Isaac's Cathedral.

1.Work in a career

The mining method for both stones was approximately the same; first of all, the rock was cleaned from the top of the covering layer to make sure that there were no cracks in it; then the front part of the granite mass was leveled to the required height and cuts were made at the ends of the granite mass; they were produced by drilling in a series of so many wells that they almost connected with each other.

Quarry Pitterlax (Puterlaxe)

While one group of workers worked on the slots at the ends of the massif, others were carving the rock below to prepare for its fall; on the upper part of the massif, a furrow 12 cm wide and 30 cm deep was punched through its entire length, after which boreholes were drilled from its bottom into the entire thickness of the massif at a distance of 25-30 cm from each other; then the furrow, all along the entire length, was laid with 45 cm iron wedges, and between them and the edge of the stone iron sheets for better advancement of the wedges and to protect the edge of the stone from breaking. The workers were positioned so that each of them had two to three wedges in front of them; upon a signal, all workers simultaneously hit them and soon cracks became noticeable at the ends of the massif, which gradually, slowly increasing, separated the stone from the general massif of the rock; these fractures did not deviate from the direction indicated by the numerous wells.
The stone was finally separated and overturned with levers and capstans on a prepared bed of branches thrown onto an inclined log grillage with a layer of 3.6 m.

Dumping an array for a column bar in a quarry

In total, 10 birch arms were installed, each 10.5 m long and 2 iron arms, shorter; at their ends are ropes for which the workers pulled; in addition, 9 capstans with pulley blocks were installed, the blocks of which are firmly fixed to iron pins embedded in the upper surface of the array. The stone was turned over in 7 minutes, while the work on its extraction and preparation for separation from the general rock mass lasted for almost two years; stone weight is about 4000 tons.

2. Pedestal for the column

First, a stone for a pedestal weighing about 400 tons (24,960 poods) was delivered; besides him, several more stones were loaded onto the ship, and the total weight of the entire loading was about 670 tons (40 181 poods); under this weight the ship bent somewhat, but it was decided to install it between two steamers and tow it to its destination: despite the stormy autumn weather, it arrived safely on November 3, 1831.

Delivery of blocks for the pedestal of the Alexander Column

Two hours later, the stone was already unloaded onto the shore with the help of 10 capstans, of which 9 were installed on the embankment, and the tenth was fixed on the stone itself and worked through the return block, fixed on the embankment.

Moving the block for the pedestal of the Alexander Column from the embankment

The stone under the pedestal was placed 75 meters from the foundations of the column, covered with a canopy, and until January 1832, 40 stone cutters hewn it from five sides.

Future pedestal under a canopy

Interesting are the measures taken by the builders to trim the surface of the sixth bottom edge of the stone and to install it on the prepared foundation. In order to turn the stone upside down with the lower uncut face upward, a long inclined wooden plane was arranged, the end of which, forming a vertical ledge, rose 4 m above the ground level; under it, on the ground, a layer of sand was poured on which the stone should have fallen when falling from the end of the inclined plane; On February 3, 1832, the stone was pulled by nine capstans to the end of the inclined plane and here, after hesitating for several seconds in balance, fell with one edge on the sand, and then was easily turned over. After the sixth facet was trimmed, the stone had to be laid on the rollers and pulled to the foundation, and then the rollers had to be removed; for this, 24 racks, about 60 cm high, were brought under the stone, then sand was removed from under it, after which 24 carpenters, working in a very coordinated manner, simultaneously suspended the racks to a small height at the lowest surface of the stone, gradually thinning them; when the thickness of the racks reached about 1/4 of the normal thickness, then a strong crack began, and the carpenters moved aside; the remaining uncut part of the struts broke under the weight of the stone, and it sank by several centimeters; this operation was repeated several times until the stone finally sat down on the rollers. To install the stone on the foundation, a wooden inclined plane was again arranged, along which it was lifted with nine capstans to a height of 90 cm, first lifting it with eight large levers (wagons) and pulling the rollers out from under it; the space formed under it made it possible to lay a layer of solution; since the work was carried out in winter, with a frost from -12 ° to -18 °, Montferand mixed cement with vodka, adding one twelfth of soap; the cement formed a thin and flowing dough and on it with two capstans it was easy to turn the stone, slightly lifting it with eight large wagons in order to quite accurately horizontally set it on the upper plane of the foundation; the work on the exact setting of the stone lasted two hours.

