The Chesme Column was erected between 1774 and 1778 according to Rinaldi's design in honor of the naval victories of Russian arms in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774.

The significance this victory held for the Russian Empire is evidenced by the fact that the battle was commemorated by a series of memorials in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg. Besides the Chesme Column in Tsarskoye Selo, the Chesme Obelisk appeared in the Palace Park of Gatchina; along the road from Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo, the Chesme Palace and Chesme Church were erected; and a memorial Chesme Hall was arranged in the Grand Palace of Peterhof. In the 19th century, one of the ceremonial galleries of the Grand Gatchina Palace came to be known as the Chesme Gallery.

On June 24, 1770, under the command of Count Alexei Orlov and Admiral Spiridov, 10 Russian warships and 7 frigates defeated and routed the Turkish Pasha Jefir-Bey, who commanded 16 ships of the line and more than 100 frigates, galleys, brigantines, and smaller vessels. This battle took place in the Chios Strait and was the prelude to the Battle of Chesme on June 26, in which, under the command of Rear Admiral S. K. Greig, the entire Turkish fleet was burned.

In November 1770, a Russian detachment in the Mediterranean, with the help of the fleet, captured the island of Mytilene. The enemy was put to flight, and the remnants of the Turkish naval forces were destroyed. Empress Catherine II dedicated the Tsarskoye Selo monument to these grand battles. Thus, the Chesme Column became a monument to three victories: Chios, Chesme, and Mytilene.

The model taken as the basis for the design was the type of rostral column, traced back to the era of Ancient Rome, specifically the column of Consul Gaius Duilius in the Roman Forum, erected in honor of the Battle of Mylae in 260 BC during the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage — the first known naval victory of the Romans. Rinaldi’s idea was largely unique, as in contemporary foreign practice there were no projects of columns decorated with rostra (ship prows); only in the 1780s did architectural projects with rostral columns appear in France.

In the same year, 1771, Empress Catherine II approved the monument’s drawing and ordered the head of the St. Isaac’s Cathedral Construction Office, Count Bruce, to prepare the column for the future monument and send it in parts to Tsarskoye Selo, instructing the count to keep this matter under his special control. I. F. Yakovkin, the author of one of the first guides in the Russian Empire (1830), who worked in the archive of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace Administration, probably considered Count Bruce the author of the project itself. In any case, according to Vilchkovsky, who wrote about Tsarskoye Selo in the early 20th century, a note “according to the drawings of Count Bruce” was made in Yakovkin’s handwriting on documents related to the column’s construction preserved in the Palace Administration.

The preparatory stage was prolonged because at that time a redesign was underway of the part of the Catherine Park where the Large Pond was located, on which the column was to be installed — it was decided to make this section of the park a landscape garden. Work was carried out to deepen the Large Pond and change the shape of its shoreline — instead of a regular polygon, it was given the appearance of a natural lake of irregular shape. The redesign was completed in 1773.

The outline of the Large Pond somewhat resembled the shape of the Aegean Sea, where the naval war with the Ottoman Empire unfolded in 1770–1774. Moreover, several artificial islands were created in the pond (near the largest one, located in the central part of the reservoir, the Chesme Column was erected), which may serve as a reference to the Aegean Archipelago, the islands to which the First Archipelago Expedition of the Russian fleet against the Turks was sent.

On November 16, 1773, by order of Catherine II and based on Bruce’s estimate, 13,141 rubles and 80 kopecks were allocated from the Imperial Cabinet funds to the Tsarskoye Selo Construction Office for the construction of the monument. The site where the column was to stand was chosen personally by the Empress. Construction took place from 1774 to 1778 under the supervision of architect Vist and stone master Pinketti. During the work, the pond’s water was drained. By summer 1775, the granite base was ready, and the column itself was installed on it. Cleaning and polishing of the column were carried out on site. The bronze sculptural decoration of the monument — the eagle figure atop the column, the bas-reliefs on three sides of the pedestal, and possibly the military armament decorating the rostra — was made by sculptor Schwartz, who worked on the finishing of St. Isaac’s Cathedral “in the team” of Count Bruce. After the eagle sculpture was installed and the scaffolding removed, on February 18, 1779, the completed structure was handed over to the Tsarskoye Selo Construction Office. Catherine II’s phrase about these monuments is known from a letter to Voltaire (August 1771): “When this (Turkish) war continues, my Tsarskoye Selo garden will resemble a toy — after every glorious military deed, a decent monument is erected in it.”

The marble Doric column, carved from three pieces of white-pink Olonets marble, is decorated with rostra and crowned with an eagle trampling a crescent. On three sides of the gray marble pedestal are bronze bas-reliefs depicting naval battles; on the southern side, a marble plaque is attached to the pedestal with an account of the history of the commemorated battles. The monument stands on a granite stylobate in the form of a truncated pyramid rising directly from the water. In the central part of the pyramid is an arch closed by a grille, behind which is a stone staircase leading to the column’s pedestal.

A. S. Pushkin in his 1814 poem “Memories in Tsarskoye Selo” wrote about these sculptural decorations:

Figure of the eagle atop the column

“…surrounded by waves,

Above the solid, mossy rock

The monument rose. Spreading its wings,

Above it sits a young eagle.

And heavy chains and thunderous arrows

Three times entwined around the formidable pillar;

Around the base, roaring, the gray waves,

In shining foam, have settled.”

The column on the Large Pond, dedicated to the victory in the Battle of Chesme, was also called Orlovskaya — after Count Alexei Orlov, commander of the Russian fleet in the Archipelago Expedition and victor over the Turks at Chesme — and the Great Rostral Column, to distinguish it from the Small Rostral — the Morea Column, installed in the regular part of the park near the cascade of ponds.

During the occupation of the town of Pushkin in the Great Patriotic War, the Chesme Column suffered significant damage. The column shaft was hit by shells. Three bronze bas-reliefs from the monument’s pedestal were stolen. One of them, heavily damaged, was found near the Antropshino station, several kilometers from Tsarskoye Selo, near a copper smelting workshop organized for the needs of the German troops. Large fragments of the bas-reliefs were later found at the bottom of the Large Pond. Bronze letters from the memorial plaque on the fourth side of the pedestal were also stolen. According to some reports, the occupiers tried to topple the column using a cable attached to a tank.

In 1994–1996, according to architect Kedrinsky’s project, these bas-reliefs were recreated and installed in June 1996, on the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy, in their original place.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesme_Column

https://www.tzar.ru/objects/ekaterininskypark/landscape/column