Summer house in Neskuchny garden

Yesterday we went to the Neskuchny Garden to see the Summer (Tea) House of Orlov-Chesmensky. It's good that he survived for the past two centuries.

How many eminent guests sat at the tea table in its halls, how many elegant shoes stepped on the carpets of its oak twisted stairs.

No, no, and a scarlet shawl with a multi-colored border of the finest wool will flash on a high balcony under a Corinthian capital, and then the quiet voice of the aging Count Orlov-Chesmensky will be heard: “Ninushka, come here, my dear, dance Russian for the guests.” Or imagined?

You will see the parquet floor of one of the ballrooms through the wooden rhombus window, and suddenly it will again seem like a lovely creature in a light blue crepe dress will fly into the hall, bouquets of small roses on both sides of the dress, the same in the hair, on the back of the head there are three tiny curls, large pearls around the neck. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I, his "White Rose". She knew how to slide on the floor, "her movements, like a swan of desert waters, resembled a smooth move," our loving poet remarked.

The boring garden is associated with the name of Count Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov. It was he who bought the estate after the death of Demidov and rebuilt the house-palace to his own taste. When the count died in 1796, according to the will, the estate passed to his 11-year-old niece Anna Orlova-Chesmenskaya and her father, the count, as the guardian of the minor.

But with the accession of Emperor Paul I in the same year, 1796, Anna and her father went abroad and lived there for five years, until 1801.

Apparently, having returned, the count built this Summer (tea) house on the steep bank of the river, and nearby - also the Bath House with a pond in front of it, in order to drink fragrant tea in the Tea House after baths from healing springs.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna fell in love with the Neskuchny Garden when she visited there in the year of her wedding with Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich.

The royal family acquired the estate in 1832 - the 47-year-old pious Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya decided to move to a small manor near the Yuryevsky Monastery, the rector of which was Archimandrite Fotiy, her confessor.

After Neskuchnoye was bought out by the imperial family, noisy fun and magnificent gatherings stopped here, but the emperor and his family often came to Neskuchny Garden.

In 1890-1905, the Neskuchny Garden became the summer residence of the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov.

And another woman reigned in the Summer House - Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, "feminine charm incarnate."

“She had magnificent jewelry, Uncle Serge, who admired her beauty, always found reasons to give her gifts. In addition, she had a gift for wearing clothes. Of course, everything suited her, because she was tall, slender, incredibly graceful and no blush could compare with the color of her face. There was something like a lily in her, her purity was absolute, it was impossible to take your eyes off her, and every time we said goodbye to her, we were looking forward to seeing her again.

This name was on my hearing all the time and I suspect that I often wandered into its territory, but I could not accurately identify its location. That's finally decided to figure out the departure of the place in preparation for the summer season. . As a result of the research, it was found that, in the modern sense, the Neskuchny Garden is located between the Moskva River and Leninsky Prospekt. From TsPKO them. Gorky is separated by Titovsky passage and Pushkinsky bridge (relocated Andreevsky), and from the Sparrow Hills - the Third Transport Ring. The main entrance is located between houses 18 and 20 on Leninsky Prospekt. For the history of this place, read on.

In 1728, Prince N. Yu. Trubetskoy bought from the archimandrite of the Zaikonospassky Monastery “a yard mansion building with trees planted on the banks of the Moscow River.” The site was located near the Andreevsky Monastery near the courtyard of Prince Boris Vasilyevich Golitsyn - the southeast of the modern Neskuchny Garden, not far from Gagarin Square. In the early 1750s, a Neskuchny country house (two-story, with 4 outbuildings) was erected here in the Baroque style, according to the project of the architect D.V. Ukhtomsky. Of the vast regular park with a "bird house", orderlies' houses and guardhouses, only the Hunting Lodge survived - a covered brick gazebo, known to the general public as a traditional venue for the game "What? Where? When?". A "maze" and greenhouses were arranged behind the house, and a menagerie in a deep ravine.

After the death of Nikita Yurievich, the estate was put up for sale. A buyer was not found, and in 1776 his son, Prince P.N. Trubetskoy, arranged a place for mass celebrations in the garden - the entrance cost 1 ruble per person and included food and drinks. The Trubetskoys constantly rebuilt the estate: a "Versailles garden" was laid out with covered wooden galleries; between the menagerie and the main house there is a poultry house, next to it is a stone grotto; a straight alley behind the house ended with stone and wooden galleries. At the beginning of the 19th century, the estate passed into the hands of the court adviser V. N. Zubov, who continued to use the garden for entertainment events, including hot air ballooning with a huge crowd of people. Since 1823, Neskuchny was owned by Prince L. A. Shakhovskoy, who discovered supposedly healing waters in the estate and built the first institution of artificial mineral waters in Moscow. However, the enterprise collapsed and in 1826 he sold Neskuchnoye to his neighbor, the Moscow mayor D.V. Golitsyn, and he sold it to Nicholas I. He sold his own 11 acres of land to the Ministry of the Imperial Court only in 1843. The inventory indicates that 2,500 lindens, birches and maples grow in the park, as well as dilapidated buildings (stone and wooden). A public hospital adjoined the Golitsyn site, built with money bequeathed by Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1721–1793) “for the construction of an institution in the capital city of Moscow that is pleasing to God and useful to people.” Now there is one of the buildings of the First City Clinical Hospital, which was built according to the project of the architect Matvey Fedorovich Kazakov.

Part of the Neskuchny Garden, which is closest to the center of Moscow, was bought in 1754 from different owners by the industrialist Prokofy Demidov, who concentrated in his hands all the lands "between the moat and the road that travel from the Church of the Reese Position to the Moscow River." The Demidov Palace was built in the Baroque style according to the design of the architect Yakovlev. At the palace, Demidov set up a whole botanical garden in the form of an amphitheater with two greenhouses (winter and summer), as well as "herbalists". Contemporaries argued that his garden "not only has no equal in all of Russia, but can be compared with many in other states both in rarity and in the multitude of plants contained in it." After the death of the owner, E. N. Vyazemskaya, the wife of the Prosecutor General, who spent her childhood in these places, on the estate of her father N. Yu., acquired the empty Demidov estate. Trubetskoy. In 1793, Count Fyodor Orlov, one of the famous Orlov brothers, bought the former Demidov estate from Vyazemskaya. Earlier, the neighboring land plot, which was occupied by the factory of the merchant Serikov, had already passed into his ownership. Fyodor Grigoryevich wanted to build "mansions" outside the city that would surpass in elegance the estate on the Donskoy field of his brother Alexei Chesmensky. Before his death in 1796, Orlov managed to rebuild the Demidov house in accordance with the requirements of classicism. At the same time, an elegant eight-column portico appeared at the palace. Having no legitimate offspring, F. G. Orlov bequeathed the estate to his 11-year-old niece Anna Chesmenskaya. All management of Neskuchny on behalf of her daughter was carried out by her famous father. In the former Demidov Palace, the old count gave feasts for the amusement of his only daughter, after which fireworks were fired. . In 1804-06. in the estate of Orlov, a two-story Tea House with 4 Corinthian columns was erected.

The count's garden in Neskuchny was located on a semi-mountain, divided into many paths, hills, valleys and cliffs and dotted with ordinary buildings in the form of temples, baths, arbors; all the monuments and buildings in this garden resembled the deeds and victories of the count. Other park pavilions have also been preserved - a grotto made of boulders and a bathroom house with a dome.

On the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas I in 1826, Countess Orlova gave a huge ball, which was attended by 1200 guests. Some candles in the palace burned up to seven thousand, silver and bronze were rented for 40 thousand rubles. Perhaps it was during this ball that the empress expressed her desire to acquire Neskuchnoe. In 1832, Orlova sold the estate to the treasury for one and a half million rubles.

