The estate of the princes Golitsyn of the museum town of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin has repeatedly changed its appearance over the three centuries of its history. The author of the original project was the famous St. Petersburg architect Savva Chevakinsky. In 1774, the estate was rebuilt and became the central part of the Prechistensky Palace, designed by Matvey Kazakov for Catherine II.
The walls of this house have seen many famous people. A.S. appeared at luxurious balls more than once. Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich was even going to get married to Natalya Goncharova in the house church of Prince Golitsyn, but the wedding ceremony was arranged in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord at the Nikitsky Gate. In 1877, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky settled in the main house. Here he completed the play “The Last Victim”, wrote “Dowry”, “Heart is not a Stone”, “Talents and Admirers”. In 1885, the neighboring apartment was occupied by Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov, one of the leaders of the Slavophile movement.
In 1865, a free museum consisting of family collections was opened in five halls of the main house of the Golitsyn estate. The museum had three sections: Western European painting, sculpture and decorative arts; ancient monuments; library. The picturesque collection of the owners of the house included works by Bruegel, van Dyck, Veronese, Canaletto, Caravaggio, Perugino, Poussin, and Rembrandt. A year later, due to financial difficulties, the museum’s collection was sold to the Hermitage. After the revolution, in the late 1920s, the main house of the estate became the Communist Academy; it was built on two floors, as a result of which the pediment was lost. The impressive gate, crowned with the princely coat of arms of the Golitsyns, is the only thing that has survived to this day in its original form.
After the reconstruction is completed, in the former building of the central building of the Golitsyn estate, a Gallery of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art will open, which will exhibit works by outstanding masters of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries: Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse and Fauvists, Picasso and Cubists, originating from the collections of the famous pre-revolutionary Moscow collectors S.I. Shchukin and I.A. Morozova.
The city estate is located on Volkhonka Street, 14, and its main entrance faces Maly Znamensky Lane, 1.
Operating mode:
- Wednesday-Sunday - from 13:00 to 22:00;
- Monday, Tuesday - closed.
Golitsyn Estate
The ancient estate on Volkhonka, which belonged to the princes Golitsyn since the 18th century, is a witness to many cultural and historical events of the Mother See. Its ensemble consists of a main house, a courtyard wing and an entrance gate. The house, built at the turning point from Baroque to Classicism, was built according to the design of a Russian architect who worked mostly in St. Petersburg, Savva Chevakinsky, the author of the Naval Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Subsequently, the building was rebuilt several times. The impressive gate, crowned with the princely coat of arms of the Golitsyns, is the only thing that has survived to this day in its original form.
The property was bought by M. M. Golitsyn (junior), president of the Admiralty College. (This probably determined the connection between the customer of the estate and Savva Chevachinsky, who actively collaborated with the Admiralty Department.) At the time of the purchase of the plot, there was a large hay hut on it, built on the site of the stone chambers shown in the so-called “Peter’s drawing” of the late 16th century century. This hut was demolished, and during the construction of Golitsyn’s house, part of the walls of the ancient chambers may have been used. The gate has survived intact to this day. Their two pylons, connected by a smooth arch, are processed with rusticated blades and completed with a multi-stage attic, where the stone coat of arms of the Golitsyn princes was placed. They are flanked on both sides by stone gates with the same stepped finish as the gate. The gate, like the façade of the main house, faces the alley.
The estate was turned into an alley, where a massive gate still opens. The layout of the estate was typical for the first half of the 18th century: in the depths of it there was a house, separated from the red line by a front courtyard - a cour d'honneur with a flower garden in the middle; there were outbuildings on both sides of the house. The entire estate was surrounded by a fence. At first the fence was solid, made of stone, only at the end of the 19th century its remaining part was replaced with a forged lattice between rusticated pillars. The first floor of the right wing retained, on the end façade facing the alley, decorative baroque processing in the form of panels in which the windows were placed. The facade facing the main house was completely redone in the 70s of the 18th century. All that remains of the left wing is a small two-story part, which was heavily rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century.
The main house in the middle of the 18th century was a two-story massive volume with risalits, identical on both the main and courtyard facades, apparently with equally decorated complex-shaped window frames and, possibly, panels. But the house did not last long in this form - about 13 years. After the death of the owner, the estate passed to his son, also Mikhail Golitsyn. This owner is associated with a stay in the house of Empress Catherine II
Having concluded the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace with Turkey, Catherine II was going to Moscow for solemn festivities. Remembering the everyday inconveniences of the Kremlin and not wanting to stay in it, on August 6, 1774, she turned in a letter to M. M. Golitsyn with the question: “... is there a stone or wooden house in the city in which I could fit in and belong to the courtyard? it could be located near the house... or... isn’t it possible to quickly build a wooden (structure) anywhere.” Naturally, M. M. Golitsyn offered his house. At the same time, under the leadership of Matvey Kazakov, a project was made for the Prechistensky Palace, which included the Golitsyn house, the Dolgorukov house (No. 16) and a large wooden part on the site of the current gas station. The houses included in the palace were connected by passages, and behind the main house there was a wooden building with a throne and ballroom, a living room and a church. Catherine II stayed in the estate for almost a year.
