The interiors of the Hermitage are decorated with masterpieces of stone-cutting art. Its museum collection contains more than five hundred fine products of European and Russian stone-cutters: decorative vases, floor lamps, desk writing instruments, countertops and cabinet sculptures. My son liked the palace furniture, decorated not only with gilded wood carvings, but also with openwork bronze with masterfully carved gems.
famous court architect A. N. Voronikhin designed porphyry and jasper vases and bowls for the halls and galleries of the Hermitage.
Created from picturesque stone, they seem to glow from within. At that time, according to the imperial decree, three stone-cutting factories worked: Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Kolyvan. Noble jasper has more than two hundred shades. Kalkan and the famous Orsk landscape jasper are considered the most beautiful.
Masterpieces of stone-cutting and bronze-casting art of Russia received the Grand Prix at an exhibition in London in 1862. The beautiful vases decorating the interiors of the second floor were made in the middle and the end of the nineteenth century. The Hermitage collection is considered the best in the world. Walking through the museum halls, we see magnificent lapis lazuli vases standing next to huge Korgon porphyry floor lamps with superimposed bronze reliefs. How beautifully the sun's rays glide over the surface of decorative vases made of rhodonite and Beloretsk quartzite, reflecting from the virtuoso carving of the vine.
I liked the amazingly beautiful dark cherry porphyry vase with a bronze fountain. Graceful sculptural figurines of dolphins seem to play on the volume of the stone, forming a fantastic pattern together with a pattern of flat shells.
Everyone in the Hermitage wants to see the famous Malachite Hall. Spacious and very bright, it is filled with magnificent works of stone-cutting art. In Russia, malachite bowls were created by the unique method of Russian mosaic, when craftsmen, inlaid the surface of the main stone with the thinnest layers, and then carefully polishing it, sealed the seams. A beautiful dark green stone perfectly combined with elements of artistic bronze: vignettes, legs and gilded reliefs. A striking example is the malachite vase "Medici".
Decorated with the finest pattern of gilded bronze, it was designed by the court architect I. I. Galber for the imperial chambers. The famous Kolyvan vase. Being the largest in the world, it impresses with its graceful proportions. Despite the fact that it weighs about nineteen tons, the vase looks very elegant. I am proud of the Russian stone cutters who created such beauty!
If you liked the beautiful decorations of the Hermitage and want to buy something similar in St. Petersburg, then come to us at the creative workshop of Igor Seliverstov. Replicas of works of art, created by the hands of our artists and sculptors, will allow you to decorate the interior of your apartment with museum luxury.
A huge stone bowl, mounted on a special reinforced foundation, can be seen in one of the halls of the New Hermitage. This is the queen of vases or the Big Kolyvan vase, made of Revnev jasper. This masterpiece is also called the Kolyvan bowl or the royal bowl, which does not change the essence of the matter. It is considered the largest bowl in the world made of jasper.
And the appearance of a giant stone bowl is due to the Emperor of the Russian Empire Nicholas I. He was seriously and competently engaged in the arrangement of the palace complex, located on the banks of the Neva. Under the former Russian rulers, only its inhabitants and their guests could look at the unique treasures collected in the Winter Palace. But Nicholas I decided to make the Hermitage accessible to all people.
As a result, the building of the New Hermitage appeared, the construction of which was completed in 1851. This building became the first public art museum in the Russian Empire. Not the last place in it was occupied by objects made by Russian stone-cutters.
At that time, there were three stone-cutting centers in the empire. This is the Peterhof grinding factory (mill), created under Peter I. The Yekaterinburg grinding factory, the construction of which dates back to 1740. And the Kolyvan grinding factory, organized in Altai. The queen of vases was made on the latter.
They made it from Revnevskaya jasper according to the drawing of the architect Melnikov. At its widest point, the vase or bowl is 5.04 meters in diameter. Its height, together with the pedestal, reaches 2.57 meters, and its weight is 19 and a half tons. The Large Kolyvan vase has one peculiarity: its shape is oval. However, at that time bowls were made, as a rule, round or square.