Thus, by the middle of the 19th century, all the lands described above were concentrated in the Ministry of the Imperial Court. After that, the architect E. D. Tyurin was instructed to bring the territory in line with the tastes and needs of the new owners. The Demidov Palace was renamed Alexandrinsky and renovated in the late Empire style. From Kaluzhskaya street to the palace there is a main entrance. The entrance to the park is decorated with pylons with allegorical sculptures representing abundance. The regular terraced layout was replaced by a landscape one, bridges were thrown over the ravines, the arena was rebuilt, where they arranged a ballroom (now there is the Mineralogical Museum named after A.E. Fersman).

The main palace and the front yard were renovated, which overlooks two buildings - the maid of honor and the cavalier; Doric columns of the Empire guardhouse overlook the same courtyard. A cast-iron fountain was moved to the center of the courtyard from Lubyanka Square. The sculptural decoration of the park, as is commonly believed, was supervised by Ivan Vitali. In Soviet times, the former palace was given over to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences.

In general, a worthy place to spend your free time in the summer.

(Russia, Moscow, Leninsky prospect, 14-20)

The front part of the estate (the main house with outbuildings) is occupied by the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation. Free access closed

Since I did not study closely the history of the Neskuchnoye estate, it would be fair to turn to the materials of art critics I.K. Bakhtina and E.N. Chernyavskaya. In their wonderful book “Country Estates of Moscow”, they wrote: “The estate was formed in the 1820-40s as a palace property on the basis of earlier architectural and park complexes. The name Neskuchnoe was given to her by the southernmost estate, created in the middle. 18th century for Prince N.Yu. Trubetskoy. Near in ser. XVIII-early 19th century was the estate of the princes Golitsyn. The northernmost manor in con. XVIII-early 19th century belonged to c. Orlov and consisted of several sections. The main place here was occupied by the estate, created in the middle. 18th century P. A. Demidov. In 1796-1808. under A.G. Orlov-Chesmensky, Demidov's house was rebuilt, a complex of outbuildings was created, a park was landscaped, in which pavilions, bridges and a grotto appeared. It was this estate that became the basis for the creation of the summer Alexandrinsky Palace, intended for the wife of Emperor Nicholas I, Alexandra Feodorovna.

Designed by architect E.D. Tyurin, the buildings were rebuilt, the main entrance to the estate was decorated and a guardhouse was built. The work in the park was supervised by the gardener Pelzel.
When the royal family was not in the palace, the Neskuchny Garden was opened for festivities. In 1928 he became part of the Central Park of Culture and Culture. In the palace in the 1920s there was a furniture museum. Since 1934, the presidium of the Academy of Sciences has been located. In the 1940s, the strip of Neskuchny Garden along Leninsky Prospekt was built up with residential buildings.
The territory of the palace estate stretched along the Moskva River is compositionally divided into four historically developed sections. From the southern estate that belonged to Trubetskoy, a park area crossed by a ravine with a pond and a stone gazebo (Hunting Lodge) have been preserved.

1.
2.
3. Manor Neskuchnoye. Bath
4.
5.
6. Manor Neskuchnoye. Gate of the Alexandria Palace (I.P. Vitali). 1846
7-8.
9. Manor Neskuchnoye Summer house
10.
11. Manor Neskuchnoye Alexandria Palace (postcard)

The territory of the Golitsyn estate is determined by the clear layout of the regular park. 18th century with a multi-row main alley directed to the Novodevichy Convent. Two sections of the former Orlov estate are connected by bridges across the ravine. The southern section is occupied by an economic yard and a landscape park with pavilions, the front palace part is located on the other; behind it, the terraces of the park descend to the river, on which in the middle. 18th century the famous botanical garden of Prokofy Demidov was located, and now the Green Theater of PKiO.

Alexandrinsky Palace - a work of developed classicism architecture - is based on the Chamber of Ser. XVIII century, and in the decor - some details of the 1830s. The halls have preserved magnificent decoration and partly palace furniture. Outbuildings and outbuildings have two construction periods (the turn of the 18th-19th centuries and the 1830s) and generally correspond to the classic forms of the palace. In the most significant of the outbuildings, the arena, there is the Mineralogical Museum. The monumental guardhouse and the pylons of the entrance gate with the sculptures "Abundance" are made in the Empire style. A cast-iron fountain of the same time in front of the palace (sculptor I.P. Vitali) was moved here in the 1930s from Lubyanka Square. Remarkable for the elegance of classic forms are the Bathroom and Summer Houses in the park.”

On my own behalf, I note that the Bathroom House has more than once become an object of concern for specialists and lovers of antiquity, its fate is sad. The pavilion is disfigured by alterations, painted in an eerie color, but could become a decoration of the park, its beautiful detail. The summer house (10.2012) is under restoration.
Under the current city authorities, the park makes a good impression, large-scale landscaping work is being carried out here. The only inconvenience (for me personally) is crowded. Great place for relaxing and hiking.

Not far from the garden is the Oktyabrskaya metro station of the Koltsevaya and Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya lines and the Leninsky Prospekt metro station of the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line. The Pushkinsky (Andreevsky) pedestrian bridge was thrown into the garden across the Moskva River. It takes 10 minutes to walk to the Frunzenskaya metro station of the Sokolnicheskaya line. In the garden there is also a pier for motor ships cruising along the Moskva River. The main entrance and entrances to the main alleys of the Neskuchny Garden leading to the Pushkinskaya Embankment of the Moskva River, the Alexandria Palace, etc., are located in the Leninsky Prospekt area, 16, 18, 20. (From Wikipedia)

Literature:
I.K. Bakhtin and E.N. Chernyavskaya "Country estates of Moscow" M., 2002, p. 52-55

Plan-scheme of the Neskuchnoye estate in Moscow

1. Alexandrinsky Palace
2. Cavalry Corps
3. Maid of honor corps
4. Kitchen outbuilding
5. Guardhouse
6. Arena
7. Stable
8. Overseer's yard
9. Greenhouse
10. Summer house
11. bathroom house
12. hunting lodge
13. Place of the main house of the Trubetskoy estate
14. The site of the main house of the Golitsyn estate
15. Main entrance gate

Yu.I. Shamurin ESTATE NESKUCHNOE ("Podmoskovnye" M., 1912-1914, comrade "Education")

At the beginning of the 19th century, there was no more popular place in Moscow than Neskuchnoye. Count A. G. Orlov-Chesmensky lived here; his receptions, in the summer - illuminations and theatrical performances, his races and carousels, fist fights and pigeons, his innumerable wealth and the glory of past exploits tirelessly occupied Moscow, from noble boyars to the street crowd ...
Even among the giant figures of "Catherine's Eagles" Orlov-Chesmensky stands out for his amazing power and integrity of nature.
There were five giant brothers, faithful companions of Catherine II. Alexei Orlov was born in 1737; in 1749 he entered the Preobrazhensky Regiment as a soldier. The coup on June 28, 1762, which brought Catherine the throne, exalted the Orlovs. Soon Alexei Orlov was promoted to second major, then received the Order of Alexander Nevsky. He was assigned to watch Peter III and was responsible for his death. According to his own explanation, he killed him by playing leapfrog and squabbling ...

