The Winter Palace is the former official residence of the Russian tsars of the House of Romanov in Saint Petersburg, built in its present form between 1754 and 1762 to designs by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli in an elaborate late Baroque style commissioned by Empress Elizabeth. It occupies a prominent site between the Neva River embankment and Palace Square. In October 1917 the palace was stormed by Bolshevik forces, an event that marked the effective end of the Russian Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky. Today the palace and its adjoining buildings house the State Hermitage Museum, one of the largest and oldest art museums in the world, holding millions of works of art and historical artifacts.
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