House №68 with a beautiful little portico is a former mansion of Baron Stieglitz, the major financier, banker and industrialist of Russia in the 19th century. Baron was a philanthropist and donated substantial sums to the needs of education and arts.
There is a museum and a school of painting in St. Petersburg, and the The Saint Petersburg State Art and Industry Academy, named after its founder Alexander von Stieglitz. This academy was the alma mater of many artists and designers. Among its graduates were Petrov-Vodkin, Ostroumova-Lebedeva and Arkady Rilov.
The huge mansion of Stieglitz comes out on Galernaya street from the back side. Before the revolution there lived the family of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, who was married to the Greek princess Alexandra. They had a son named Dmitry, who participated in the murder of Grigory Rasputin - the mysterious priest with hypnotic gaze, who was well received in the family of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Rasputin was murdered by conspirators in the end of 1916 at the Yusupov Palace on the Moyka Embankment, not far from here. Englishmen also took part in this crime. According to one version, it was an officer of British intelligence MI-6 Oswald Rayner who made a control shot from his revolver. The killers confused the investigation very actively to hide the connection with Britain. Great Britain was extremely interested in Rasputin’s death because he could contribute to the cessation of arms between Russia and Germany during World War I, as he had a strong influence on the Russian Empress.
In 2011 the Mansion of Stieglitz on English Embankment was given to St. Petersburg State University, which is planning to create here a new school quarter.
Photo Английская наб. 68 01 by Екатерина Борисова is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