This was due to the properties of jasper. It is strong, but at the same time fragile. I did something wrong, and the stone immediately cracked - all the work was in vain. With this in mind, it was much easier and safer to make round and square shapes than oval, since it required jewelry manual labor. But the difficulties did not frighten the masters, and they made a unique huge vase. But in our time it is impossible to find specialists capable of creating such beauty.
Mount Revnyukha in Altai
That jasper, from which the vase was made, was taken on Mount Revnyukha. The mountain was named so because of the thickets of rhubarb, which grows abundantly on the slopes. But the mountain was not famous for one rhubarb. Large deposits of green-wavy jasper were found in its depths. But in other places such beautiful jasper was not found.
A quarry was built on one of the slopes and began to develop the deposit. They began to make bowls and vases from jasper and send them to St. Petersburg. In the quarry itself, pieces of rock were hewn to the desired size, and fine processing was carried out at the Kolyvan grinding factory. It was located at a distance of several tens of kilometers from the quarry.
All this work was hard. First, they found a piece of stone of the required size, then manually lowered it to the foot of the mountain, and only after that they dragged a stone block, which could weigh several hundred kg and even tons, to the factory. They moved such a hulk along the ground, laying tree trunks.
A description of the transportation and processing of one such block was made by the head of the Kolyvano-Voskresensky factories, Pyotr Kuzmich Frolov. This description was published in the Siberian Bulletin in the 19th century. Frolov wrote that a large piece of rock weighing 11.5 tons was found in 1815. But it was delivered to the factory only in the summer of next year.
Tarski painting - transportation of stone for the queen of vases
400 people dragged the block along the ground for 8 days. The bowl was made according to the drawings of the architect Quarenghi. It was also oval in shape, like the Big Kolyvan vase, and weighed 2 tons 88 kg with a leg. Its largest diameter was 3 meters, and a height of about one and a half meters. The bowl took 4 years to make. In 1820 she was taken to the capital.
Frolov described the exact route by which the bowl was delivered to St. Petersburg. At first, for almost a month, they pulled on horseback from Barnaul to Yekaterinburg. And this is 1900 km. Then 4 days dragged to the Utkinskaya pier on the Chusovaya River. From there, from mid-April to mid-August, they rafted along the system of rivers: Chusovaya, Kama, Volga, Obvodny Canal, Neva. This was the usual route for the delivery of stone products from Altai to St. Petersburg.
But let us return to the queen of vases and trace her fateful path from Altai to the building of the New Hermitage in the capital of the Russian Empire. In 1819, a huge 11-meter block was discovered in the Revnevskaya quarry. During processing, it cracked and decreased in size to 5.6 meters.
From this piece of rock in 1820 they decided to make a vase for the New Hermitage according to the drawings of the architect Melnikov. He depicted it as hollow inside, with carvings on the underside and a graceful leg at the bottom. It took several years to make layouts and detailed drawings. Work began only in 1829. They were managed by the managing director Mikhail Laulin.
The stone was installed on supports in the barn and began to hew by hand with chisels. After 2 years, a workpiece was obtained, which was sent to the Kolyvan grinding factory. There, the inside of the vase was made hollow. After that, they engaged in external carving and the manufacture of legs. All work was completed in 1842.
The New Hermitage is the first public art museum in the Russian Empire
At the beginning of 1843, the Large Kolyvan vase was transported to Barnaul, and then to Yekaterinburg, to Utkinskaya pier. A hundred and fifty horses pulled the queen of the vases to the pier. It was rafted on the water to St. Petersburg until August. On the Fontanka, she lay on a barge near the Anichkov Bridge for a long time, then she lay on the embankment for even longer. And the reason was that the queen of the vases could not get into the palace because of her size. Therefore, it was decided to place it in the passage of the New Hermitage building, but under such a weight it was necessary to make a reinforced foundation. It took 4 years to build it.