While the influence of the favorite, Grigory Orlov, lasts, Alexei continues to receive more and more favors: in 1766 he receives full ownership of the villages near Moscow - Ostrov and Conversations and an annual "secret pension" of 25,000 rubles.
In 1767, Orlov went abroad with a secret assignment to get acquainted on the spot with the situation of the Greeks and Slavs under the Turkish yoke. He was granted 200,000 rubles for travel expenses and treatment after an illness.
Then Orlov commanded the Russian fleet in the Archipelago and for the victory over the Turkish fleet in the Chios Strait received the title of "Chesme". M. M. Kheraskov sang the exploits of Orlov in the long poem "Chesme Battle":

Everywhere there is noise and groan, and show off and the sky is dark,
And death from ships to others, like a whirlwind, strives.
Wherever you turn, you will see hell everywhere;
Lightning shines everywhere, there is no salvation anywhere,
The whole air has thickened, the earth is trembling in the distance,
And in the black whirlwind, death, rotating the scythe, shines...

After the victory, Orlov returned to St. Petersburg. In 1774 he again goes to the Archipelago. In Livorno, he treacherously catches the mysterious Princess Tarakanova. But the star of the Orlovs is already setting; Potemkin comes into force, and, returning to St. Petersburg at the end of 1775, the Chesme hero retires.
Having finished his service, Orlov retires to Moscow and settles at the Kaluga outpost in Neskuchnoye. Offended by disgrace, he lives quietly in Moscow, not yet enjoying the popularity that later surrounded his name. In 1782, Chesmensky marries A. N. Lopukhina. In 1785, his daughter Anna, the future heir to his entire fortune, will be born to him. While in Moscow in 1787, Catherine II visited Orlov in Neskuchny. He was asked to return to the service - he did not want to.

When Paul I came to reign, Orlov was in St. Petersburg. When transferring the body of Peter III from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the Winter Palace, he carried the imperial crown. So the murderer paid the last honor to the murdered! While Paul reigned, Orlov lived abroad. Having received the news of the accession of Alexander, he immediately returned to Russia and settled in Moscow, where he lived until the end of his days.
Among the Moscow nobles of the early 19th century, Count A. G. Orlov-Chesmensky occupied a completely exceptional place. Immeasurably rich, generous, sweeping, he was famous not only for his wealth and hospitality: “some kind of charm surrounded the hero of the Great Catherine, who rested on his laurels in the simplicity of his private life, and attracted the love of the people to him. There was unlimited respect for him by all the estates of Moscow, and this general respect was a tribute not to the dignity of a rich nobleman, but to his personal qualities. These personal qualities were the loud fame of Orlov's exploits, his heroic appearance, and finally, his love for old Russian amusements. In Moscow, his horses were famous - "Orlov trotters", and the count himself went on the run. He held a "pigeon hunt", watching the reflection of the flight of doves in a silver bowl of water. The only one among the sophisticated Moscow bar, he cultivated the original Russian sport - fistfighting and generously rewarded distinguished fighters.

Miss Wilmot, who visited Moscow in 1805-1806, writes that A. G. Orlov "exceeds all the rulers of the educated world with his wealth and is buried in purely Asian luxury."
Most of all, this luxury was manifested in the organization of balls, masquerades and dinners, fireworks and festivities in Neskuchny.
“Truly loving everything native Russian, he decided to leave the splendor of the court and moved to the neighborhood of the ancient sons of the Fatherland. His other most respected brothers followed him, and a number of their houses made up a whole new street in Moscow, which is a rare combination of taste, wealth and intelligence ... ”The ability to love“ everything Russian ”distinguished Chesmensky from other Moscow nobles. At the pinnacle of power and wealth, he managed to remain what he was born. He was not seduced, like most of the Russian bar of the 18th century, by the fashion for Westernism, for the panache of "English camisoles and the Parisian dialect." Orlov was not penetrated by culture, he remained a bit of a wild man of Russia of the 18th century with daring amusements, with strong skills. “Breathing, so to speak, Russian, Count Alexei Grigorievich loved all domestic rituals, customs and gaiety until old age. Fighters, wrestlers, strongmen, songwriters, dancers, horsemen and horse riders, in a word, everything that only meant courage, strength, firmness, dignity and art of a Russian, flocked to his house in abundance.

The amusements arranged by Orlov on the Kaluga field opposite his house are mentioned by everyone who described Moscow life at the beginning of the 19th century.
“After the race in front of the pavilion, gr. Orlov was sung and danced by gypsies, one of whom was elderly, of unusual thickness, danced in a white caftan with gold braids and was noticeably different from the others. ... This fat man seemed to me extremely skillful, even eloquent in his body movements. It was as if he didn't dance... and yet it turned out beautifully: deftly, lively and noble. After the gypsy dance, a fist fight ensued ... the rivals first hugged and kissed three times. The winner was the tavern servant from the singing tavern, Gerasim, Yaroslavl, a peasant about 50 years old ...
At the end of all these tricks, the count and his daughter got into a one-wheeled carriage pulled up by four bay horses in a row, deftly picked up the reins and, yelling at the horses, set off at full speed around the racetrack and, having jumped it twice, turned sharply onto the road to the house and disappeared like a hurricane.

It was in 1805, three years before Orlov's death, when he was 70 years old!
Chesmensky went to the festivities in a ceremonial uniform, hung with orders. “His stately horse was in an Asian harness; moreover, the saddle, bridle and saddlecloth were strewn with gold and precious stones. A little further away from the count rode his daughter and several ladies on the most excellent horses, accompanied by noble cavaliers. They were followed by the count's groomsmen and grooms, including at least 40 people, many of whom had a factory horse in luxuriously embroidered blankets... Then a number of rich count's carriages stretched ... "
According to the memoirs of Professor of Moscow University P. I. Strakhov, a contemporary of Orlov: “And now the rumor in an undertone runs from lips to lips: “He is going, going, deigning to go!” All heads turn towards Alexei Grigorievich's house; many curious spectators of every rank and age at once take off their hats off their heads ... "
Orlov was the first to send gypsies from Moldova to Moscow and laid the foundation for lovers of gypsy singing.

In the arena at his house, carousels were often arranged, gathering the high society of Moscow. Among the lower classes of Moscow, Orlov's glory was supported by fisticuffs, goose and cockfights organized by him. There was, it seems, not a single fun of the common people, which Count Orlov would not pay tribute to.
Surrounded by universal admiration, Orlov sometimes behaved rudely, but the rudeness of such a person did not offend anyone and was transmitted as a curiosity. Many contemporaries tell how the count saw the guests off. “In Neskuchny once a week a crowded society gathered for the count. They sang and danced, but at 11 o’clock the horn blew, the count got up from his seat and said “Heraus!” (that is, “Out!”) and the departure began.
Under the boundless prowess and breadth of nature, Orlov-Chesmensky hid great caution and prudence. “He did a lot of good both openly and secretly ... His kindness was not so much the result of a naturally kind heart, but the calculation of a strong mind. He was not capable of enthusiasm, was secretive and not frank, sometimes he treated people coldly and did not quickly get along with them ... "
His hospitality, his cheerful amusements were a means to maintain the popularity of his name, created by military exploits, to stand among the first persons of Moscow. Orlov quite succeeded in this: none of the Moscow nobles of the beginning of the century has such enthusiastic and numerous reviews ...

