My story about the Palace is not just a list of well-known and not very well-known information about it, but also an attempt to reveal to you the full dramatic events and numerous secrets of the history of this square, which has become for all of us and something much more than just a world famous monument of architecture. I must say that such attempts have already been made more than once, but, alas, this was done in an era when the very phrase "Palace Square" was turned into a kind of ideological cliche, which means that everything related to the past of the Palace was set forth according to the once and for all pattern.