Only in 1849 did the Big Kolyvan vase finally find a permanent and worthy home. Almost 800 workers installed it on the foundation. And the queen of vases stood in the passage for several years. Then it was closed with walls and turned into one of the premises of the New Hermitage. Since then, a stone bowl made of Revnev jasper has been standing there, striking people with its beauty and truly royal grandeur.
The large Kolyvan vase got its name from the place of creation. So, the factory in the Altai Territory was called. She is often referred to as the "Queen of the Vases". It is made from a single piece of green-wavy jasper. This work of stone-cutting art was awarded a hall in the Winter Palace, and is now an exhibit of the Hermitage.
It originates at the dawn of the 19th century. In those days, stone products were popular, so reconnaissance work was carried out constantly. In 1819, search engines find a giant nugget of green jasper.
Stone - Jasper It happened at one of the Altai quarries. It was decided to split the 11-meter jasper cliff to separate one large monolith. The result was an 8-meter stone, on which a crack formed in the process.
She divided the stone into 2 unequal parts, and the largest of the halves was suitable for further work. Its size is 5.6 meters.
The weight is almost 20 tons, the height together with the pedestal is 2.57 m. Recognized as the largest vase in the world, it has an outer diameter of 5.04 m and an inner diameter of 3.22 m.
This find was reported to St. Petersburg, Emperor Alexander I. The director of the Kolyvan factory, M.S. Laulin sent him drawings with exact measurements. In November 1920, an answer was received from the Winter Palace.
It contained a project for the manufacture of an elliptical bowl, which was developed by the architect of the royal court, Giacomo Quarenghi. The drawings and a plaster model were delivered from St. Petersburg to Kolyvan, after which the architect Abraham Melnikov supervised the creation of the vase. 
Twenty-five years have passed from the moment the jasper block was found and reported to the royal court to the birth of a magnificent work of art. First, it was necessary to pull the stone out of the ground without damaging it. Then there was a long grinding and trimming to obtain the desired shape.
Twice the product was completely polished and at the end a picturesque ornament was applied to it. The workers worked by hand. The result was a beautiful example of stone-cutting art, which struck with its grandiosity.
The dimensions of the bowl to this day beat records among similar examples: a 19-ton stately beauty rises 2.5 m above the ground; diameters along the large ellipse are about 5 m, along the small one - more than 3.
Masters have spent more than 20 years carving a bowl from a single stone with filigree precision. At the same time, it was polished and decorated with ornaments. At the same time, they were looking for a stone for the pedestal.
An interesting fact is that the traditional round shape of the bowls of that time was replaced by an oval. Given that jasper is a fragile stone, this made the task of the craftsmen especially difficult. One can only guess with what incredible efforts they managed to reveal this miracle to the world.
The bowl was taken to St. Petersburg at the end of winter in 1943. The caravan consisted of 154 horses, which is not surprising. The bulky sculpture had to be delivered safe and sound, and this required a huge draft force. 
The road ran through Barnaul, the administrative center of the Altai Territory. 660 pounds of engraved jasper arrived in St. Petersburg six months after the start of the journey.
The negligence in choosing a place for the bowl came to the surface. It turned out that in the Winter Palace they had not taken care in advance to prepare a place for her. Therefore, the barge with the "queen of vases" was forced to linger at the Anichkov Bridge, and then right on the Neva embankment opposite the Hermitage.
Only the main second floor could be a suitable option, however, transporting the bowl to it was impossible.
She was sent to the warehouse. There, the discovery of the vase dragged on for almost 2 years, until the passage of the newly completed New Hermitage was taken away for it.
Upon arrival at the palace, the Kolyvan vase was first assigned to a warehouse, since there was not enough room for its exposition. After this omission was corrected, 150 years have passed. Now the jasper vase takes pride of place in the main State Museum.
It was here that a massive pedestal was built from a suitable stone of green-wavy jasper, found later than the main block, for several more years. The foundation was ready only by the autumn of 1849. 770 workers installed it in its usual place - in the hall of the New Hermitage.