As for house 14, Kazakov preserved the entire volume of Golitsyn’s house, expanding only the left courtyard projection towards Volkhonka, and built mezzanines on the upper floors of both projections (their windows are still visible). A representative of the era of classicism, M. F. Kazakov endowed the facade of the house with its indispensable features: in the center there was a six-pilaster portico of the solemn Corinthian order, completed with a flat, smooth pediment. In the middle part of the portico, the rhythm of the pilasters is interrupted: three high windows with a semicircular arch above the middle window of the second, front, floor and elegant panels above the windows of the first floor are united by a wide balcony. Its graceful parapets with flowers inscribed in circles still decorate the main, eastern facade of the house. A more modest balcony is symmetrically located on the courtyard, western facade. In this way, special expressiveness was achieved in the architecture of the mansion. And the risalits remaining from the Baroque building enlivened the volume of the house and created a rich play of light and shadow on the facade.
In 1812, the estate witnessed the war with Napoleon. At that time, the headquarters of Napoleonic General Armand Louis de Caulaincourt, who served as the French ambassador to Russia before the start of the war, was located here. He was personally acquainted with Golitsyn, and during the fire it was thanks to his efforts and the efforts of Golitsyn’s servants who remained in the house that the estate and neighboring buildings were saved from the fire.
The walls of the house have seen many famous people. At one time, A.S. Pushkin also appeared at the luxurious balls held at the Golitsyn estate. At first, he was even going to get married to Natalya Goncharova in the house church of Prince Golitsyn, but in the end the wedding ceremony was arranged in the bride’s parish church at the Nikitsky Gate.
At the end of the 19th century, the left wing was converted into furnished rooms and was rented out to tenants, receiving the name “Princely Court”. Here lived A. N. Ostrovsky, prominent representatives of the leading socio-philosophical movements of that time - Westernism and Slavophilism - B. N. Chicherin and. S. Aksakov, V.I. Surikov, A.N. Scriabin and others also stayed for a long time at the “Princely Court”. E. Repin, and in the 20s of the 20th century B. L. Pasternak settled in one of the apartments.
The Golitsyns collected Western paintings from generation to generation, and part of the once famous Golitsyn Hospital Museum became part of the home collection of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich, which was then replenished by his nephew, diplomat Mikhail Alexandrovich. At that time, a free museum was located in the five main halls of the house, where rare paintings and books were exhibited. However, soon Sergei Mikhailovich (the second) became the new owner of the palace, who sold the entire artistic part of the collection to the St. Petersburg Hermitage.
Having come under the jurisdiction of the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin in the late 20th century, the building was reconstructed, today it houses the exhibition building of the Gallery of Arts of Europe and Asia of the 19th - 20th centuries.
During Tsarist Russia, noble families had huge estates. After the 1917 revolution and World War II, few of them were lucky enough to survive. The Golitsyn estate is one of the estates that survived difficult historical events, were restored, became museums and came under the protection of the Federal Program of the Russian Federation. Inside the courtyard, manorial buildings with outbuildings, cattle and horse yards, sculptures, a park, temples have been preserved...
The history of the estate and its name
The first mention of the area where the estate of the Golitsyn princes was later located dates back to the 17th century. It belonged to the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery along with the mill. Later, in 1702, it was transferred into the possession of Georgy Stroganov, the son of an industrialist, who came from a noble family. Initially, he received a mill with a pond, and then the surrounding wasteland.
In 1716, construction began on the church, which was consecrated in honor of the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God. After completion of construction, the Kuzminki estate was renamed Vlahernskoe. The name was given so long ago that no one remembers exactly why the mill was called that: either the previous owner was Kuzma, or the monastery bore the names of Kuzma and Danila. One way or another, in 1740 Georgy Stroganov received Kuzminki for his sole use and began to slowly develop it. It was then that the pond was created, which has survived to this day.
The estate has a new owner
In 1757, Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn, the scion of one of the most distinguished noble families, the brother of the vice-chancellor, became the owner of the estate. There were four branches in their family, the descendants of three still live. After marrying Anna Stroganova, Golitsyn received her dowry in the form of 518 acres of land and the Vlacherna estate itself. It remained in the possession of the princely family until the revolution.
Development of the estate
After the wedding of the Golitsyns’ daughter in Kuzminki, she began to transform. The old house was rebuilt, and much attention was paid to landscape design. Particularly noteworthy is the cascade of four ponds, which can still be admired today. served as a role model for the surrounding landowners and nobles. Almost all the buildings were rebuilt: settlements, horse and cattle yards, a church, a pier.
After the death of Prince Mikhail, his son, Sergei Mikhailovich (according to some statements, his great-nephew) took over. Under him, the Golitsyn estate “Kuzminki” became so famous for its architecture that it was compared with the cities of Pavlovsk and Peterhof near St. Petersburg.
CM. Golitsyn was a major industrialist and owned iron foundries. All masterpieces of park architecture, such as gates, benches and sculptures, were cast on them. To create monuments, lanterns, girandoles and others, the prince invited such masters as Rossi, Compioni, A Voronikhin, M. Bykovsky and others. Having turned into a masterpiece of construction and landscape design, the Golitsyn estate in Kuzminki was called the Russian Versailles among art connoisseurs.
The further fate of the estate
The estate expanded and prospered until the death of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich. After his death, the estate of the princes Golitsyn “Vlahernskoye-Kuzminki” passed to his nephew Mikhail Alexandrovich, who served as ambassador to Spain. He practically never appeared on the estate.
Later, the Golitsyn estate in Kuzminki went to his son Sergei Mikhailovich. The estate is becoming desolate... The prince moves to Dubrovitsy, reduces the staff of servants, and rents out the premises as dachas. Several buildings for vacationers were even built here.
