Education
He graduated with a gold medal and went to further his studies in Italy.
He graduated with a gold medal and went to further his studies in Italy.
His teachers at the Imperial Academy of Arts included Andreyan Zakharov. Melnikov became de facto Dean of the Academy in 1831 but was not officially appointed until 1843. Melnikov collaborated with sculptor Ivan Martos on the pedestals for his statues of Minin and Pozharsky in Red Square and Duc de Richelieu at the top of the Potemkin Stairs in Odessa.
Apart from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence and the Old Believer Church of Saint Nicholas (later converted into the Arctic and Antarctic Museum), Melnikov"s major buildings are in New Russia and the Volga provinces.
Neither design was approved by Alexander I of Russia. His successor, Nicholas I, also preferred the Russo-Byzantine designs of Konstantin Thon to the supposedly ponderous Late Neoclassical style espoused by Melnikov.