Building
The university is housed in a grand neoclassicist building with a 12-column portico on the banks of the Neva River on the south shore of Vasilievsky Island. It is the first building that can be seen from ships travelling into the city from the Gulf of Finland, and is a prime example of the monumental neoclassicist style favoured in Imperial Russia in the early 1800s. Russian scholars call this architecture classicist, while in the west it is known as neoclassicist, because trends in architecture came to Russia later than in the West.
Architect Andrey Voronikhin completed the building in 1806–11. He also designed the Kazan Cathedral – inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome – at Nevsky Prospect, as well as buildings at Paul I's estate at Pavlovsk Palace south of the city. He also remodelled the interiors of the baroque Stroganov Palace in neoclassical style. The design of the university building reflects the idea that mining is a harsh and difficult pursuit – as well as symbolising the entry into the underground world of Pluto through the portico, decorated with 12 columns of the Doric order.
On the left-hand side of the steps at the entrance to the university is a sculpture by Vasily Demut-Malinovsky, who designed decorations and sculptures for many of the city’s churches, palaces, and monuments. The Abduction of Proserpina depicts how the Roman goddess Proserpina is seized and taken to the underworld by Pluto and is after the original The Rape of Proserpina by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1621–22), which provided the inspiration for many artists. Its powerful forms and heavy proportions
are determined by their position and function as a decoration of the huge portico, and the sculpture together with the portico are typical of Russian town planning in the beginning of the 19th century.
On the right-hand-side of the entrance to the university is the Hercules and Antaeus sculpture by Stepan Pimenov, one of the leading Russian sculptors of the early 19th century, who also created sculptural decorations for the Kazan Cathedral, the Admiralty, and many other palaces and monuments in St Petersburg, and who had worked closely with Demut-Malinovsky since 1802. The statue shows Hercules winning in a struggle with Antaeus, who had defeated most of his previous opponents up to that point.
In 1830 Pimenov fell out of favour with Tsar Nicholas I, seemingly over his sculptures to decorate the Narva Triumphal Arch, built in 1814 to mark the Russian victory over Napoleon, but most probably because of his portraits of the Tsar, which Nicholas did not take a liking to.
Pimenov was dismissed by the Tsar and died three years later, at the age of 49.
The two sculptures symbolise the earth, its power and wealth – Antaeus’ strength lay in his contact with Mother Earth, and Demut-Malinovsky’s Rape of Proserpina also shows a struggle – and the dynamism of each sculpture contrasts with the solidity of the large portico.
