About Head Office Building

The Head Office of Russian Maritime Register of Shipping is situated on Dvortsovaya Embankment in the former palace of Dmitriy Kantemir - an outstanding statesman, philosopher, historian and writer of the first half of the XVIIIth century.

In 1715 The Moldavian Prince D. K. Kantemir bought a plot on the bank of the Neva, where he decided to build a stone palace. F. B. Rastrelli, for whom the palace was the first significant building in St. Petersburg, was employed on this work. The young architect designed a three-storeyed mansion with a main facade looking onto the Neva, well blended with the silhouette of the tightly built-up embankment. The house was built in the spirit of Saint-Petersburg architecture of that age. Nowadays three drawings are kept in the Stockholm National Museum: the main facade of the palace (onto the Neva), the auxiliary building facade (on the present Marble Side-street) and the facade facing Millionnaya Street.

Dmitriy Kantemir did not see his palace completed: he died in 1723, when the interiors were being decorated. His son Antiokh, poet and diplomat, has been living in the palace since 1723 to 1731.

In the beginning of the XIXth century the interior and facade of the mansion were redecorated for the first time by L. Ruska in the late Classical style. Soon after, in the end of the XIXth century, the palace was reconstructed in baroque by the architect K. K. Rakhau, the sculptor A. M. Opekushin and the painter K. L. Alliaudi; this decor has been preserved up to the present day.

In 1898-1901 the Turkish Embassy was situated in the mansion.

Lately the extensive repair of the interiors and the facade was done in the building by that time being under the authority of the Register. Now the interior of the palace is a successful combination of modern offices and carefully preserved unique elements of interior decoration.

The RS Administration hope that the grand building looking onto the Neva and situated in the historical centre of Saint-Petersburg will be always inseparably connected with the Russian Register.