Commercial Buildings
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the majority of large-scale construction projects were for palaces, churches, and buildings to house the ever expanding apparatus of the Russian state. As the 19th century progressed, however, and particularly in the first decade of the 20th century, it was private enterprises - banks and shops - that had amassed the funds to commission large and lavish buildings for their premises. Often more progressive in their tastes than their counterparts in the public sector, they pioneered modern architecture in the city, often shocking public taste at the time, but providing us with lasting monuments to life in St. Petersburg in the final decades of Tsarist Russia.
St. Petersburg's largest and oldest department store, Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor was built in the mid-18th century as a trading point for merchants bringing their wares to the Russian capital. Combining stores, warehouses and accommodation, it became a model for similar buildings throughout Russia.
With its famous illuminated globe, this ornate Art Nouveau building caused scandal when unveiled, and was a stunning advertisement for the American sewing-machine manufacturer. Later turned into St. Petersburg's biggest bookshop, it has become a Nevsky Prospekt landmark.
Built as the flagship store for a family of fabulously wealthy Petersburg wine merchants, the Eliseyev Emporium was a byword for luxury at the start of the 20th century. Another Art Nouveau masterpiece, it has recently been re-opened and is again among the priciest shops in the city.
This stylish modernist building on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa was built for a remarkable trading organization before the Revolution, and has sold luxurious goods under various guises for over a century. Now it is the local branch of Moscow department store TsUM.
Now the flagship store for Zara in St. Petersburg, this striking early 20th century building was originally designed for a family of fur merchants, and its neoclassical design pioneered contemporary building techniques in the city.
Thanks to a distinctive design inspired by Renaissance Italy, the Wawelberg Building became one of the most famous on Nevsky Prospekt. It was originally home to the Wawelberg Bank, one of the wealthiest financial houses of Imperial Russia.
Built for one of Russia's largest pre-Revolutionary banks by a master of Style Moderne architecture, this impressive granite building near Palace Square is best known to Petersburgers as the Central Telephone Station, though it now houses a brewpub.
One of the earliest projects in St. Petersburg by Giacomo Quarenghi, this magnificent neoclassical building was the site of the production of Russia's first paper money, and is now the main campus for a prestigious college of finance and economics.
