The Imperial Alexander Lyceum was located in Tsarskoye Selo for 33 years, but rumors about relocating the institution to Petersburg arose repeatedly. The issue of relocation became especially pressing after Nicholas I ascended the throne. It was believed that the Lyceum’s isolated location was the cause of its “harmful direction” (this was related to the fact that graduates such as Pushchin, Küchelbecker, Bakunin, and others participated in the Decembrist Uprising on December 14, 1825).

The Lyceum’s remoteness from the capital was also unfavorable financially, as Lyceum professors and teachers came from the capital, which required additional expenses.

Arguments in favor of relocating the Lyceum included the fact that the number of students had tripled compared to 1811, and housing such a large educational institution in a palace wing was inconvenient. The rumor of relocation greatly worried the Lyceum students, who cherished its heritage. Occasionally, on the marble plaque inscribed with Genio loci—a kind of monument installed in the garden by first-year students and considered the guardian of the Lyceum—a pencil-written warning appeared:

Lyceum! Your fall is near:

Do not fall too low!

And in 1843, when the Lyceum celebrated its 32nd anniversary, a decision was made that the wing occupied by the Lyceum, due to a shortage of apartments in Tsarskoye Selo, should be converted into apartments for the highest court officials. The occasion for this decision was the baptism of the late sovereign heir Nicholas Alexandrovich, when high-ranking officials lacked space in the palace buildings, and the Tsarskoye Selo manager, General Zakharzhevsky, who disliked the Lyceum students, took advantage of the situation and presented the problem’s solution as relocating the Lyceum.

Still, the main reason for the relocation was Emperor Nicholas I’s attitude toward the institution. The Lyceum was no longer the beloved imperial project, full of hopes as it had been at its founding. Although it fulfilled those hopes, in Nicholas I’s eyes it was just one of many educational institutions in need of reform.

The Lyceum’s move to Petersburg made a heavy impression on former students, who rightly assumed that the move would significantly change the character of the original Lyceum. Year after year, words circulated that the Lyceum had perished.

Twenty courses, 286 students graduated from the Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo. The subsequent 13th to 16th courses of Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum students were to continue their education in Petersburg.

When bidding farewell to the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, the students took with them a stone from the Lyceum’s foundation and the marble plaque inscribed Genio loci as a symbol of continuity of the best Lyceum traditions and the inseparable connection between the Tsarskoye Selo and Alexander Lyceums.

On November 6, 1843, by order of Nicholas I, the institution was renamed the Imperial Alexander Lyceum in honor of its founder Emperor Alexander I and relocated to Petersburg at 21 Kamennoostrovsky Prospect.

House No. 21 on Kamennoostrovsky is the oldest on the avenue. The main Lyceum building was constructed between 1831 and 1834 in the late classicism style, designed by architect Charlemagne, and originally housed the Alexander Orphanage. In 1842, the Orphanage, which then only cared for girls, was moved to a new location at 52 Moika River Embankment.

On January 1, 1844, the former Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was housed in the building on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect. By Nicholas I’s directive, after the move, the institution was called the Imperial Alexander Lyceum. The next graduation took place in May of the same year.

In 1878, according to a project by Robert Yakovlevich Ossolanus, a fourth floor was added to the building. At the same time, a new two-story wing was approved on Bolshaya Monetnaya Street, where in 1881 the preparatory class was located.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Korf recalled that, unlike the cadets, Lyceum students boasted about how much they had read. The attitude toward those who read little was disdainful, so some dared to deceive: if asked whether they had read, say, "Hamlet," they confidently answered, "Yes," and then hurriedly took the book, secretly read it, and resumed the conversation about it.

To finance the construction, half of the garden was sold for residential development; until then, the garden had five ponds and a vegetable garden that supplied the Lyceum with salad. Only the part of the garden adjacent to the building with three alleys remained for walks.

The cult of Pushkin, which eventually spread throughout Russia, began to take shape on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect. The Lyceum’s director at the time was Nikolai Ivanovich Miller, who asked the poet’s friend Mikhail Lukyanovich Yakovlev to donate an autograph of the poem "October 19, 1825" to the Lyceum.