One of his panegyrists, N. Strakhov, writes: “In a word, Count. Alexei Grigoryevich was not only the most respected and most kind Russian boyar, but also the soul that united the Russian nobles, the heart of popular gaiety, morals and customs, the hope of the unfortunate, the purse of the poor, the staff of the lame, the eye of the blind, the rest of the wounded warrior and the doctor of the sick nobleman.
We, who see his whole life, all the crimes committed by this iron man, seem to have something hidden in his whole life. It seems that it was not without reason that the fate of his daughter, who had been trying to atone for someone's sins all her life, was so strange, it was not for nothing that the ashes of Orlov himself did not find peace for so long: he was buried in his estate Ostrov, but in 1831 his daughter transported his ashes to the Novgorod Yuryev Monastery , and only in 1896, on a gun carriage harnessed by a train of 6 horses, was transported back to the family burial vault in Ostrov! ..
The heiress of A. G. Orlov was his daughter Anna, who was born in 1785. Contemporaries say that she was beautiful and inherited from her father a powerful nature and athletic build. Life smiled: for eight years she was made a lady-in-waiting, the best suitors of Moscow were at her service; her father left her a colossal fortune. Pious since childhood, she took a different path. After the death of her father, she went on a pilgrimage to Kyiv, then to Rostov. Here she submitted to the influence of the "sepulchral hieromonk" Amphilochius. After his death, Photius, a monk of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, became her confessor, a stern ascetic who made a career with the help of Countess Orlova...

When he became a monk at the Novgorod Yuryev Monastery, Countess Orlova bought herself an estate from the monastery and settled in it. She luxuriously decorated the monastery, bequeathed huge sums to it, and spent all her days in prayers, in "pure" fasts...
Until now, she remains as mysterious as her father. Contemporaries spoke of her love for the cunning ascetic monk Photius, and many epigrams haunted her; even if you believe them, something deeper will emerge from this love: some kind of thirst for repentance, prayers for someone's sins, some kind of fire of religious fanaticism. It was as if the whole sinful and magnificent life of her father lay on her shoulders as a heavy burden. She did not know peace; her life was not hypocrisy, common in the noble circles of that time: she left the world, gave all her fortune to churches and monasteries.
In one of the churches of the Novgorod Yuriev Monastery there are two simple tombs: on one of them there is an inscription: “Archimandrite Photius”, on the other - “Countess A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya”. And this church was built in the name of the martyrs Photius and Anna...

Having settled in Moscow, Orlov arranged for himself a luxurious estate near the Kaluga outpost, which he called Neskuchnoye. This name is still kept by the Neskuchny Garden at the Alexandria Palace, which passed into the treasury from the heirs of Orlov. The location of Neskuchny is very beautiful: it is located on the high bank of the Moskva River. The magnificent park is spread over the mountains, along the slopes of deep ravines, forming thousands of picturesque corners.
Orlov built a house in Neskuchny, now rebuilt as a palace, a number of pavilions, pavilions and bridges in the park. For his festivities, he built an "air", that is, open, theater, where patriotic allegories were given against the backdrop of natural scenery. In accordance with the whole character of Orlov, these were noisy militant performances that glorified Peter I, Catherine the Great, her glorious associates and among them, of course, Orlov-Chesmensky himself ...
Creating his luxurious near Moscow, Orlov always remembered his victories and state merits, and every pavilion, every building was erected to commemorate some event in his life. Time has taken away these memories, and only beautiful gazebos and bridges remain for us!
In addition to garden buildings, Orlov surrounded his estate with extensive services, stables, built an arena and greenhouses. Carousels were arranged in the arena, that is, costumed riding processions, one of the favorite entertainments of the Moscow nobility of the early 19th century.

All those who mention Neskuchny note the luxury of Olov's life, describe the beautiful "English garden" arranged by the count of entertainment, but are silent about the artistic appearance of the estate; and hardly noisy, self-willed Orlov appreciated art, had enough culture to obey the artists.
The Englishman Cox, who visited Moscow in the last decade of the 18th century, describes Neskuchnoye as follows: “The house is located on the edge of the city, on an elevated place; it has a very good view of Moscow and its environs. There are many separate buildings around it. The servants' quarters, the stables, the rancher's school, and other buildings are built of cobblestone; the foundation and the lower floor of the count's mansion are also made of cobblestone, while the top is wooden and painted green."
This extraordinary green dwelling of Orlov, with its inappropriate modesty, caused the lamentations of Empress Catherine, who visited Count Orlov in Neskuchny in 1787.
At the beginning of the 19th century, two manor houses in Neskuchny were already mentioned: the old one, in which Count Orlov usually lived, as if later turned into a city hospital, and the new one, later rebuilt as the Alexandria Palace.

"Air" theater - a covered gallery in a semicircle; the stage was adjusted so that the scenery was replaced by trees and bushes.
This amphitheater existed back in the 1830s, when the directorate of the Imperial Theaters staged performances there twice a week. In 1830, “by the Highest Command, it was ordered” to the architect Mironovsky “to take the Moscow Theater Directorate ... buildings in the Neskuchny Garden for arranging a summer theater.”
Every autumn, with the end of the performances, the theater was returned to the Palace Department. According to the inventory of 1830: “A summer wooden theater, uncovered, 35 fathoms long, 19 fathoms wide at the front end, 21 fathoms wide at the rear, sheathed with narrow boards, painted with white and wild colors.” Finally, in 1835, the summer theater was sold for scrap "so that the place was completely cleared."
Neskuchny's garden under Count Orlov was dotted with gazebos, "grotesques", bridges, artificial cliffs, temples, etc. Some of the buildings were lined with birch bark. With the transition of Neskuchny to the Palace Department, all these garden ideas began to collapse. In 1827, “two wooden pavilions with columns”* were broken due to dilapidation. In 1835, the pavilion on the Chinese bridge and the Egyptian pavilion were broken.
After the death of A. G. Orlov in 1807, Neskuchnoye, abandoned by his heiress, died out and became empty. In 1812 it was not damaged, but in the 1820s it had already lost its former grandeur. Noble Moscow transferred its sympathies to Petrovsky Park, and the former favorite place for walking, Neskuchnoye, at the end of the 20s began to enjoy a bad reputation in noble circles and served for walking "merchant sons in long frock coats and shawl vests and dandies from outside Moscow in Hungarian shirts"; “not very dexterous, but extremely cheeky young ladies in Kunavin shawls draped over one shoulder were walking here ... Around the tavern there was a smell of punch, the cracking of roasted nuts, laughter, loud conversations, of course in Russian, but with an admixture of French words, were heard along the alleys Nizhny Novgorod dialect ... "

Gypsy camps also stopped here. Soon after his accession to the throne, Nicholas I began to arrange summer accommodation in Moscow for his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. Neskuchnoye, bought from A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya for 800,000 rubles, was taken as the basis. A number of neighboring properties were attached to it, and thus a huge area was formed, now occupied by the Alexandria Palace and the Neskuchny Garden.
In 1828, the property of Prince Lev Alexandrovich Shakhovsky was bought. In 1842, a piece of land "between Neskuchny and Alexandria Gardens" was purchased from Prince Golitsyn.
With the acquisition of Neskuchny to the treasury, extensive restructuring began, led by architects Mironovsky and Tyurin.
These reconstructions cannot be called distortions: they did not violate the style of the estate, but gave it a too strict, official look. The palace and its surrounding area were especially affected: the fall in artistic taste, which marked the era of Nicholas I, was strongly affected here. the grandeur of court etiquette banished everything dreamy and poetic from Neskuchny.
A guardhouse was built near the palace, chains on poles stretched everywhere, marking the courtyard and paths. And the contrast of the palace and the estate is especially felt if you move from the courtyard in front of the palace to the far part of the park, which has retained the character of the estate! ..