When Golitsyn’s estate went to his son, Sergei Sergeevich, the First World War was going on. Some of the estate's buildings were given over to a hospital for officers. Because of their negligence, a fire broke out, the Lord's house and the Western wing burned down - these buildings remained wooden.
In 1918, the Golitsyn estate became owned by the Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine. Products containing precious metals were confiscated in favor of the new state, cast iron masterpieces were sent to be melted down. The old church was turned into a holiday home. In 1941, despite the constant bombing of the German army, Golitsyn's estate was practically undamaged.
In 1960, the estate, which had fallen into disrepair, received monument status. has become a popular holiday destination and a center for various cultural events.
Front yard
Kuzminki (estate museum) begins with the “Front Courtyard” exhibition. It includes many elements that deserve separate consideration: the Lord's House, the Western and Eastern Wings, the Entrance Bridge, the Gate of the Main Courtyard, the Courtyard Fence and the Egyptian Pavilion (kitchen).
The front courtyard was designed by the architect I.V. Egorov. In order to separate it from the rest of the territory, it was surrounded by a fence and a moat, which was filled with water under the Golitsyns. You could get to the Lord's House through the Entrance Bridge with lanterns. According to the plan, all buildings should be clearly visible, so the yard was decorated with flower beds and low-growing bushes. The Egyptian pavilion was used as a kitchen.
Ensemble "Kuzminsky Park"
Today, Kuzminsky Park is a whole complex of natural and architectural monuments. It contains the English and French parks, the cascade of Kuzminsky ponds, the House on the dam, Grottoes, and Lion's Pier. The parks are now almost entirely open to the public and host a variety of events. The magnificent ponds are also open to visitors. The only exception is the territory owned by the institute.
The cascade consists of four ponds: Upper Kuzminsky, Nizhny Kuzminsky, Shibaevsky, Shchuchiy. On the first is the Lion's Pier. This is where boat trips used to begin. Between the Upper and Lower ponds, on the dam, on the site of a former mill, a house was built. It housed guests who stayed overnight.
On one bank there was a Musical Pavilion, where pop performances are now held, and on the opposite bank there were two grottoes - One-Arch and Three-Arch. In the first, under the Golitsyns, theatrical performances were staged by the hosts and guests. On the shore of the Lower Pond there was a poultry house, which was later rebuilt into a blacksmith shop.
Temple in the estate
The Golitsyn estate received its second name precisely because of this temple. granted the former owner of the estate, Stroganov, a copy of the Blachernae icon. To store it, a wooden temple was built in 1716-1720.
Golitsyn rebuilt the church - now its walls were made of stone. Napoleon's troops destroyed it, but after the war the owners of the estate restored the temple, installed marble iconostasis, a clock on the bell tower, and re-consecrated it.
After 1929, the 3rd floor was completed, the church was first turned into a dormitory, and then into the office premises of the institute. After 1990, the temple was transferred to the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church and restored.
How to get to Kuzminki
In fact, the museum, which today represents the Golitsyn estate in Kuzminki, is not only the attractions we described. These are gazebos, sculptures, horse and barnyards and much more. One day is simply not enough to explore all the exhibits, so it is better to come here several times.
Getting to the estate museum is not at all difficult. All you need to do is get to the Kuzminki metro station and walk for 15-20 minutes. This way you can get to the main entrance to the museum. To quickly get to certain exhibitions in the estate, you can use a minibus, but since they rarely run, it will be faster to take the metro or walk.
Golitsyn Estate
The ancient estate on Volkhonka, which belonged to the princes Golitsyn since the 18th century, is a witness to many cultural and historical events of the Mother See. Its ensemble consists of a main house, a courtyard wing and an entrance gate. The house, built at the turning point from Baroque to Classicism, was built according to the design of a Russian architect who worked mostly in St. Petersburg, Savva Chevakinsky, the author of the Naval Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Subsequently, the building was rebuilt several times. The impressive gate, crowned with the princely coat of arms of the Golitsyns, is the only thing that has survived to this day in its original form.
The property was bought by M. M. Golitsyn (junior), president of the Admiralty College. (This probably determined the connection between the customer of the estate and Savva Chevachinsky, who actively collaborated with the Admiralty Department.) At the time of the purchase of the plot, there was a large hay hut on it, built on the site of the stone chambers shown in the so-called “Peter’s drawing” of the late 16th century century. This hut was demolished, and during the construction of Golitsyn’s house, part of the walls of the ancient chambers may have been used. The gate has survived intact to this day. Their two pylons, connected by a smooth arch, are processed with rusticated blades and completed with a multi-stage attic, where the stone coat of arms of the Golitsyn princes was placed. They are flanked on both sides by stone gates with the same stepped finish as the gate. The gate, like the façade of the main house, faces the alley.
The estate was turned into an alley, where a massive gate still opens. The layout of the estate was typical for the first half of the 18th century: in the depths of it there was a house, separated from the red line by a front courtyard - a cour d'honneur with a flower garden in the middle; there were outbuildings on both sides of the house. The entire estate was surrounded by a fence. At first the fence was solid, made of stone, only at the end of the 19th century its remaining part was replaced with a forged lattice between rusticated pillars. The first floor of the right wing retained, on the end façade facing the alley, decorative baroque processing in the form of panels in which the windows were placed. The facade facing the main house was completely redone in the 70s of the 18th century. All that remains of the left wing is a small two-story part, which was heavily rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century.