St. Petersburg is my home and the most beautiful city on Earth. I love it for its magnificent architecture, unique atmosphere and even for gray everyday life. I like to share my impressions of the city with readers, to “show” with a word how unusual and majestic it is.
Only once I saw Panin the Colossal Chalice live. A trip for her to St. Petersburg was organized by one head of the enterprise from Kurya, who was delighted with how the Kolyvan museum faithfully preserves the history of the creation of the most grandiose product of the Altai stone cutters.
You look at the Queen of Vases and - it takes your breath away! Panina recalls. - The Hermitage has a huge number of different excursions - both thematic and sightseeing. Almost all of them end in the hall of the Queen of Vases, which is also called the hall of the Kolyvan vase in another way.
Here, all visitors will certainly begin to take pictures. They raise their hands and involuntarily exclaim, because against the background of such power, people look like midgets ...
Mining Pioneers
- Olga Borisovna, the history of the Queen of Vases began long before her appearance in the capital of Russia ..
Stone-cutting in Altai began with the fact that in 1786 a small grinding workshop was opened on the Alei River at the Loktevsky copper smelter, because a very interesting and beautiful porphyry was found there.
Then a group of mining specialists was sent to Altai. They found more than 200 deposits of colored ornamental stone in the vicinity of Kolyvan. All of them were very different - jasper, granite, porphyry. Moreover, the stones were diverse in color, pattern, and the number of reserves.
By the end of the 18th century, the copper smelter in the village of Kolyvan was closed, and working people, specialists remained here. And then a decision was made to build a large factory for the processing of colored stone on the basis of a closed copper smelter.
In 1800, the construction of a two-story building began, and in 1802, in August, production began at this factory.
What economically reasonable decisions did our ancestors make: not just to close, dispersing people, but to keep ...
Yes! You can't help but compare it with the situation in Kolyvanstroy at the end of the last century. They closed the mine and that's it. There is no one to clean the roads, no one to support the village, in which an excellent infrastructure was created, there was no one to live and work with top-class specialists. Everything closed. People dispersed all over the country...
Let's go back to the times of our intelligent ancestors. For the Queen of Vases, it was necessary to find not just a stone, but a miracle stone.
Revnevskaya jasper in Altai was discovered in 1789 on Mount Revnyukha (now it is the Zmeinogorsk region). They began to work with this jasper not immediately.
Only Strizhkov, the first manager of the Kolyvan grinding factory, became interested in this stone. In his notes, he emphasized that this is a very beautiful hard stone.
No wonder one of the leading geologists of Russia Firsman at the beginning of the 20th century, when he came to Altai, said that he had never seen such a diverse range of colors and such a pattern of jasper.
A block 14 arshins long (arshin - 0.711 m - ed.). discovered at the quarry Unter Schichmeister I. S. Kolychev in 1820. But only 4 years after the separation of the stone, the manager of the Kolyvan grinding factory informed St. Petersburg that the monolith, after cleaning, could be used for any elliptical-shaped thing.
Cut off all unnecessary
- In Northern Palmyra, they became interested in the Altai find?
In St. Petersburg, the construction of palaces and decorations for parks was in full swing. The architect Melnikov became interested in the message from Altai.
He became the author of the project, which was approved by the head of the office of the emperor Guryev. But the correspondence with the capital went on for a long time: the mail left, returned six months later. In the drawings sent from St. Petersburg, there was something incomprehensible to the craftsmen, for example, to make concave or convex legs, etc.
Having received a small mock-up model in 1828, it became clear to the Kolyvan craftsmen what kind of vase to make, what lugs, what flutes. And only then they began to process the stone in the quarry. The paving took a long time, because they worked only in the summer.
This rough-cut block was delivered to Kolyvan for 30 versts. The artist Tarsky, having studied history, painted the painting “Delivery of a monolith from the Revnevskoye deposit”, which is now in the Kolyvan Museum.
Special drags were placed under the block, which were dragged along the winter path by men harnessed to straps, like barge haulers. According to one evidence, there were 567 people. In other testimonies - more than 1000 people.