The current Alexandria Palace appeared as a result of the restructuring of the Oryol house. In the forms of the palace, the drop in taste, which marked the Nikolaev era, was noticeably affected. Its paired columns, supporting not a pediment, not an attic, but steeply carved arches, are rather unusual.
Semicircular balconies with cast-iron pillars, dry straight lines of cornices, broken windows beyond any artistic calculations - all this heavy legacy of bad taste of the 1830s makes the Alexandrinsky Palace a building of little artistic value.
Both Mironovsky and Tyurin worked on the reconstruction of the palace. The first is known as the builder of the Synodal Printing House on Nikolskaya Street and the Nikolskaya Tower, which he renewed "in the Gothic style" after 1812. Mironovsky, the first Moscow architect of the early 19th century, left classicism and began to work in the spirit of the Gothic, thinking that by doing so he was returning to the forms of ancient Russian architecture!
Mironovsky was not a major artist, and the unsuccessful construction of the Alexandria Palace does not add or diminish anything from his fame.

E. Tyurin is in a completely different position. A talented follower of D. Gilardi, he is still known for such excellent work as the university church. Tyurin was the last classical architect of Moscow; Nikolaev's decline in taste did not touch him, leaving his work at that high level of aesthetic culture to which Bazhenov, Kazakov, Beauvais, Gilardi accustomed us. In the same Neskuchny there are several excellent works by Tyurin, which fully support his reputation, created hitherto by the university church alone. All the more annoying is the failure with the Alexandria Palace.
In it, however, Tyurin is more responsible than Mironovsky. So, in 1836, according to his drawing, two cast-iron portals * were arranged on the second floor, at the top of the semicircular (side) portals of the Alexandria Palace. Undoubtedly, during the restructuring of the Alexandria Palace, Tyurin's work was greatly constrained by the need to limit himself to small handicrafts, to adapt the relatively modest house of Orlov to the needs of court life.

In general, Neskuchnoe, built mainly by Tyurin, is the largest and best creation of Nikolaev architecture in Moscow. The entrance gate from Kaluzhskaya Street, the guardhouse at the palace, gazebos in the garden, and finally, huge service buildings and stables - all this, built in the 1830s, is the latest incarnation of Moscow classicism.
Massive gates were placed at the entrance to the palace from Kaluga Street. They are decorated with two sculptural groups, works by Vitali. Both decoratively beautiful groups are in the nature of allegories. They symbolize abundance; this is indicated by the horns of Fortune. It is quite difficult to understand their allegorical meaning. The fact is that the sculptors of the early 19th century considered it necessary to clothe each decorative figure with an allegorical meaning.

On the gates of the Alexandria Palace there is a sacred fire on the altar, and Ceres, or a statue of fertility with a sickle, and a Bacchic figure with a bunch of grapes, but all this has nothing to do with a beautiful decorative composition. Allegorism is a pattern that sculptors of the early 19th century did not want to get rid of. To sculpt just a human figure - it will be beautiful; but to personify in it glory or beauty, or love for the fatherland - this is already wise, significant, and after all, people of that time were great admirers of wisdom! ..
I. P. Vitali (1794-1855) worked in Moscow from 1818 to 1841. Much of his work is decorative; these are bas-reliefs on the facades of houses, tombstones, groups on the gates.
Gates with sculptural groups, very close to the gates of the Alexandria Palace, were made by Vitali in the 1820s for the entrance to the Orphanage. There, in allegorical figures, he depicted Mercy and Credit, the latter because a pawnshop was located in the Orphanage. On the gates of the Alexandria Palace, he apparently wanted to personify abundance, royal luxury, perhaps generosity. Be that as it may, the allegorical meaning from the outside is imposed on the beautiful decorative figures.

Vitali worked very unevenly, sometimes descending to the level of craftsmanship, sometimes reaching the best masters of his time. Nevertheless, his work is very easy to recognize: in contrast to other masters of the era of classicism, he loves small and complex details; clarity and majestic simplicity of composition stubbornly fails him. However, his decorative works are notable for their rhythmic, well-distributed composition and beautiful silhouette. All these properties are also found in the entry groups of the Alexandria Palace, a fairly typical work by Vitali...
They date back to the 1840s. In 1846, "figures were made of baked clay, cast-iron peaks and bars in a lattice fence at the main entrance ...".

Behind these heavy gates one can see the palace at the end of the linden alley. In front of its facade - a vast round courtyard, furnished with dull cast-iron pedestals connected by chains - as if endless shackles were hung around the courtyard!
To the right of the palace is a small guardhouse. All forms of it are heavy and severe. Such is the spirit of the best, most expressive, architectural works of the era of Nicholas I. Such is the style of the era, magnificently expressed by architecture.
If Alexander's architecture, fanned with tenderness and harmonious beauty, was created for a cozy idyllic housing, then the architects of Nicholas I seem to have always thought about barracks, guardhouses and in their work reflected the fanaticism of the external order and despotism that created military settlements and other phenomena of that sort of!

Massive, heavy columns, steadfastly supporting a huge attic, almost equal in height to the columns, perfectly express the demands of state power, official cold, which were made to the builders of the Nikolaev reign. It is absolutely impossible to imagine in these forms a cozy house in the park, a dreamy gazebo by the pond! All decorative processing of the guardhouse of the Alexandria Palace is saturated with the same spirit of dispassionate, official grandeur, excluding everything elegant and lyrical. The lines are solid, as if all forms were cast from unyielding metal. The walls are devoid of decoration; the windows are outlined in harsh geometric semicircles. Above them, on the smooth field of the attic, round wreaths are rarely planted - severe ceremonial decorations, necessary as decorations on military attire. Finally, at the top - the state eagle, and in the corners - a rarely used decorative emblem - classic helmets.
This guardhouse is one of the most perfect expressions of the spirit of Nikolaev construction. The self-appointment of the building successfully emphasizes that this last era of Russian classicism served the construction of barracks, government offices, guardhouses and temples, erected for official reasons, due to the need for religion in a Christian state.

The dead despotism, the personification of power, which Nicholas architecture served, of course, cannot captivate and excite, but such masterpieces of their kind as the guardhouse of the Alexandria Palace are charming in their historical indicativeness: for understanding the era, they provide more than many literary sources!..
Despite its harsh purpose, the guardhouse is full of sophisticated architectural beauty. The stinginess and originality of the scenery - round wreaths on the attic, the state emblem and classic helmets in the corners - speak of the school of Gilardi, the most prudent of Moscow masters. But its forms are even simpler, even more severe than those of Gilardi. Apparently, the guardhouse was designed and built by Tyurin, although its elegance somewhat distinguishes it from other works by Tyurin in Neskuchny.

To the left of the palace, service buildings, a whole stone city, stretch along a vast stretch. There is an arena, stables, greenhouses, started by Orlov.
Among them, the stables deserve attention. They are interesting not only colossal size. The buildings of the stables, together with the arena, surround a special yard. Their main building, with a dome in the middle and two side wings, is also architecturally interesting. The builder understood them with the sensitivity that distinguishes the masters of the era of classicism, that the usual forms of manor houses and city palaces do not fit the stables: something less elegant, impressing with its majestic simplicity, is needed here.
It would seem that stubborn adherence to the classical canon narrows the possibilities of the builder, deprives his work of flexibility; but we see, however, that the resources of the classics are endless, that where elegance is inappropriate, they create monumental forms and thus cope with the most prosaic and utilitarian tasks without compromising their art. The stables of Neskuchny are beautiful by the proportions of their rusticated walls, which are alien to any decorations, by the grandeur of the whole vast composition.