The main house in the middle of the 18th century was a two-story massive volume with risalits, identical on both the main and courtyard facades, apparently with equally decorated complex-shaped window frames and, possibly, panels. But the house did not last long in this form - about 13 years. After the death of the owner, the estate passed to his son, also Mikhail Golitsyn. This owner is associated with a stay in the house of Empress Catherine II
Having concluded the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace with Turkey, Catherine II was going to Moscow for solemn festivities. Remembering the everyday inconveniences of the Kremlin and not wanting to stay in it, on August 6, 1774, she turned in a letter to M. M. Golitsyn with the question: “... is there a stone or wooden house in the city in which I could fit in and belong to the courtyard? it could be located near the house... or... isn’t it possible to quickly build a wooden (structure) anywhere.” Naturally, M. M. Golitsyn offered his house. At the same time, under the leadership of Matvey Kazakov, a project was made for the Prechistensky Palace, which included the Golitsyn house, the Dolgorukov house (No. 16) and a large wooden part on the site of the current gas station. The houses included in the palace were connected by passages, and behind the main house there was a wooden building with a throne and ballroom, a living room and a church. Catherine II stayed in the estate for almost a year.
As for house 14, Kazakov preserved the entire volume of Golitsyn’s house, expanding only the left courtyard projection towards Volkhonka, and built mezzanines on the upper floors of both projections (their windows are still visible). A representative of the era of classicism, M. F. Kazakov endowed the facade of the house with its indispensable features: in the center there was a six-pilaster portico of the solemn Corinthian order, completed with a flat, smooth pediment. In the middle part of the portico, the rhythm of the pilasters is interrupted: three high windows with a semicircular arch above the middle window of the second, front, floor and elegant panels above the windows of the first floor are united by a wide balcony. Its graceful parapets with flowers inscribed in circles still decorate the main, eastern facade of the house. A more modest balcony is symmetrically located on the courtyard, western facade. In this way, special expressiveness was achieved in the architecture of the mansion. And the risalits remaining from the Baroque building enlivened the volume of the house and created a rich play of light and shadow on the facade.
In 1812, the estate witnessed the war with Napoleon. At that time, the headquarters of Napoleonic General Armand Louis de Caulaincourt, who served as the French ambassador to Russia before the start of the war, was located here. He was personally acquainted with Golitsyn, and during the fire it was thanks to his efforts and the efforts of Golitsyn’s servants who remained in the house that the estate and neighboring buildings were saved from the fire.
The walls of the house have seen many famous people. At one time, A.S. Pushkin also appeared at the luxurious balls held at the Golitsyn estate. At first, he was even going to get married to Natalya Goncharova in the house church of Prince Golitsyn, but in the end the wedding ceremony was arranged in the bride’s parish church at the Nikitsky Gate.
At the end of the 19th century, the left wing was converted into furnished rooms and was rented out to tenants, receiving the name “Princely Court”. Here lived A. N. Ostrovsky, prominent representatives of the leading socio-philosophical movements of that time - Westernism and Slavophilism - B. N. Chicherin and. S. Aksakov, V.I. Surikov, A.N. Scriabin and others also stayed for a long time at the “Princely Court”. E. Repin, and in the 20s of the 20th century B. L. Pasternak settled in one of the apartments.
The Golitsyns collected Western paintings from generation to generation, and part of the once famous Golitsyn Hospital Museum became part of the home collection of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich, which was then replenished by his nephew, diplomat Mikhail Alexandrovich. At that time, a free museum was located in the five main halls of the house, where rare paintings and books were exhibited. However, soon Sergei Mikhailovich (the second) became the new owner of the palace, who sold the entire artistic part of the collection to the St. Petersburg Hermitage.
Having come under the jurisdiction of the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin in the late 20th century, the building was reconstructed, today it houses the exhibition building of the Gallery of Arts of Europe and Asia of the 19th - 20th centuries.
April
2012
Estate of the Lopukhins - Potemkins - Protasovs
The knee of Maly Znamensky Lane is a miracle of Moscow estate. The section of the alley coming from Volkhonka abuts the gates of the Vyazemsky estate, the section from Znamenka ends at the gates of the Lopukhins’ estate, and both segments are visually closed to the manor’s houses. Coming out of the Vyazemsky Gate, we immediately enter the Lopukhin Gate - the modern Roerich Museum (Maly Znamensky, 3).
The gate itself is remarkable for its 19th-century lattice with a floral motif, which contrasts with the classic portico of the manor house.
The architecture of the main facade illustrates the later pages of the history of the estate, so the reverse sequence of the story is justified here.
The magnificent coat of arms in the pediment, built according to all the laws of heraldry, is striking. This is the second of three promised coats of arms of Volkhonka. The shield is topped with a jagged crown - a sign of the count's dignity of Alexander Yakovlevich Protasov. The count's crown was granted to him by Alexander I in the year when Alexander himself was crowned with the royal cap. Granted “to express Our gratitude for his zealous labors incurred in educating Us.”
On the classic surface of the wall, voluminous 17th-century platbands protrude in two places. One of them does not match the later window. The platbands, of course, were exhibited by restorers.
The courtyard facade was completely restored to the 17th century. The outer porch, recreated from the foundations using analogies, is striking. To the right you can see the blocked passage arch - a fashionable device of those years, strangely combined with the free placement of the house in the center of the courtyard.
