You read about what they drank in the winter in the last days of the empire here. Today is about how one of the most valuable wine collections of the Russian Empire ended its existence. How the revolution almost drowned in royal wine The storming of the Winter Palace in October 1917 was almost bloodless. The real battle for the palace unfolded a little over a week later, and there were almost more casualties than during the assault itself. A fifth of all Petrograd's alcohol stock was stored in the palace cellars - a collection that the royal family had collected over decades: century-old cognacs, Spanish, Portuguese and Hungarian wines. When this became known, the crowd with the slogan "Let's drink the remnants of Romanov! " Rushed to the cellars. By that time, the Praobrazhensky regiment guarding the entrance became so drunk that it was urgently necessary to replace him with Pavlovsky, but this did not save the situation. They tried to seal the entrances - first with one brick, then with two. The soldiers crushed the barrels in their ass, the wine spread on the cellar floor, and people literally licked it off the floor. According to eyewitnesses, three soldiers were later found dead on the basement floor: they inhaled fumes, fell and choked on wine. The authorities tried to reach an agreement with the elements: the Military Revolutionary Committee officially allowed the soldiers to be given two bottles of wine a day, just to stop the uncontrolled looting. In the end, fire crews were called, the cellars were filled with water, and then the resulting mixture of wine, water and dirt was pumped straight into the Neba. According to eyewitnesses, red-brown streams flowed from Zimni for a day or two, until there was nothing left in the cellars. Thus, one of the world's most expensive wine collections ended its journey in the sewers and muddy waters of the Neva under the slogan of equality and the end of privileges.

You read about what they drank in the winter in the last days of the empire here. Today is about how one of the most valuable wine collections of the Russian Empire ended its existence. How the revolution almost drowned in royal wine The storming of the Winter Palace in October 1917 was almost bloodless. The real battle for the palace unfolded a little over a week later, and there were almost more casualties than during the assault itself. A fifth of all Petrograd's alcohol stock was stored in the palace cellars - a collection that the royal family had collected over decades: century-old cognacs, Spanish, Portuguese and Hungarian wines. When this became known, the crowd with the slogan "Let's drink the remnants of Romanov! " Rushed to the cellars. By that time, the Praobrazhensky regiment guarding the entrance became so drunk that it was urgently necessary to replace him with Pavlovsky, but this did not save the situation. They tried to seal the entrances - first with one brick, then with two. The soldiers crushed the barrels in their ass, the wine spread on the cellar floor, and people literally licked it off the floor. According to eyewitnesses, three soldiers were later found dead on the basement floor: they inhaled fumes, fell and choked on wine. The authorities tried to reach an agreement with the elements: the Military Revolutionary Committee officially allowed the soldiers to be given two bottles of wine a day, just to stop the uncontrolled looting. In the end, fire crews were called, the cellars were filled with water, and then the resulting mixture of wine, water and dirt was pumped straight into the Neba. According to eyewitnesses, red-brown streams flowed from Zimni for a day or two, until there was nothing left in the cellars. Thus, one of the world's most expensive wine collections ended its journey in the sewers and muddy waters of the Neva under the slogan of equality and the end of privileges.