Old postcards By Livadia Palace

Livadia Palace was built in 1910–1911 for Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor, to a design by the Yalta architect Nikolai Krasnov, replacing the older Great Palace on the same site. Faced with white Inkerman stone in an Italian Renaissance manner, it is also known as the White Palace. In February 1945 it hosted the meeting of the Soviet, American and British leaders that the card captions call the Crimean Conference; the American delegation, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, stayed here.

Two sets of Soviet postcards of Livadia Palace are scanned here. The 1978 set moves from the exterior inward: the west and south fronts, the portico of the main entrance, the vestibule with its fireplace and the painting “Crimean Conference”, the White Hall with “Penelope”, the Divan Room, a ground-floor room with a dragon furniture suite and the blue vase in the billiard room.

The 1986 set, titled “Around Livadia Palace”, takes other angles: the vestibule colonnade, the first and second state rooms, part of the Ukrainian SSR hall exhibition and, in the park, the Florentine lantern, the Turkish pavilion, the “Livadia” fountain and the bell tower. The Italian courtyard appears in both, so the two shoots eight years apart are easy to compare.

Each image here is a scan of an original card from one of the two sets.

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