Livadia Palace (2005-09-251) — Argenberg

Livadia Palace was a summer retreat of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in Livadia, Crimea. The Yalta Conference was held there in 1945, when the palace housed the apartments of Franklin Roosevelt and other members of the American delegation. Livadia became a summer residence of the Russian imperial family in the 1860s, when architect Ippolito Monighetti built a large palace, a small palace, and a church there. The residence was frequented by Alexander II of Russia, while his successor Alexander III died in the smaller palace. It was perhaps disagreeable associations with the latter circumstance that induced his son Nicholas to have both palaces torn down and replaced with a larger structure. In 1909, Nicholas and his wife travelled to Italy, where they were captivated by Renaissance palaces shown to them by Victor Emmanuel III. Upon their return, they engaged Nikolay Krasnov, Yalta's most fashionable architect, responsible for the grand ducal residences in Koreiz, to prepare plans for a brand new imperial palace. The tsar's diary testifies that the design was much discussed in the imperial family; it was decided that all four facades of the palace should look different. Construction works lasted for seventeen months; the new palace was inaugurated on 11 September 1911. The Livadia Palace is built of white Crimean granite in the Neo-Renaissance style. The edifice features an arched portico of Carrara marble, a spatious Arabic patio, a Florentine tower, ornate Bramantesque windows, a "balcony-belvedere", and multiple bays with jasper vases. A gallery connects the palace with a neo-Byzantine church of the Exaltation of the Cross, built by Monighetti in 1866. The palace contains 116 rooms, with interiors furnished in different styles. There are a Pompeian vestibule, an English billiard-room, a Neo-baroque dining room, and a Jacob-style study of maple wood, which elicited particular admiration of Nicholas II.