Installation of a pedestal on a foundation

The foundation was erected in advance. The base for it consisted of 1250 wooden piles driven from a mark 5.1 m below the level of the square and to a depth of 11.4 m; 2 piles are driven in on each square meter; they were hammered in with a mechanical head, made according to the design of the famous engineer Betancourt; a copra woman weighed 5/6 tons (50 poods) and was lifted by a horse-drawn collar.
The heads of all the piles were cut to the same level, determined by the fact that water was pumped out of the pit before it and marks were immediately made on all piles; Between the tops of the piles exposed to 60 cm, a layer of gravel was laid and rammed, and on the platform leveled in this way, a foundation was erected with a height of 5 m from 16 rows of granite stones.

3. Delivery of a monolithic column rod

At the beginning of the summer of 1832, the loading and delivery of the monolith of the column began; loading this monolith on a barge, which had a huge weight (670 tons), was a more difficult operation than loading the stone for the pedestal; to transport it, a special vessel was built with a length of 45 m, a width of 12 m midships, a height of 4 m and a carrying capacity of about 1,100 tons (65 thousand poods).
At the beginning of June 1832, the ship arrived at the Pitterlax quarry, and the contractor Yakovlev, with 400 workers, immediately began loading the stone; near the bank of the quarry, a pier 32 m long and 24 m wide was made on piles in advance from log cabins filled with stone, and in front of it, in the sea, a wooden avanmole of the same length and structure as the pier; a passage (port) with a width of 13 m was formed between the pier and the pier; the log boxes of the pier and the pier were interconnected by long logs, sheathed with boards on top, which formed the bottom of the port. The road from the place where the stone was broken to the pier was cleared, and the protruding parts of the rock were blown up, then logs were laid close to each other along the entire length (about 90 m); the column was moved by eight capstans, of which 6 were pulling the stone forward, and 2 located behind, held the column during its oblique movement due to the difference in the diameters of its extremities; to align the direction of movement of the column, iron wedges were placed at a distance of 3.6 m from the lower base; after 15 days of work, the convoy was at the pier.
28 logs, 10.5 m long and 60 cm thick, were laid on the dock and the ship; along them it was necessary to drag the column onto the ship with ten capstans located on the avanmole; in addition to the workers on the capstans, they also put 60 people in front and behind the column. to observe the ropes going to the capstans, and those with which the ship was secured to the pier. At 4 o'clock in the morning on June 19, Montferand gave the signal for loading: the convoy was moving easily along the slopes and was almost already submerged, when an incident occurred that almost caused a catastrophe; due to the slight inclination of the side closest to the pier, all 28 logs were lifted and immediately broke under the weight of the stone; the ship heeled, but did not capsize, as it rested against the bottom of the port and the wall of the pier; the stone slid to the sagging side, but lingered at the side of the dock.

Loading a column bar onto a barge

The people managed to run away, and there was no misfortune; contractor Yakovlev was not taken aback and immediately organized the straightening of the vessel and the lifting of the stone. A military team of 600 people was summoned to help the workers; having passed a forced march of 38 km, the soldiers arrived at the quarry in 4 hours; after 48 hours continuous work without rest and sleep, the ship was straightened, the monolith was firmly strengthened on it, and by July 1, 2 steamers delivered it to b. Palace Embankment.

