WQ74+W8 Petrodvortsovy District, Saint Petersburg, Russia
The Japanese pavilion of the Grand Menshikov Palace was originally called the "Eastern" pavilion. Its interior rooms were richly decorated with porcelain—mainly Japanese. Porcelain decorative items placed on special shelves filled almost the entire wall space. Hence the pavilion's name, as well as its second name given by the people—the Porcelain Tower. Today, as in the time of the Grand Duke, this twenty-six-meter tower is crowned with a green dome. It was under this dome that Emperor Peter III signed his abdication: on June 29, 1762, the emperor, who had reigned for only 186 days, signed his abdication in favor of his wife, who became Empress Catherine II.
The work on creating and decorating the pavilion stretched over 50 years—from 1720 to 1770. Outstanding masters such as Johann-Friedrich Braunstein, Jean-Baptiste Le Blond, Nikolai Pino, and Antonio Rinaldi worked on its exterior appearance and interiors. The weather vane on the pavilion’s roof was installed during the time of the great Francesco Rastrelli, as evidenced by the date on the weather vane—1753.
During the reign of Peter II, the Japanese pavilion served as a hall for formal dinners and was equipped with a lift table. In the 19th century, concerts were held here because the Porcelain Tower had unique acoustics. When the palace served as a temporary hospital, the Japanese pavilion housed the surgical department and an anatomical theater. In the 1930s, the tower became a gym for the Forestry Technical School located in the Menshikov residence.
During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet submariners sank a German submarine with homing torpedoes in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. The torpedoes were brought to the Japanese pavilion of the Menshikov Palace, which was then under the jurisdiction of the Navy. There, the torpedoes were defused and studied. This incident may have led to the establishment of torpedo workshops in the Porcelain Tower, where developments based on German models were carried out.
While the exterior appearance of the Porcelain Tower has reached us almost in its original form, its original interior has not been preserved at all.
Sources:
https://peterburg.center/maps/oranienbaum-yaponskiy-pavilon-bolshogo-menshikovskogo-dvorca.html