When Neskuchny was transferred to the treasury, Orlov's services and stables were located here. Beginning in 1834, the architect Tyurin rebuilt them and brought them to their present form over the course of several years. In 1834, part of the Oryol services was adapted to house a squadron of cavalry and transferred to the Stable Department. These adjustments dragged on for several years; in 1838 Tyurin is still working on the Stables Yard.
The stables and services of the Alexandria Palace are his largest work. They convince more than all his other works that he was an artist who fully preserved the high architectural culture of his predecessors. Building stables, he managed to remain an artist. He thoughtfully approached the difficult task and found restrained and majestic forms, ideally matching the long lifeless hulls. There are many beautiful pieces of architecture here. In addition to the central building with a dome and massive rusticated walls mentioned above, it is necessary to point out the long buildings that border the road to the Neskuchny Garden. The perspective of walls with semi-columns and niches stretching into the distance on both sides is one of the best creations of Moscow classicism. The lot of Moscow artists, accustomed to building cozy mansions and estates, rarely had assignments of such a colossal scale!

Neskuchny Park is the best near Moscow. It occupies a huge space on the steep bank of the Moskva River, and its very location on an uneven, ledge surface provides rich decorative possibilities. The park is closed to the public, deserted; this is his special charm; it is inhabited only by memories, by only shadows of the past. From the end of the 18th century, Neskuchnoye played a prominent role in Moscow life: Orlov's festivities, theatrical performances, then - a favorite place for Muscovites to walk, a shelter for gypsies and cheerful Muscovites, and, finally, a historical place surrounded by attention and care ...
The paths of the park are thrown over ravines, go around the hills, offer picturesque views of the Moscow River, the palace, the pavilions brightening among the greenery. Neskuchny Park is an “English garden” that became fashionable in Moscow in the last years of the 18th century: the charm of untouched wildlife is artificially created; deliberately dug recesses look like natural ravines, mounded hills take the form of natural elevations; ponds resemble natural reservoirs, and among this untouched nature, the beauty of architectural decorations is especially captivating.
Part of the park adjacent to the Alexandria Palace was arranged "in the English manner" by the gardener Pelzel in 1834. "Grotesque bridges" with cast-iron gratings are thrown over artificial abysses in the Neskuchny Garden. They were built in 1834 by the same E. Tyurin.

Very little of the numerous decorations that were once in it under Orlov has survived in the park. Its paths under the overhanging maples, under the old lindens wind like snakes, now descending into ravines, then skirting the hills and getting out into the bright expanse, from where you can see the gray Moskva River, the clay fields behind it and the city disappearing into the gray haze. Through the network of branches, the city shines through like the edge of another, rough world. Deserted paths strewn with sand wind through the corridors of maple branches, and only occasionally will they suddenly turn white in front of the column, a classic yellow and white pavilion will appear ...
On a high hill above the Moskva River stands a small "Summer House", one of those charming architectural toys that decorated the parks of old estates. The "Summer House" is magnificent in architecture. The cozy balconies behind the columns stretching along both facades are very good. There are two cast-iron flower vases in front of the house.
The light walls of this small joyful dwelling irresistibly attract with amazing clarity, lightness, purity of proportions! As if not from stone, but from thickened air, white columns grew, magnificently measured windows ...

The "Summer House" was hardly built by Tyurin. Its forms speak of an earlier artist; it is very likely that the house was built under the previous owners, at the very beginning of the 19th century.
At the descent from this hill, near an artificial reservoir, touching the steps of the stairs to the water itself, there is a small gazebo with a semicircular colonnade and a high dome. This is "Bath"; the pond located in front of it is called "Elizabethinsky". Its walls were surrounded by overhanging maples. The white columns are beautifully reflected in the overgrown pond, and all around the green slopes of the ravine go up, forming a picturesque corner, a poetic motif of noble antiquity...
The “Bath” in the Neskuchny Garden is mentioned by those who described the estate still in the possession of A. G. Orlov. However, the forms of the now existing "Bath" are very close to the creations of Tyurin. There are also documentary indications that in 1834 Tyurin made a terrace with gangways, trellises, benches, etc. "to the stone arbor in the Neskuchny Garden" in 1834. This is the same exemplary work of classical architecture as the "Summer House", but much more original. Masterfully composed central semicircular colonnade with a high dome. For a building placed in a ravine, at the foot of green slopes, it is precisely such an elongation, such a height, that frees a small building from being crushed, is needed ...
"Summer House" and "Bath", immersed in greenery, are beautiful idyllic pearls of Neskuchny. The sounds of the city are not heard here. How the fortress walls separated them from the rest of the world trees.
In a deserted park, as in a sleepy kingdom, images of the past, fragile as a musical melody, images of eternal beauty, for which there is neither past nor future, froze!

A. Alekseev Summer house in the Neskuchnoye estate

Date of construction: 1796
Architect: E. D. Tyurin
Restoration date: 1978 - 1979, 2012 - 2013
Author of the restoration project: N. I. Danilenko (RBOO TsTRK "Preobrazhenskoye")

The first estate on the territory of the future Neskuchny Garden was created in 1756 by P. A. Demidov, heir to six iron smelters, a well-known benefactor.
For a park in the form of an amphitheater, the banks of the Moskva River were leveled for two years. About 2000 rare plants were planted in it.
The next owner of the Demidov estate was Princess E. N. Vyazemskaya, whose father and husband were prosecutor generals. In 1793, the new owner was Count F. G. Orlov, General-in-Chief, brother of the favorite of Catherine II. Under him, the main house, arena and stables were rebuilt, and the garden was decorated with numerous buildings - gazebos, grottoes, baths, sculptures. Some of them have survived to this day, including the Summer House. A memorial plaque on the building says that it appeared in the 18th century. In the reference literature, you can find two dates of construction - 1796 and 1804 - 1806 (currently the second option is considered more likely).

The building in the style of classicism was built on the edge of the coastal slope. Both the front and park facades are decorated with four-column Corinthian porticos topped with triangular pediments with semicircular windows. Through the entire second floor there are balconies with an openwork iron lattice, its pattern repeats the fence of the first floor of the park facade. Initially, the building had no extensions or balconies. It was one-story, with mezzanines. The central part was double-height, without overlap. A valuable element of the design of the facade from the side of the garden is the unique "Demidov" cast-iron vases for flowers.

In the house, the count received guests; in winter, a stove was heated (the remains of which were preserved in the basement of the building). From the house one could watch the races of the Oryol trotters on the ice of the Moskva River. After the death of the count, the estate was inherited by his niece Anna.
In 1812, General A.-J.-B. Lo de Lauriston, who was the French ambassador to the court of Emperor Alexander I, and during the war became Napoleon's adjutant general. During the great Moscow fire, the buildings of the Orlov estate were not damaged.
The ball in the estate of Countess Orlova was called by contemporaries one of the best during the celebration of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas I in 1826.

Perhaps it was then that the emperor liked the estate on the banks of the Moscow River. In 1832, the Orlov estate was bought to the treasury for one and a half million rubles, and the estates of the princes Golitsyn and princes Trubetskoy, located to the south of it, were also acquired. The latter was called "Neskuchnoe", which was also given to the garden created by the palace department on the site of three estates. The emperor presented it as a gift to his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, in whose honor the rebuilt Orlov Palace became known as Alexandrinsky.

According to the project of the architect E. D. Tyurin, who became famous for the restructuring of the Grand Kremlin Palace, the Summer House was rebuilt in the 1830s. Ceilings were made that turned the building into a two-story building, balconies were added (this fact became clear during the last restoration work). Outdoor tea parties were held in the Summer House for the royal family (the tradition continued until 1917, although both Nicholas and Alexander II and Alexander III visited their residence in the Neskuchny Garden infrequently), which is why the house had a second name - Tea. In those days, from the balconies of the second floor there was a beautiful view of the Sparrow Hills, the Novodevichy Convent and the Kremlin.