Portrait of the workers who delivered the column

In order to avoid such a failure that occurred when loading the stone, Montferand paid special attention to the device for unloading. The bottom of the river was cleared of the piles left over from the lintel after the embankment wall was built; the inclined granite wall was leveled to a vertical plane using a very strong wooden structure so that the vessel with the column could come very close to the embankment, without any gap; the connection of the cargo barge with the embankment was made from 35 thick logs stacked close to each other; 11 of them passed under the column and rested on the deck of another heavily loaded vessel located on the river side of the barge and serving as a counterweight; in addition, at the ends of the barges, 6 more thick logs were laid and reinforced, the ends of which were firmly tied to the auxiliary vessel on one side, and the opposite ones were extended 2 m to the embankment; the barge was pulled firmly to the embankment with the help of 12 ropes covering it. To launch the monolith ashore, 20 capstans worked, 14 of them pulled the stone, and 6 held the barge; the descent went very well within 10 minutes.
In order to further move and raise the monolith, a solid wooden platform was set up, consisting of an inclined plane, an overpass going to it at right angles and an extensive platform that occupied almost the entire area surrounding the installation site and rose 10.5 m above its level.
In the center of the platform, on a stone massif of sandstone, forests were built, 47 m high, consisting of 30 four-pillar racks, reinforced with 28 struts and horizontal braces; 10 central posts were higher than the others and at the top, in pairs, connected by trusses, on which lay 5 double oak beams, with blocks of pulley blocks suspended from them; Montferrand made a 1/12 life-size model of the scaffolding and subjected it to the expertise of the most knowledgeable people: this model greatly facilitated the work of carpenters.
The lifting of the monolith along the inclined plane was carried out in the same way as its movement in the quarry, along completely laid bars with capstans.

Moving the finished column: from the embankment to the overpass

At the beginning of the overpass

At the end of the overpass

On the flyover

On the flyover

Upstairs, on an overpass, he was dragged onto a special wooden cart that moved along the rollers. Montferand did not use cast-iron rollers, fearing that they would be pressed into the flooring boards of the platform and abandoned balls - the method used by Count Carbury to move the stone under the monument to Peter the Great, believing that the preparation of them and other devices would take a long time. The cart, divided into two parts 3.45 m wide and 25 m long, consisted of 9 lobe beams, laid close to each other, and reinforced with clamps and bolts with thirteen transverse beams, on which the monolith was laid. It was installed and reinforced on an overpass near an inclined plane and the mass was dragged in with the same capstans that pulled it upward along this plane.

4. Raising the column

The column was raised by sixty capstans installed on the scaffolds in a circle in two rows in a checkerboard pattern and reinforced with ropes to piles driven into the ground; each capstan consisted of two cast iron drums fixed in a wooden frame and driven by four horizontal handles through a vertical shaft and horizontal gears (Fig. 4); from the capstans, the ropes went through the guide blocks, firmly fixed at the bottom of the scaffolding, to the pulley blocks, the upper blocks of which were suspended from the above-mentioned double oak beams, and the lower slings and solid rope ties were attached to the column rod (Fig. 3); the ropes consisted of 522 cables of the best hemp, each withstanding a load of 75 kg, and the entire rope - 38.5 tons; the total weight of the monolith with all the devices was 757 tons, which with 60 ropes gave about 13 tons of load per each, that is, their safety factor was taken three times.
The lifting of the stone was scheduled for August 30; to work on capstans, teams from all guards units were outfitted in the amount of 1700 privates with 75 non-commissioned officers; the very important work of raising the stone was organized very thoughtfully, the workers were arranged in the following strict order.
At each capestan, under the command of a non-commissioned officer, 16 people worked. and, in addition, 8 people. was in reserve to replace the tired; the senior in the team observed that the workers walk at an even pace, slowing down or accelerating it depending on the tension of the rope; for every 6 capstans, 1 foreman is dressed up, located between the first row of capstans and the central forests; he monitored the tension of the ropes and passed orders to the elders in the team; every 15 capstans formed one of 4 squads, led by four Montferand's assistants, who stood at each of the four corners of the high scaffolding, on which there were 100 sailors who watched the blocks and ropes and straightened them; 60 dexterous and strong workers stood on the very column between the ropes and held the blocks of polyopast in the correct position; 50 carpenters were in different parts of the forest just in case; 60 stonecutters stood at the bottom of the scaffolding at the guide blocks with an order not to let anyone near them; 30 other workers directed the rollers and removed them from under the cart as the column was lifted; 10 masons were at the pedestal to pour cement mortar on the top row of granite, on which the column will stand; 1 foreman stood at the front of the scaffolding, at a height of 6 m, to signal the start of the rise with a bell; 1 the boatswain was at the highest point of the scaffolding at the flag pole as soon as the column was in place; 1 surgeon was at the bottom of the scaffold for first aid and, in addition, there was a team of workers in reserve with tools and materials.
All operations were supervised by Montferand himself, who, in two days beforehand, made a test of raising the monolith to a height of 6 m, and before starting the raising, he personally made sure of the strength of the piles holding the capstans, and also examined the direction of the ropes and scaffolds.
The raising of the stone, at the signal given by Montferand, began at exactly 2 pm and went on quite successfully.