According to the memoirist Berchholtz, Peter settled Poltava prisoners in the house - Field Marshal Karl Gustav Renschild, Chief Marshal Karl Pieper and others. Pieper was kept in Moscow until 1715 and died in Shlisselburg in 1716; Renschild was exchanged for Stockholm prisoners - Prince Ivan Trubetskoy and General Automon Golovin - in 1718. In the same year, Abraham Lopukhin was arrested and executed. It turns out that the Swedes were kept in the Lopukhins' house until it was confiscated.
And after the confiscation, a branch of the linen factory of Ivan (John) Tames was located in the estate.
Emperor Peter II - the son of Tsarevich Alexei and the grandson of Queen Evdokia - returned the confiscated chambers to the children of Abraham Lopukhin. Then both Queen Evdokia and the capital itself returned to Moscow.
According to the clergy records, the architectural student Prince Dmitry Vasilyevich Ukhomsky, the future luminary of the Baroque, the builder of the Red Gate and the bell tower of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, lived in the Lopukhins’ house for some time.
The chambers remained in the Lopukhin family until 1774 .
That year became significant for the inhabitants of all the ancient lordly nests near the Kolymazhny yard. Catherine appointed Moscow as the center of celebrations for peace with the Turks and was preparing to arrive in the capital to meet the winner - Rumyantsev. In the absence of the Kremlin Palace, which was never built by Bazhenov, the Empress occupied the so-called Prechistensky Palace.
The Prechistensky (by its then name Volkhonki) palace was a conglomerate of three houses acquired or hired by the crown and connected by temporary halls and passages. The former Lopukhins' house was intended for the gentlemen on duty.
Exactly the former: Catherine wrote to Baron Grimm from Moscow that this house now belongs to her and “is assigned to those who need to live at court. The rest of the retinue are housed in ten or twelve rented houses.”
It is possible that behind the plural number of gentlemen on duty is hidden the only gentleman on duty - Potemkin. Too significant, ceremonial place is occupied by “Potemkin’s chambers” in the chronicle of the Prechistensky Palace. So, on February 13, 1775, the favorite hosted a dinner in honor of the European envoys. On July 8, Field Marshal Rumyantsev, the main hero of the celebrations, arrived in Moscow and visited the Empress, then the heir, and then Potemkin in the Prechistensky Palace. It's like walking from house to house along passages. On September 30, his name day was celebrated in Potemkin’s chambers.
What is most eloquent is the fact that after the abolition of the palace, the former chambers of the Lopukhins turned out to be the property of Potemkin’s mother Daria Vasilievna and remained with her, and in fact with her son, for 12 years.
If we take into account that Potemkin gave the family yard at the Nikitsky Gate for the construction of the Church of the Great Ascension, and acquired land on Vorontsov Field, but did not build it up, then the Lopukhins’ chambers with the Protasovs’ coat of arms are the only house of His Serene Highness Prince Tauride preserved in Moscow.
Golitsyn Estate
The house of Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn (Maly Znamensky Lane, 1/14, corner of Volkhonka) became its own (imperial) half of the Prechistensky Palace. This is the main surviving address of Catherine the Great within the boundaries of old Moscow. (Indeed, the Petrovsky Castle is located behind the outpost; the hostess never moved into the Lefortovo Catherine Palace, and the existing living quarters of the Kremlin Palace belong to other eras.)
In the summer of 1774, the Empress asked Golitsyn in a letter “if there is a stone or wooden house in the city that would accommodate me.” The prince's answer was clear in advance. Probably, Golitsyn’s house was chosen because of its proximity to the Kolymazhny yard, which could accommodate a court “train.” The nearby Kremlin was visible across the courtyard.
In four months, by the New Year, “thousands of hands” under the leadership of Matvey Kazakov adapted and connected with passages the houses that were part of the palace, and behind the Golitsyn house they built a special wooden building with a throne room.
The Empress spoke about the palace in her Mozartian light epistolary style: “... Finding oneself in this labyrinth is a difficult task: two hours passed before I found out the way to my office, constantly ending up at the wrong door. There are many exit doors, I have never seen so many of them in my life. Half a dozen were repaired according to my instructions...” After which Kazakov... received the title of architect and orders for the Petrovsky Palace and the Kremlin Senate.
Among the unsealed doors, there was one special one. According to historian Pyotr Bartenev, “a door was made from the house of Prince Golitsyn into the house next door in the alley, which belonged to Potemkin’s mother... which all the old servants remember.”
The secret spouses spent the entire year 1775 in Moscow - the second year of their marriage. On July 12, in the Prechistensky Palace, forty-six-year-old Catherine gave birth for the last time. The girl was named Elizaveta Temkina and given to the family of Count Samoilov, Potemkin’s nephew.
On the eve of the ceremonial events, the Empress spent the night in the Kremlin. The difficult dislocation of 1775 corresponded to her ambivalent attitude towards Moscow. In the St. Petersburg way, not loving the mother throne, Catherine was still a people's, zemstvo empress, who accepted the title of Mother of the Fatherland in Moscow and from Moscow. And in Zaneglimenye, Catherine, like the oprichnina Tsar Ivan once, cultivated privateness. The Prechistensky Palace became an experience in the renewal of medieval impulses and meanings of Zaneglimenye, the oprichnina Chertolye.