A Pushkin Museum was organized in the Lyceum—its most valuable exhibits were the autograph of the poem "October 19" and the ring given to the poet by Elizaveta Vorontsova.

Specifically for the exhibition on the second floor, Repin painted a picture in 1910 depicting sixteen-year-old Pushkin at a Lyceum exam reading his poems.

The museum was open to all visitors twice a week; there were even plans to build a special building for it. For the Pushkin library, the Lyceum students collected not only all editions of the poet’s works but also everything written about him up to that time.

A Pushkin prize was established, intended for the best poor student of the university’s history and philology faculty.

One of the museum’s most valuable exhibits was the talisman ring that Pushkin wore on his thumb and used to seal his letters.

On December 1, 1910, the Pushkin Museum burned down. Its expansion and redecoration were entrusted to architect Fomin. He copied the entrance arch, cornice, and stucco details from an old lithograph depicting the Lyceum hall in Tsarskoye Selo. Sketches of display cases, cabinets, and furniture were made in the same Empire style.

On October 19, 1889, on the occasion of the Lyceum anniversary, a bronze bust of Alexander I (sculptor Parmen Petrovich Zabello) was installed in front of the main entrance. The monument’s project was created by architect Nikolai Andreevich Lyubimov, who placed it facing the Lyceum. The pedestal was decorated with the Lyceum’s coat of arms and its motto "For the common good." The monument to Alexander I has not survived to the present day.

At the same time, a plaster bust of Pushkin (sculptor Josephine Antonovna Polonskaya) was installed in the Lyceum garden.

In 1899, the plaster bust of Pushkin was replaced by a bronze one (sculptor Schröder). In the 1930s, the Pushkin bust was moved to the former Lyceum building, then stored in the Museum of City Sculpture, and in 1999, the poet’s bicentennial year, installed in front of the Pushkin House. This monument inspired a poem by one of the Lyceum students:

At the end of the birch alley

Under the shade of golden branches,

He stands, the Lyceum’s firstborn,

The singer of bright autumn days…

The bust of Alexander I disappeared without a trace. Since 1925, a bust of Lenin has stood in the square instead.

Over time, the main building was surrounded on all sides by new buildings, extensions, and annexes made for the needs of the closed Lyceum. On Monetnaya Street, a building for preparatory classes was constructed; today it houses the Estonian consulate. On Lyceum Street, there is a residential building for teachers and an infirmary (occupied by the Radium Institute since 1922). A hotel recently opened in the former bathhouse and laundry. In the perpendicular annex on the garden side, a large dining hall for students was arranged, which on ceremonial occasions was converted into an assembly hall. There was a museum Pushkin hall decorated by architect Ivan Fomin. Tennis courts were arranged on the grounds, and in winter, an ice rink was flooded. In the garden in front of the building, facing the entrance, stood a bust of Alexander I, and the central alley of the garden behind the Lyceum was decorated with a monument to Pushkin.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin on studying at the Alexander Lyceum in the Nicholas era: “In the institution where I was educated, despite it being among the purest, the jail was something disgusting. It was arranged on the fourth floor, occupied by dormitories that no one visited during the day. It occupied a dark and tiny triangular recess in a solid wall; on the floor lay a straw mattress, and nearby stood a wooden stool. It was impossible to move in the kennel, nor was it considered necessary. The jail smelled partly of sweat, partly of mice. It was into this stinking hole that a guilty schoolboy was locked up on bread and water. However, lunch at that time was uninteresting too: beef of unnatural color with reddish gravy, cloth pies with blueberries.”

Judging by Shchedrin’s memoirs, the nature of education and atmosphere in the Lyceum in the 1840s were strikingly different from Pushkin’s times. In Tsarskoye Selo, each Lyceum student had a separate room—a “cell,” and corporal punishment was forbidden (“the first generation not beaten”), whereas in the Alexander Lyceum, the entire course slept in one dormitory, and corporal punishment transformed into confinement in the jail.