We are inclined to the second version, because it was also necessary to plow the road, cut down the forest. At the factory, work on the bowl began on December 22, 1831.
- Was a special building built for this work?
No, it was made back in 1820. The fact is that the two-story building built in 1802 had one small passage.
When they started working on large-form products, they realized that the delivery of huge monoliths here would be difficult, and it was impossible to dismantle a wall made of granite blocks.
Then they decided to build a one-story building with a large gate nearby.
The building of a colossal grinding factory was designed specifically for colossal products - (from colossus - “huge”, editor's note).
- The queen of vases is not the only colossal bowl?
There were others, but they were smaller. In the Hermitage, on the first floor, there are two more Kolyvan vases from the 19th century. From them, as a rule, all excursions begin. These vases, also made of green-wavy jasper, are half the size of the Queen.
"Chambers" for the Queen
- Surely, it was difficult to transport such a colossus?
They began to make a vase on December 22, 1831, and on February 9, 1843, it was finished, packed, and by a special train - four sledges were made in the form of a wagon, into which 154 horses were harnessed, the Colossal bowl moved to Barnaul.
The convoy arrived in Barnaul on February 18, and on February 21 it headed to Yekaterinburg, to Utkinskaya pier. There she was dragged onto barges that set off along the Chusovaya, Kama, Volga rivers, then along the Mariinsky system.
On August 14, 1843, the barge reached St. Petersburg. The weight of the vase was determined from the shrinkage of the barge: with the packaging, it weighed over 1,000 pounds.
In St. Petersburg, this hulk caused fear, because it became clear that there was nowhere to put it. For six years, boarded up in a box, she stood on the Neva embankment.
They racked their brains: what to do with it? It was proposed to build a ladder around it so that people could climb up and inspect it inside: there is a recess 5 m by 3 m - like a pool. But in this way you will not see all the beauty of the vase.
Then they decided to equip a horse-drawn passage for the vase between the old and new buildings of the Hermitage. They erected and strengthened the foundation, laid a mosaic floor, dragged the Queen of Vases and closed it from both sides - they got eternal “chambers” for the Queen.
- During the Leningrad blockade, it was probably difficult to preserve this gigantic exhibit?
She was surrounded by sandbags to prevent splinters from entering. Shells and bombs did not damage it, but the roof over the vase was damaged.
When the vase was opened, the Hermitage workers used buckets to scoop water out of it. The war years had a bad effect on her condition. It was necessary to shine, grind, polish the surface.
Therefore, in 1948, a school for specialists in working with stone was opened near the Hermitage. Seven people from our Kolyvan grinding factory were trained there and helped to restore the Queen of Vases.
When they returned to Kolyvan again, they were very great specialists in their field, they brought a lot of knowledge and good skills. And it was very helpful.
In 1952, these masters - Mitin, Podnebesnov - according to the project of Vorotnikov, made a jubilee vase from Cordon porphyry for the 15th anniversary of the Altai Territory. The same specialists made the first mosaic picture from our very hard stones.
Both the vase and the panel are now kept in the local history museum.
Russian craftsmen have always highly valued Altai stones. The same Faberge made his jewelry eggs from Altai quartzite...
Yes, in the Hermitage there are Faberge products made from our Belorechsky quartzite. Including Easter eggs. By the way, the Kolyvan grinding factory made a huge number of such Easter eggs, which the Russian tsar, as commander in chief, then distributed to his subordinates for the holiday.
Such a tradition existed in all troops of the Russian army. My grandfather was an officer in the tsarist army, who went over to the side of the Reds during the Civil War, and ended his military service with the rank of major in the Soviet army. And since tsarist times, he kept such an Easter egg from the Kolyvan factory ...
- Olga Borisovna, what is the significance of the Queen of Vases for our country?
Pavel Svinin in his journal Otechestvennye Zapiski wrote a whole article about the vase in the 19th century, where there were the following words: “Although some bowls and vases brought from Siberian cutting factories to St. with this new cup and even surpass it, but none of them so proves neither the wealth of Siberian nature, nor the bold enterprise of Russian masters.