In 1928, the Military Camp was opened in the Summer House, where visitors were taught how to handle weapons.
In 1930, the 25th anniversary of the uprising on the battleship Potemkin was celebrated here. Later, the house began to be used for various cultural events of the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture, it housed a library with a reading room. In order to adapt to the library, two wooden side extensions were made. By the end of the 1970s, they fell into disrepair, and during the restoration of the Summer House on the eve of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, they were replaced with brick ones.

By 2012, the need for restoration of a number of objects in the Neskuchny Garden, including the Summer House, became obvious. Peeling paint, rotten roofing, crumbling plaster both outside and inside the room, cracks on the walls - all this was already evident.
They did not paint the bicentennial building and cheap linoleum on the floor, modern wallpaper and other elements of inexpensive interior decoration.
The restoration project provided for the restoration of the historical appearance of the building with the preservation of elements of the Soviet period (side extensions) as not distorting the external appearance. The facades of the Summer House were restored, the foundations and walls were strengthened, emergency wooden ceilings were replaced. The decorative elements made of white stone were restored - front porticos, columns and platforms.

Cast-iron decorative grilles and cast-iron vases in front of the entrance have been restored. Window and door fillings were installed taking into account the historical style of the monument. When restoring the structure of the balconies, the preserved historical coloring of the building was discovered - grayish (white with a slight addition of soot).
In the Summer House of Count Orlov, which was restored to its historical appearance, there is now a photo studio where you can take pictures in costumes and interiors of different eras.

Literature:
A. Alekseev Moscow, which is. The best examples of the restoration of the XXI century. M., 2013

Palace in Neskuchny (G. M. Antsiferova)

The house in the Neskuchny Garden, called the Alexandrinsky Palace (see illustration), is considered to be a work of late classicism. His palace appearance was associated with the activities of the architect E. D. Tyurin in the 30s of the 19th century, when he was the chief architect of the Moscow Palace Office. But, as will be shown in the article, the appearance of the building was formed much earlier. It belonged to the Orlovs from the 90s of the 18th century, before that the Vyazemskys owned the house, and in the middle of the 18th century. here stood the house of P. A. Demidov.

The purpose of this article is to identify the building of the Alexandrinsky Palace with the house of P. A. Demidov and to clarify the time of its restructuring in the period of classicism.

The view of the garden facade of P. A. Demidov’s house has come down to us on an engraving in the book of Academician P. S. Pallas, published in 1781 and dedicated to the description of the famous Demidov botanical garden (see illustration) *.

* (P. S. Pallas. Catalog of plants located in Moscow in the garden ... Prokofy Akinfievich Demidov. SPb., 1781.)

The assumption about the identity of the house in this engraving and the Alexandrinsky Palace was made by L.P. Aleksandrov, who, based on the coincidence of the number of floors and the number of window axes, considered only the decoration of the building * to have changed. He saw the façade depicted in the book as plastically dissected as the modern garden façade of the palace. However, there is no doubt that the central part of the building is buried in the engraving, although the cornice is not unraveled in this image, which can be explained by the architectural unprofessionalism of the engraver (this is also evidenced by the inconsistent arrangement of the shadow shading of the volumes). At the same time, an open balcony with a railing, supported by columns, is in line with the side parts, which, therefore, are nothing more than risalits.

* (A. P. Alexandrov. The past of the Neskuchny Garden. History reference. M., 1923, p. 45.)

But the garden facade of the Alexandrinsky Palace has a small ledge in the center. Apparently, between the risalits of the Demidov house, some volume was built into the entire height of the facade. If this is so, then we should not talk about changing the decor, but about a significant restructuring of the house. The study of graphic materials and full-scale analysis of the interiors of the Alexandria Palace also lead to the conclusion about a decisive change in the original space-planning structure of the building.

On the floor plans of the house, dated 1831 (see ill.) *, in the central part of the garden facade, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe main double-height hall (the entire height of the second and third floors) and the same area of ​​vaulted rooms in the first and basement floors are clearly visible. Window openings of the original facade are left on the inner wall of the hall; they are also easily guessed on the first floor, although they are partially blocked.

* (State. Research Museum of Architecture named after. A. V. Shchuseva, b. I, No. 5673. Facades and plans presented by A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya. They are all undated, made on Whatman paper with a watermark of 1829, and apparently date back to 1831, when negotiations began for the sale of the house.)

What can be seen in the modern interior of the palace? On the third floor, before light windows* were made in the ceiling and roof in 1856, the entire central part had no natural light, although five semicircular second-light windows on the inner wall of the large columned hall open into these rooms. Obviously, before the building was rebuilt, the central rooms and the staircase on the right side of the house faced the garden facade and were illuminated by their own windows.

* (TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 20, no. 18199, AL. 25-31.)

Similarly, in the mezzanine, the oval columned hall with a painted ceiling, located in the center, turned out to be semi-dark, daylight entered it through the windows of the large columned hall adjacent to it. Undoubtedly, initially this hall overlooked the garden facade, as well as the premises of the entrance hall located on the sides of it. The same can be said about the central rooms of the lower floor. All this means that the rooms in the center of the building, now deprived of natural light, were blocked by new rooms built between the risalits. The new facade has the same five window axes, corresponding to the built-up central part of the house *.

* (These observations and studies conducted by the author of the article in 1959-1960. (the manuscript is in the archive of the Inspectorate for the Protection of Monuments to Glavap), confirmed by the discovery by V. T. Shmakova of the original plan of the house, a description of which see: "In the vicinity of Moscow. From the history of Russian estate culture of the 17th-A1A centuries." M, 1979, p. 387-388.)

The new order decor, which the building received during the reconstruction, changed the ratio of its facades. If Demidov's house was turned with its main facade towards the garden and the Moskva River, which corresponded to the methods of estate construction in the middle of the 18th century, now the representative decoration of the opposite facade with an impressively highlighted central part made this facade oriented to B. Kaluzhskaya Street the main one, respectively with the principles of construction in the era of classicism.

Before trying to determine when the restructuring of the Demidov house could have taken place, it is necessary to briefly trace, starting from the middle of the 18th century, the history of the property in Neskuchny. (Let's note in advance the trend of enlargement of plots on the territory of Neskuchny by buying neighboring estates, which began at that time and ended a hundred years later with the unification of the entire territory of Neskuchny - a garden that already belonged to the royal Alexandrinsky Palace).

In the middle of the XVIII century. on the site from the Kaluga outpost to the place where the Golitsyn hospital was later built, between the Moskva River and B. Kaluzhskaya Street, there were several estates *. The very first large property from the outpost in the 40s and back in the late 70s belonged to the Prosecutor General, Prince N. Yu. Trubetskoy. In 1804, the court of V.I. Zubov was listed on this territory. After Zubov, the estate was owned by Prince L. A. Shakhovskoy, and in 1826 it was bought by the Moscow Palace Office. The plot to the right of Trubetskoy in the 18th century. belonged to N. M. Golitsyna. It was bought by the palace department only in 1842.

* (Information about the location of the estates is taken from the following sources: A. Mikhailov. Architect Ukhtomsky and his school. M., 1954, p. 184; Moscow state. historical archive, f. 105, op. 9/1, no. 664; MGINTA, Serpukhov part, No. 731-733; TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 20, no. 18758, fol. 3.)

Possession to the right of Golitsyna in the second half of the 18th century. consisted of four sections: Pokhodyashin, Soymonov, Demidova and Serikov. It is on the common territory of these four sections that the Alexandrinsky Palace with the entire complex of buildings related to it is located *.

* (Information about this part of Neskuchny is found in the case of buying a house from Orlova-Chesmenskaya (TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 60, no. vol. VIII. M., 1898 (purchase certificate No. 585 for 1754).)