The beginning of the rise of the column

The column moved horizontally with the cart and at the same time gradually rose upward; at the moment of its separation from the cart, 3 capstans, almost simultaneously, stopped due to the confusion of several blocks; at this critical moment, one of the upper blocks burst and fell from the height of the scaffold into the middle of a group of people standing below, which caused some confusion among the workers who surrounded Montferand; Fortunately, the teams working on the nearest capstans continued to walk at an even pace - this quickly brought calm, and everything fell into place.
Soon, the column hung in the air above the pedestal, stopping its upward movement and aligning it strictly vertically and axially with the help of several capstans, gave a new signal: everyone working on the capstans made a 180 ° turn and began to rotate their handles in the opposite direction, lowering the ropes and slowly lowering the column exactly to its place.

The lifting of the column lasted 40 minutes; the next day, Menferand checked the correctness of its installation, after which he ordered to remove the scaffolding. The work on finishing the column and setting the decorations continued for two more years and it was finally finished in 1834.

Bishebois, L.P. -A. Bayo A. J. -B. Inauguration of the Alexander Column (August 30, 1834)

All operations for the extraction, delivery and installation of the column must be considered very well organized; however, one cannot fail to note some shortcomings in comparison with the organization of work on moving the stone for the monument to Peter the Great, performed under the leadership of Count Carbury 70 years earlier; these shortcomings are as follows:
1. When loading the stone, Kabury flooded the barge, and it stood on the solid bottom of the river, so there was no danger of overturning it; meanwhile, when loading the monolith for the Alexander Column, this was not done, and the barge tilted, and the whole operation almost ended in complete failure.
2. Carbury used screw jacks to raise and lower the stone, while Montferand lowered the stone in a rather primitive and somewhat dangerous way for the workers, undercutting the racks on which it was lying.
3. Carbury, using an ingenious way of moving a stone on brass balls, significantly reduced friction and managed with a small number of capstans and workers; Monferand's statement that he did not use this method due to lack of time is incomprehensible, since the extraction of the stone lasted almost two years and during this time all the necessary adaptations could have been made.
4. The number of workers when lifting the stone was with a large margin; however, it must be borne in mind that the operation did not last long and that the majority of the workers were rank-and-file military units, dressed up for the uplift, as for a solemn parade.
Despite these shortcomings, the entire operation to raise the column is an instructive example of a well-thought-out organization with a strict and clear definition of the work schedule, the assignment of workers and the definition of each actor's responsibilities.

1. It is customary to write Montferand, however, the architect himself wrote his surname in Russian - Montferand.
2. "Construction Industry" No. 4 1935.

Thanks to Sergei Gaev for providing the magazine for scanning.