The Ice Palace of Anna Ioannovna

 The winter of 1739–40 was incredibly harsh throughout Europe and especially brutal in Russia. The temperature dropped to forty degrees below zero and the mighty Neva River froze completely, as it did every winter. But this year Tsarina Anna Ioannovna ordered blocks of ice to be cut from the frozen Neva and a magnificent ice palace built on the river bank.

The winter of 1739–40 was incredibly harsh throughout Europe and especially brutal in Russia. The temperature dropped to forty degrees below zero and the mighty Neva River froze completely, as it did every winter. But this year Tsarina Anna Ioannovna ordered blocks of ice to be cut from the frozen Neva and a magnificent ice palace built on the river bank.

The palace was 60 feet wide and 30 feet high and was constructed from ice blocks weighing 120 kilograms each. These huge blocks were placed one on top of the other and water was sprayed which instantly froze and the blocks stuck together firmly. The walls were three feet thick, and contained windows, doors, and an external staircase as well as a balustrade and vestibule. The rooms were well stocked with furniture such as dressing tables, sofas, armchairs, a large bed and a cup board with wine glasses and utensils, all made of ice. Even the wood in the fireplace was made of ice. In the master bedroom, ice curtains hung on the windows and soft fluffy pillows were replaced with hard icy blocks. The corners of the room were decorated with statues of Kamadeva. Ornamental ice dolphins breathed fire from their mouths, and a giant elephant statue sprayed water from its trunk like a fountain.

The Ice Palace was part of a celebration organized by the Czarina in celebration of Russia's victory over the Ottoman Empire. At the center of the festivities and the ice palace itself was a sham wedding that Empress Anna had organized to further humiliate her disgraced nobleman-turned-clown Prince Mikhail Golitsyn, who had fallen out of the Tsarina's favor by marrying a Catholic Italian girl. They went. A trip abroad. Empress Anna, who was Eastern Orthodox, viewed the marriage as a disgrace and promptly exiled the wife, stripping Prince Golitsyn of his lands and title and making him her new court jester. She spent her days sitting in a basket next to Anna's table and pouring cups of kvass, a drink made from fermented bread, over her. Sometimes, the basket in which he sat would be filled with eggs, which he would pretend to lay for the amusement of the guests.

Empress Anna also arranged a new wife for her fool – an ugly girl from the lowest ethnic class, a maid of Kalmyk descent named Avdotya. After the wedding in the church, the colorfully attired bride and groom were placed in a large cage and tied to the back of an elephant, then paraded through the streets of St. Petersburg. The wedding procession included more than 400 people from different tribes, some of whom rode camels, others on sleds pulled by deer, pigs, dogs and even goats and cats. The procession ended in the ice palace, where the unhappy couple were put inside an icy wedding chamber and ordered to consummate their marriage before they died. The cruel Tsarina barricaded the doors and posted guards outside to prevent the couple from escaping. Fortunately, Avdotya was able to exchange her pearl necklace with a guard for a sheepskin coat, and the couple managed to survive that night. The next morning, both newlyweds emerged from the ice palace, in the words of historian Henry Troyte, "with nothing worse than a runny nose and some frostbite."

Art historian and professor Julia Herzberg wrote, "Through the Fool's Wedding and the Ice Palace, Tsarina Anna succeeded in presenting herself as a powerful and enlightened monarch who was not shy of comparison with other European rulers." There was no need."

However, like all vanity projects, the ice palace melted as the spring sun warmed up. The Tsarina died before the next winter began and her successor, Anna Leopoldovna, freed Mikhail and Avdotya from their servitude as jesters. The couple remained married until Avdotya died while giving birth to her second child in 1742.