In the backyard of the Golitsyn estate, with the main facade facing Prechistenka (Volkhonka), Kazakov erected a wooden building with a throne and ballroom, a living room and a church. At the end of the celebrations, Catherine ordered this building to be moved to the Sparrow Hills, to the foundations of the ancient palace of the kings. Francesco Camporesi left us a drawing of the Vorobyovsky Palace. There is no foundation in the old place, since the throne building stood on stilts. Only the plan, a section of the throne room and a drawing of the iconostasis have survived. In the section we see the throne under the canopy, the transition to the Golitsyn house and part of the baroque facade of the neighboring house - the residence of the heir Paul (more about it below).
Prince Golitsyn did not cease to own the estate during the empress's stay. In general, the estate was not inclined to “change the surname”: the Golitsyns owned it until 1903. The family names of the Golitsyns from Volkhonka are Mikhail, Sergei, Alexander, their Moscow region is Kuzminki.
The property near Kolymazhny Dvor became Golitsyn's in 1738. Its acquirer, Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Jr., made a naval career. As a young officer, having become famous in naval victories under Peter, he became president of the Admiralty Board under Elizaveta Petrovna. Outlived all the famous associates of Peter the Great. Petersburg for a long time did not let the prince go to the Moscow house, which remained one-story. Only at the turn of the 1760s did the old man undertake its reconstruction, ordering the project from his subordinate, the architect of the naval department, Savva Chevakinsky.
The famous author of the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral and the Fountain House in St. Petersburg, Savva Ivanovich, executed the drawings, carried out on the spot with modifications. The appearance of the admiral's house can be judged by the end (whitewashed) part of the right wing and by the manor gate. The house was built at the turning point from Baroque to Classicism and on the threshold of the “golden age” of freedom of the nobility. The nobility, exempted from compulsory service, preferred Moscow to St. Petersburg.
Particularly impressive is the gate, crowned with the prince’s coat of arms - the third to survive on Volkhonka. Together, the local coats of arms form an encyclopedia of heraldry. After the untitled nobles Voeikovs and Counts Protasovs are the princes Golitsyns. The princely shield is crowned with a “perforated” crown.
The Latin monogram “PMG” - “Prince Mikhail Golitsyn” - is woven into the elegant gate grille.
Entering the gate, you imagine how and how many times these openwork metal doors opened in front of Catherine the Great.
It was not the admiral, long deceased, who gave shelter to the empress, but his son, who bore the same name, the lieutenant general. At the end of the century, the prince will rebuild the house, and Kazakov will include it in his Albums of the best buildings in the city. The drawing of the facade shows that the entrance was located on the right side of the house. The cylindrical vault with paintings above the main staircase has been preserved, but the staircase itself is now divided by an interfloor ceiling. The main house is distorted by the addition of two floors in 1930. The right wing, expanded by an extension to the west, retains a deep columned loggia.
With a new appearance, the house entered a new century - and soon found itself in big history again. In 1812, the headquarters of Napoleon's master of the horse, the noble Armand Louis de Caulaincourt, was located here. Caulaincourt himself wrote about it this way:
“I went to the palace stables (Kolymazhny Yard), where some of the emperor’s horses stood and where the kings’ coronation carriages were located. It took all the energy and all the courage of the grooms and grooms to save them; Some of the grooms climbed onto the roofs and threw down burning brands, others worked with two pumps, which, by my order, were repaired during the day, since they were also damaged. It can be said without exaggeration that we stood there under a fiery vault. With the help of the same people, I also managed to save the beautiful Golitsyn palace and two adjacent houses, one of which had already caught fire,” judging by the Moscow plan of 1813, Caulaincourt saved the houses of the Protasovs (formerly Lopukhins, Potemkins) and Tutolmin (formerly Vyazemskys). “The emperor’s people were zealously helped by the servants of Prince Golitsyn, who showed great affection for their master.”
Caulaincourt housed 80 fire victims in the saved house. Among them was “the master of horse of Emperor Alexander Zagryazhsky, who remained in Moscow, hoping to save his home, the care of which was the meaning of his whole life.”
The owner of the Golitsyn house in 1812 was Prince Sergei Mikhailovich. Trustee of the Moscow educational district in 1830-1835, the prince doomed himself to literary immortality. Here are just two famous reviews:
“Our nobles think that learning should not be allowed into the drawing room. Golitsyn, as a horse master, is in charge of the stables, but does not let the horses in” (Vyazemsky).
“For a long time he could not get used to the disorder that when the professor was sick, there was no lecture, he thought that the next in line had to replace him, so that Father Ternovsky would sometimes have to read in the clinic about women’s diseases, and the obstetrician Richter interpret seedless conception” (Herzen).
Herzen is biased: Golitsyn led the investigation into his case. To announce the verdict, twenty members of the student circle were taken to the prince’s house. To someone’s remark: “My wife is pregnant,” the owner of the house cynically replied: “It’s not my fault.”
The wife of Sergei Mikhailovich himself left him shortly after the wedding. In St. Petersburg, Evdokia Ivanovna, née Izmailova, became famous for staying awake and receiving guests at night in order to deceive fate: a fortune teller predicted her death during a night's sleep. Hence the nickname "Princesse Nocturne". Pushkin, of course, visited the Princess of the Night and dedicated two poems to her, including the famous:
Alien lands inexperienced amateur
And his constant accuser,
I said: in my fatherland
Where is the right mind, where will we find genius?
