The fire in the Winter Palace of Saint Petersburg, then the official residence of the Russian emperors, occurred on December 17, 1837,[citation needed] and was caused by soot inflammation.

[2] Thirty guardsmen died in the fire, although nearly all the items were saved (notably the imperial throne, guards banners, portraits of Russian generals from the Field Marshals' Hall and Military Gallery and the utensils of the Grand Church).

The fire broke out after smoke from an unswept chimney had seeped through an unchoked vent in a partition between the wooden and main walls in the Field Marshal's Hall.

The Court was at the Mikhailovsky Theatre when an aide-de-camp entered the imperial box and informed Prince Volkonsky, one of the ministers then present.

[4] The retired Major-General Baranovich told later how the 10th Navy Crew's private Nestor Troyanov and the commissary department joiner Abram Dorofeev managed to save the image of the Christ the Saviour from the already burning iconostasis.