The queen of vases is one of the state symbols of the Altai Territory. She is depicted not on the coat of arms and flag of the region, but also on the Order of Merit for the Altai Territory.
"Queen of the Vase" is the name of a large Kolyvan vase made of green-wavy jasper.
In 1815, at the Revnevskaya quarry in the Altai mining district, workers led by I. S. Kolychev cleared a rather large cliff of green-wavy jasper from sedimentary rocks. Stones suitable for making large bowls began to be separated from it. Four years later, a monolithic 11-meter section was discovered in the same quarry. From this find, it was possible to separate a monolith 8.5 m long, which, due to a crack, had to be divided into two unequal parts. Most of the stone, 5.6 m long, was recognized as suitable for work.
Shortly thereafter, the manager of the Kolyvan factory, M.S. Laulin, presented to the Cabinet of Alexander I a model and drawings of jasper monoliths mined. On November 21, 1820, an answer came from St. Petersburg with drawings and an order to make an elliptical bowl. The architect A. I. Melnikov became the author of the project.
Work began in February 1828. With the help of 230 workers, the stone was pulled to the stone shed and raised to a meter height. About 100 craftsmen were engaged in the primary processing of the monolith, after which in 1830 the stone was laid on firewood and manually, by the forces of 567 people, the block was moved 30 miles to Kolyvan. At the factory, the workers were engaged in trimming the “towel” of the bowl (upper part). After that, in 1832-1843, the containers of the bowl were created, an ornament was applied and the surface of the jasper was polished. By the same time, a stone for the pedestal was found, in which a hole was drilled for a steel rod (pyron) connecting the pedestal to the foot of the bowl.
On February 19, 1843, a train of 154 horses harnessed to a special sleigh took the bowl from Kolyvan to Barnaul, then to the Utkinskaya pier of the Chusovaya River. Six months later, the bowl was delivered to St. Petersburg, but the barge with it stood for quite a long time on the Fontanka near the Anichkov Bridge. Nevertheless, the stone product was unloaded at the Neva embankment next to the Hermitage. In 1845, it was decided to place the “Queen of the Vases” in the passage of the New Hermitage building - a special foundation was built for it for 4 years. In the autumn of 1849, 770 workers replaced the bowl. Bronze decorations, a wreath of oak leaves, were also added to the vase.
Vase 1808 Kolyvan grinding factory.
Vase 1807 Yekaterinburg cutting factory Urazov jasper, gilded bronze
Vase 1801 Yekaterinburg cutting factory Brekchia, gilded bronze.
Bowl made of rhodonite (eagle) 1868
"Malachite era" is usually called the 30-40s of the XIX century, when new large deposits of malachite were discovered in Gumeshki and near Nizhny Tagil. It was at this time that an unusual fashion for malachite products broke out. Malachite in monumental decorative items becomes the emblem of Russian wealth, causing envy and amazement in Europe.
Many malachite products were made at the Yekaterinburg factory under the direction of Yakov Kokovin. In 1839, the factory bought 46 poods of malachite at the Nizhny Tagil factories at 800 rubles per pood "for making a large vase and other malachite things."
Three years later (in 1842) a large malachite vase was ready. It was made according to the drawing by I. Galberg with a “ribbon” set. In St. Petersburg, in the English store Nichols and Plinke, pens with male heads were made for her from gilded chased bronze. It is one of the most beautiful and largest vases currently stored in the Hermitage. Its height reaches 184 cm. The main thing in it is a wonderful selection of stone. The pattern created by the masters is natural and varied. Regularly alternating, dark and light stripes encircle the body of the vase. The malachite pattern resembles a clearing overgrown with fresh emerald grass, through which the wind drives light green waves.
Floor lamps and a vase made of Korgon porphyry, 1805-1807; 1811
Vase from Badakhshan lapis lazuli 1845 Yekaterinburg Lapidary Factory Height 178.0 cm; diameter 140.0 cm