However, Shchedrin never became a second Pushkin for the Lyceum students. A 1909 graduate, Georgy Blok (Alexander Blok’s cousin), recalled:

“How was Shchedrin regarded at the Lyceum? Not at all. He was an outsider. They idolized Pushkin. All legends and traditions came from him. I saw his son Alexander at our anniversary in 1912.

In one of the (graduating) class rooms, a stone was kept on a special table. They said it was from the step of the staircase against which Pushkin broke the class bell at graduation. The room was called ‘Kamenka’ because of this, and breaking the bell became a tradition. It was the last act of a very long and complicated ‘farewell’ ceremony. The whole Lyceum was involved, and only in the evening, after prayer, did the graduating course remain alone. The lights went out, the stone was brought. The senior student took the course bell, which had awakened us, summoned us to lessons and lunch for six years, and broke it against the stone. The shards were collected, set in gold, and worn as charms.”

From Lyceum Street (now Rentgen Street), between 1902 and 1905, a four-story corner wing for educators was built. The main building was expanded, and wings were added. At the same time, repairs were made in the main building, and steam heating and ventilation were installed.

In October 1917, the Lyceum building was occupied by the headquarters of the Red Guard of the Petrograd district.

After the October Revolution, the Lyceum’s teaching staff created the Pushkin Gymnasium based on it.

In December 1917, its senior class graduated. However, gradually all buildings belonging to the Lyceum were taken away. In the second half of April 1918, the Pushkin Gymnasium, which by then consisted of only one class, was literally thrown out onto the street. Then it was sheltered in his mansion on Monetnaya Street by Prince Gorchakov, son of Prince A. M. Gorchakov, Pushkin’s Lyceum comrade, which allowed the last pupils of the gymnasium to receive educational documents...

With the closure of this famous educational institution, the Pushkin Lyceum Society, the Pushkin Museum, the “Lyceumian” museum, as well as the “Lyceum Journal,” published for almost fifteen years, ceased to exist.

After the February Revolution, the Imperial Alexander Lyceum was abolished by the Provisional Government. On May 29, 1918, by decree of the Council of People’s Commissars, the Lyceum was officially closed.

The OGPU fabricated the “Lyceum students’ case.” Graduates—those who did not perish on the fronts of World War I and the Civil War and did not emigrate—were accused of creating a counter-revolutionary monarchist organization aimed at overthrowing Soviet power. Over 150 people were arrested in the “Union of the Faithful” case. The basis for the accusations was the traditional meetings of graduates on Lyceum Day—October 19 (which was forbidden), the existence of a mutual aid fund, annual memorial services in Petrograd churches for deceased Lyceum students, where members of the imperial family were also commemorated.

After the events of 1918, various institutions, including educational ones, were housed in the building on Kamennoostrovsky.

In the fall of 1920, the freed building was occupied by the central quarantine point, distributing orphans brought from all over the country to orphanages. At the same time, disadvantaged children aged 6–18 lived and studied there. At that time, some museum items still remained, but most had already been transferred to the Pushkin House. Seven years later, the orphanage moved to another building on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect, and a secondary school opened here.

During the Great Patriotic War, its premises were converted into a military hospital. Until 1971, secondary school No. 69, named after Pushkin since 1949, operated in the former Alexander Lyceum building, and after that date, educational institutions providing vocational education to school graduates have been located here.

 The history of the Saint Petersburg College of Management and Economics “Alexander Lyceum” begins on August 17, 1945, when, based on the enterprise “Trust ‘Lengazapparatura’,” vocational school No. 37 was formed. Subsequently, it changed its name several times, and its base enterprises changed as well. In 1990, the institution was named the Leningrad Lyceum of Radio Electronics; four years later, it was renamed again.

1994 became a landmark year: the words “Alexander Lyceum” appeared in its name.

Since 2003 and to the present, the institution is called the Saint Petersburg State Budgetary Vocational Educational Institution “College of Management and Economics ‘Alexander Lyceum.’”

Sources:

https://vk.com/@libpetrograd-aleksandrovskii-licei

https://www.citywalls.ru/house856.html