Prince Oldenburg Children's Hospital

Children's city multidisciplinary clinical center of high medical technology in the name of K.A. Rauchfus - the first children's hospital in St. Petersburg. It was opened in 1869 by the care of Prince P.G. Oldenburgsky and was intended "for sick children of all classes and mostly insufficient parents."

In the 18th century, the Ligovsky Canal flowed here, delivering the water of the League River (now Duderhofka) to the center of St. Petersburg. In the second half of the 19th century, the canal was dried and Ligovskaya Street was laid along its former channel (Ligovsky Prospect since 1956). And on the hospital site there was a pond where elephants were taken to the watering place from the Elephant yard, which in 1744-1778 was located on the site of the current Oktyabrskaya Hotel.

The hospital was built in the years 1867-1869 according to the project of the architect Caesar Kavos and is equipped to the highest standards of the time. The clinic plan was drawn up by the outstanding specialist in childhood diseases K.A. Rauchfus. In three buildings - the main, separate and summer - housed 57 wards, adapted to receive from 200 to 250 sick children. For the first time in the history of hospital care in Russia, the infectious ward was housed in a separate building, and patients were in isolated wards, and for the first time in Russia, white coats were introduced for doctors and all staff. There was forced ventilation with heating and humidification.

Shortly before the end of construction, permission was obtained to set up a church at the hospital, although it was not on the initial draft. The church was built at the expense of the merchant I.I. Smirnov.

The temple was located in an oblong hall on the second or third floors of the central risalit and was consecrated together with the hospital. There was a small belfry on the roof, in the courtyard there was a stone chapel for funeral services.

The opening of the hospital took place on September 30, 1869. In 1878, at the World Exhibition in Paris, the Prince Oldenburgsky Hospital was awarded the Big Gold Medal, the project was taken as a standard in the construction of other children's hospitals in Russia.

During the Great Patriotic War in the hospital of Rauchfus children of besieged Leningrad with alimentary dystrophy, pneumonia, burns, and wounds were treated.