Where is the citizen with a noble soul,
Sublime and fiery free?
Where is the woman - not with cold beauty,
But fiery, captivating, lively?
Where can I find a casual conversation?
Brilliant, cheerful, enlightened?
With whom can you be not cold, not empty?
I almost hated the Fatherland -
But yesterday I saw Golitsyna
And reconciled with my fatherland.
The Moscow house of the Golitsyns was also known to the poet. So much so that Alexander Sergeevich wanted to get married in his home church, but Metropolitan Filaret pointed to the bride’s parish church - the Great Ascension. The church was located on the second floor in the northern wing of the house.
Generations of Golitsyns collected Western paintings. The once famous museum of the Golitsyn Hospital was partly included in the home collection of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich, replenished, in turn, by his nephew, the ambassador to Spain, Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. In memory of this Golitsyn, five state rooms of the house on Volkhonka became a free museum.
For twenty years, since 1865, Bruegel, Van Dyck, Veronese, Canaletto, Caravaggio, Correggio, Perugino, Poussin, Rembrandt, eleven Roberts, Rubens, Titian... were exhibited here - a total of 182 paintings, as well as books and rarities.
Alas, the new owner of this treasure, the collector’s son Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn (the second) was “a friend of horses, not books.” In the end, the prince decided to improve his affairs at the expense of the “Moscow Hermitage”, and the entire artistic part of the collection was bought by the St. Petersburg Hermitage.
The Golitsyn Museum is a predecessor of Pushkin's only in location, not in collection.
The “friend of horses” did not live in the family home. Even when the museum was operating on the main floor, the residential first floor was rented out to tenants.
“I won’t move anywhere,” swore Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, a long-time resident of Vorontsov Polya. “Will they offer me to live in the office of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn?” This is what happened in 1877.
From Ostrovsky’s letter to a confidant: “Since the caretaker of the house said seriously wife, that before concluding a condition, they will collect certificates about the moral qualities of the person to whom they are renting the apartment, then you can tell him some of my merits, not major ones (so as not to amaze).”
The apartment consisted of a front room, a reception room, a people's room, three children's rooms (for the writer's six children), a governess' room, a bedroom, a dining room, a buffet, a pantry, a kitchen and an office. Here the play “The Last Victim” was completed, “Dowry”, “Heart is not a Stone”, “Talents and Admirers” were written. These were the last nine years of the playwright's life.
In 1885, Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov occupied the neighboring apartment. Six months later, on January 27, 1886, the leader of the Slavophiles, one of the creators of public opinion in the Balkan campaign, died at the table, editing his newspaper “Rus”, in a room with windows overlooking the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
In May, preparing to take over the state apartment of the theater department, Alexander Nikolaevich moved to the Dresden Hotel, and then to the Shchelykovo estate, where he died on June 2.
That same summer, the leader of Moscow Westernizers, former mayor Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin, moved out of his third apartment on Volkhonka.
And in the fall, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Titian, eleven Roberts and all the other inhabitants of the second floor left the house.
At the end of the century, the “friend of horses” Sergei Mikhailovich rebuilt the left wing of the Golitsyn estate according to the design of the architect Vasily Zagorsky (future author of the Conservatory). The resulting building became the Prince's Court furnished rooms.
A memorial plaque on the eclectic façade is dedicated to Surikov. According to his biographer Maximilian Voloshin, author of the brilliant book “Surikov,” the artist spent “the entire second half of his life as a real nomad - in furnished rooms, although expensive and comfortable, but where not a single thing spoke of his inner world. But he always and everywhere carried with him a large old wrought-iron chest, in which drawings, sketches, papers, and favorite things were stored. When the chest opened, his soul was revealed.”
Artists generally loved to stay at the Prince's Court. Moreover, in 1903, Golitsyn’s estate was bought by the Moscow Art Society. At the hotel, Bunin consoled Repin on behalf of the public, who had learned about the maniac’s attack on the painting “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan.”
Nowadays in the “Princely Court” there is the Gallery of Western Art of the Pushkin Museum with a new facade along Volkhonka. The facade needed to be decorated after the demolition of the outbuilding adjacent to the end of the former hotel from the Volkhonka side.
There were actually two wings. They flanked the side, service courtyard of the estate, which paradoxically overlooked the main street. The demolition of the outbuildings was undertaken during the Soviet years to expand Volkhonka. (The old red line is kept by the fence of the Pushkin Museum.)
The Moscow Art Society adapted outbuildings for the apartments of its members. In the right one, adjacent to the Princely Dvor Hotel, the family of Leonid Pasternak lived since 1911. The windows of the apartment faced the courtyard and Volkhonka. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak lived here for 25 years with interruptions. “In winter they will expand our living space, / I’ll rent my brother’s room,” he dreamed. Only in the mid-1930s did the poet receive an apartment in a writer’s building opposite the Tretyakov Gallery.
In Pasternak's memory, the main house of the estate became the Communist Academy and was built on. Now it is the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The left wing retained its early classical appearance. It appeared after the dismantling of the throne building of the Prechistensky Palace, that is, in the last quarter of the 18th century.
In a photo from the early 1930s, the area behind the left wing has been cleared. In a few years, a gas station in the Art Deco style will appear here - the only completed fragment of the grandiose project of the Palace of the Soviets. Today it is a “Kremlin”, high-security gas station – by the way, the last vestige of the ancient function of the Sovereign’s stables.
