Winter Palace in the context of "Palace Embankment"

A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences.

Most European languages have a version of the term (palats, palais, palazzo, palacio, etc.) and many use it to describe a broader range of buildings than English. In many parts of Europe, the equivalent term is also applied to large private houses in cities, especially of the aristocracy. It is also used for some large official buildings that have never had a residential function; for example in French-speaking countries Palais de Justice is the usual name of important courthouses. Many historic palaces such as parliaments, museums, hotels, or office buildings are now put to other uses. The word is also sometimes used to describe an elaborate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions such as a movie palace.

The State Hermitage Museum (Russian: Государственный Эрмитаж, romanized: Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, IPA: [ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ]) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the largest collection of paintings in the world. It was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired a collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day. It has been open to the public since 1852. The Art Newspaper ranked the museum 10th in their list of the most visited art museums, with 2,812,913 visitors in 2022.

Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items (the numismatic collection accounting for about one-third of them). The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. The museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky.

The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, the country's first. The revolution was characterized by mass political and social unrest including worker strikes, peasant revolts, and military mutinies directed against Tsar Nicholas II and the autocracy, who were forced to establish the State Duma legislative assembly and grant certain rights, though both were later undermined.

In the years leading up to the revolution, impoverished peasants had become increasingly angered by repression from their landlords and the continuation of semi-feudal relations. Further discontent grew due to mounting Russian losses in the Russo-Japanese War, poor conditions for workers, and urban unemployment. On 22 January [O.S. 9 January] 1905, known as "Bloody Sunday," a peaceful procession of workers, led by Georgy Gapon, was fired on by guards outside the tsar's Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Widespread demonstrations and traditional strikes spread all over the empire and were brutally repressed by the tsar's troops. In June, sailors on the battleship Potemkin undertook a mutiny, and in October, a strike by railway workers turned into a general strike in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. The striking urban workers established councils, including the inaugural St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in order to debate their course of action. The influence of revolutionary parties, in particular the Socialist Revolutionary Party and Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, quickly escalated. At the same time, the reactionary pro-monarchist Black Hundreds began attacks on intellectuals, revolutionaries, and the Jewish population.

General-feldmarshal (Russian: Генерал-фельдмаршал, from German: general-feldmarschall) was, with the exception of Generalissimo, the highest military rank of the Russian Empire. It was a military rank of the 1st class in the Imperial Russian Army and equal to those of Chancellor and Active Privy Councillor, 1st class in civil service, and General Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the rank was abolished, alongside the Table of Ranks. In 1935 however, the Red Army introduced the equivalent rank of "Marshal of the Soviet Union" (Russian: Маршал Советского Союза) as the highest military rank of the Soviet Union, when ranks were restored under Stalin's rule.

Palace Square (Russian: Дворцо́вая пло́щадь, romanized: Dvortsovaya Ploshchad, IPA: [dvɐrˈtsovəjə ˈploɕːɪtʲ]), connecting Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge leading to Vasilievsky Island, is the central city square of St Petersburg and of the former Russian Empire. Many significant events took place there, including the Bloody Sunday massacre and parts of the October Revolution of 1917. Between 1918 and 1944, it was known as Uritsky Square (Russian: площадь Урицкого), in memory of the assassinated leader of the city's Cheka branch, Moisei Uritsky.

The earliest and most celebrated building on the square, the Baroque white-and-turquoise Winter Palace (as re-built between 1754 and 1762) of the Russian tsars, gives the square its name. Although the adjacent buildings are designed in the Neoclassical style, they perfectly match the palace in their scale, rhythm, and monumentality.The opposite, southern side of the square was designed in the shape of an arc by George von Velten in the late 18th century. These plans came to fruition half a century later, when Alexander I of Russia (reigned 1801–1825) envisaged the square as a vast monument to the 1812–1814 Russian victories over Napoleon and commissioned Carlo Rossi to design the bow-shaped Empire-style Building of the General Staff (1819–1829), which centers on a double triumphal arch crowned with a Roman quadriga.

Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (Russian: Франче́ско Бартоломе́о (Варфоломе́й Варфоломе́евич) Растре́лли; 1700 – 29 April 1771) was an Italian architect who worked mainly in Russia. He developed an easily recognizable style of Late Baroque, both sumptuous and majestic. His major works, including the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, are famed for extravagant luxury and opulence of decoration.

The General Staff Building (Russian: Здание Главного штаба, Zdanie Glavnogo Shtaba) is an edifice with a 580 m-long (1,900 ft) bow-shaped facade, situated on Palace Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in front of the Winter Palace.

The monumental Neoclassical building was designed by Carlo Rossi in the Empire style and built in 1819–1829. It consists of two wings, which are separated by a tripartite triumphal arch adorned by sculptors Stepan Pimenov and Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky and commemorating the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812. The arch links Palace Square through Bolshaya Morskaya Street to Nevsky Prospekt.