The Pushkin Museum, according to the concept of its development, occupies the entire Golitsyn estate. The Institute of Philosophy was surprised to learn that, according to government orders, he must leave his home. In the backyard of the estate, on the site of a gas station, and in the front yard of the neighboring Rumyantsev estate (see below), the Pushkin Museum Exhibition Building is being designed - the notorious “five-leafed building”. The gas station, the identified monument, is either being demolished or moved. The former red line of Volkhonka is being recreated, but a boulevard is being planted in place of the once demolished outbuildings.
Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky Estate - First Men's Gymnasium
This manor house is turned towards Volkhonka, retreating deeper into the courtyard (No. 16/2). You can get to it from the street, from Bolshoi Znamensky Lane, and through the Golitsyns’ backyard, as Catherine probably did.
Unlike the Golitsyn house, the house of the Dolgorukov princes was bought by the empress. As part of the Prechistensky Palace, this particular house was intended for the heir.
Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich found himself in two-story stone chambers built before 1754, when Prince Vladimir Sergeevich Dolgorukov received them as a dowry for his wife, née Ladyzhenskaya. The Baroque chambers of the Ladyzhenskys and Dolgorukovs remain the core of the building, which was rebuilt many times, and were recently discovered in the volume of the left wing. And on the cross-section of the Prechistensky Palace, part of the right wing is visible.
Now that we know the principle of the Prechistensky Palace, it is worth making an unexpected geographical digression.
In the Moscow summer of 1775, Catherine and Potemkin looked for a dacha - the Black Mud estate, which was soon acquired from Prince Kantemir and renamed Tsaritsyno. The lovers lived there too; Adjutant General Potemkin, always on duty, was with the Empress, in her temporary chambers, which have not survived to this day.
The capital Tsaritsyn Palace, ordered by Bazhenov, was a close arrangement of three independent and equal buildings. Two buildings were intended for Catherine and Paul, and the third was called the Great Cavalier. In such a decision one cannot help but see the principle of the Prechistensky Palace with its three houses. The Large Cavalry Corps in Tsaritsyn corresponded with the Lopukhins’ chambers in the Prechistensky Palace and, by analogy, was intended for Potemkin. (Researcher Lydia Andreeva is inclined to the same idea.)
What is not the reason for demolition ten years later, when the Empress arrived to take over the work? The Tsaritsyn composition became a painful reminder of the long past. Not a tombstone yet, but a melancholic monument to happiness with Potemkin. The gentleman on duty in 1785, selected by His Serene Highness himself, hardly corresponded to Bazhenov’s scale.
The objection that the layout of the Great Cavalry Corps was designed for several residents does not change what has been said. The secret purpose of the corps lost its relevance very soon, but the obvious, official purpose remained - to be a haven for several senior courtiers. Finally, with the birth of Alexander and Konstantin Pavlovich, the entire structure of the Tsaritsyn palace, tested on Volkhonka, became obsolete.
In general, it is interesting to compare the complete diagram of the Prechistensky Palace, which included “ten or twelve more rented houses,” with the complete diagram of Bazhenov’s Tsaritsyn. For example, find an analogue to Kolymazhny Dvor there.
After Paul's departure, his Prechistensky house became the property of the main hero of the 1775 celebrations - Field Marshal Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev.
Here is a name that makes you remember what was actually being celebrated. Battles of Larga, Kagul, Chesma - and peace at Kuchuk-Kainardzhi. The capture of Kerch as Russia's first port on the Black Sea, with the right of free navigation. Transfer of the Turkish border from the Dnieper to the Southern Bug and access to the sea between these rivers. Annexation of Kuban and Terek. The transition of the Crimean Khanate to dependence on Russia. Diplomatic assertion of Russia's right to intercede for Moldova and Romania.
Volkhonka, 16 - the main address of Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky in Moscow. Yes, the main one again - like the neighboring addresses of Ekaterina, Potemkin, Karamzin. The “Axial Age” of Volkhonka is the “golden age” of the Empire. Rumyantsev owned the house for eighteen years. Only in 1793, shortly before his death, did he sell the estate and buy another (now Maroseyka, 17). However, the field marshal was not often a Moscow resident. Both before and after the Turkish War, he held the difficult position of Governor-General of Little Russia.
According to legend, Rumyantsev died from the news of the accession of Paul, who once lived in his Moscow house.
After Rumyantsev, the house quickly changed owners, was built on, burned in 1812, and restored, became the home of the 1st Moscow men's gymnasium. First a university, then a provincial, gymnasium was located here until 1917. The list of students shines with names: Pogodin, Kropotkin, Ostrovsky (whose life circle almost closed next door, with the Golitsyns), Vladimir Solovyov...
The front yard into which these children walked eventually became a garden. The direction of the central alley has been preserved - towards the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. During the expansion of Volkhonka, the fence with eagles on the gate was demolished, and the structure of the estate lost its former clarity.
This does not mean that the estate does not exist. That in place of her yard and garden it is possible to design some kind of “five-leafed” buildings.
Volkonsky House - First Men's Gymnasium
The next house on the street, the last one, on the corner of the boulevard (No. 18), also belonged to the gymnasium. Unlike its neighbors, the house stepped onto the street line. There are six known families that owned the estate before it was acquired by the treasury. We will highlight the owners of the 18th century, the Volkonsky princes, Semyon Fedorovich and his descendants. Volkhonka ends as it began - with her favorite surname.