In 1754, M. A. Demidova bought the neighboring yard of the Soimonovs. Pokhodyashin's yard in 1786 was bought by F. G. Orlov. The Serikov and Demidov yards were bought by E. N. Vyazemskaya * (probably after the death of P. A. Demidov in 1788, since he himself could hardly sell his estate with a botanical garden, which was his brainchild). In 1793, Vyazemskaya sold all this property to her neighbor F. G. Orlov, who thus became the sole owner of all four plots simultaneously to Demidov and the owner of the Vyazemsky house **, that is, the former Demidov house.

* (E. N. Vyazemskaya, daughter of N. Yu. Trubetskoy, owner of the estate in Neskuchnoye.)

** ("Indicator of Moscow, showing in alphabetical order the names of the owners of all the houses of this capital ...". M., 1793.)

In 1796, the entire property in Neskuchny was inherited by F. G. Orlov’s will by his niece A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya, who at that time was eleven years old. The actual owner of the estate was her father, the famous Catherine's nobleman (then already retired) Count A. G. Orlov-Chesmensky. In the same year, after Paul's accession, A. Orlov went abroad, and returning in 1801, he settled in this house and lived in it until his death in 1808. A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya owned the estate and the house until 1832, when all this property was sold by her to Nicholas I.

Thus, evidence from the act books of the middle of the 18th century, the alphabetical index of Moscow in 1793 and the bill of sale fortress of 1832 through the chain of owners connect the building of the Alexandria Palace with the house of P. A. Demidov.

In the book of P. S. Pallas, devoted to the description of the famous Demidov garden, it is also said about the house: “This garden was started together with a huge house around 1756 ... the garden goes from the courtyard to the Moscow River with ledges ... the upper platform is separated from the courtyard beautiful iron grate..." * .

* (P. S. Pallas. Decree. op.)

Let's return to the engraving depicting the house. If the constructive solution of the facade in this image (even with errors of illiterate shading) is beyond doubt and provides a starting point for recognizing the future Alexandrinsky Palace in it, then the ambiguity, surprise, and some curiosity in the depiction of facade details make it extremely difficult to attempt a stylistic attribution of the Demidov house.

What signs link this building to the middle of the 18th century? We see in the engraving the beautiful baroque railings of the garden, balcony, roof; the baroque descents of the naively shown staircase seem to be of the Corinthian order. The magnificent frame of the windows in the risalits on the ground floor seems to be rusticated, and in the center it seems to be picturesque. But the corner rustications of the risalits are archaic for that time, and the cornice mutuls are premature. Steep pediments above the windows and a continuous edge on the third floor are not clearly depicted - is this a roller or painting?

Demidov's house, chronologically fitting between the house of N. Yu. Trubetskoy in Neskuchnoye built in the 50s and the house of Apraksin on Pokrovka built in the 60s, does not stay on the axis of this well-articulated baroque architecture, but somehow moves back in the early years first half of the 18th century There is some archaism in it, although the author paid tribute to modernity by introducing a large warrant and baroque lattices (probably Demidov casting) into the architecture of the house.

Three names are associated with the authorship of the Demidov house. The first of them - the fortress builder Sitnikov - is named in Bessonov's book: "The name of Sitnikov is mentioned in 1755 in connection with the construction of the Demidov Palace in Moscow. In the 80s of the 18th century, he participated in the construction of the Moscow Orphanage" *. It can be noted that in the letter of P. A. Demidov, dating back to the time of the construction of the Orphanage, Sitnikov is mentioned, who is called here the architect **. The name of Ivan Fedorovich Sitnikov arises in 1828 in connection with the construction of a cast-iron staircase in the house of the Orlova-Chesmekskaya according to the project of Beauvais ***. The documentary reliability of this name in the affairs of the palace department in 1828 makes it impossible for the same Sitnikov to participate in the construction of the Demidov house in 1755. Perhaps this name should be associated not with the construction of the house, but with its later restructuring?

* (S. V. Bezsonov. Fortress architects. M., 1938, p. 84. Bezsonov says that Sitnikov is a serf of I. A. Demidov. But of the three Demidov brothers, there was no one with the initial I (Prokofy, Grigory and Nikita Akinfievich). This is apparently a typo.)

** (K. Headman. The clan of nobles Demidovs. Yaroslavl, 1881. Applications, p. 26.)

*** (Correspondence of O. I. Bove and I. F. Sitnikov regarding the estimate for the construction of the stairs. Appeal to Bove: "His Excellency I. F. Sitnikov." See: TsGIAL, f. 472, op.58/893, no. 35, ll. 5, 11.)

Fragment from the materials for the "Atlas of Moscow". 1806-1808 Philistine buildings on Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya st. near the Golitsyn hospital. TsVIA, f. VUA, No. 22174

The second name is the architect Iecht. He is credited with the authorship of the Demidov house. This name appears for the first time in the Sobko Dictionary * ; in the guidebook of 1913 ** . it is attributed to the Orlov house, which is chronologically impossible if Iecht died in 1763; the house of Demidov in 1913 is no longer remembered; in the architectural guide published in 1959 *** the architect Iest is mentioned, and in this version this name is enshrined in the latest edition of Moscow ****. Be that as it may, we do not have data in order to be able to get an idea of ​​​​the creative face of this architect. We also cannot rely on any documentary evidence, so the question of his participation in the construction of this house is best left open. And, finally, V. T. Shmakova published another name - V. Yakovlev, the architect who signed the original plan of the house *****.

* ("Iecht Wilhelm, a foreign architect in Russia ... d. 1763 ... built Alexander, a palace in Moscow ...". - "Dictionary of Russian artists, sculptors, painters, architects ...". Compiled by N. N. Sobko, vol. II, no. 1. St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 513.)

** ("Guide to Moscow...", edited by I. Mashkov. M., 1913, p. eighteen.)

*** ("Moscow. Architectural guide". M., 1959.)

**** ("Moscow. Monuments of architecture of the XVIII-first half of the XIX century." M., 1975. Album, p. 349.)

***** (V. T. Shmakova. The building of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. - "Nature", 1974, No. 1, p. 99. See also: "In the vicinity of Moscow. From the history of Russian estate culture of the 17th-19th centuries", p. 387-388.)

The new façade decor of the palace makes it possible to date the rebuilding from the 80s of the 18th century. It is possible that the house was rebuilt by P. A. Demidov himself after the publication of the book by Pallas in 1781; it should also be remembered that Orlova-Chesmenskaya sold the already rebuilt house to the tsar. Let's make a list of the owners of the house in these extreme dates:

P.A. Demidov 1781-1788

A. A. and E. N. Vyazemsky ..... 1788-1793 F. G. Orlov .............. 1793-1796 A. G. Orlov .............. 796-1808 A. A. Orlova................1808-1832

Now we will introduce into the study the earliest (of the found by us) drawing. This is the plan of the courtyard of Orlova-Chesmenskaya, dating back to 1804 (see illustration) *, with a schematic plan of the house, the main volume of which is outlined as an even rectangle, and the steps of the stairs on the garden facade, the balcony and two symmetrical semicircular colonnades of the current main facade. This means that by 1804 the house had been rebuilt.

* (MGINTA, Serpukhov part, No. 731-733.)

If the old garden facade of the house is depicted in an engraving of 1781, then the opposite facade also turned out to be imprinted on one of the drawings made for compilation in 1806-1808. "Atlas of the capital city of Moscow". This is a "profile" done in watercolor * . It starts from the Kamer-kollezhsky shaft, goes along Bolshaya Kaluga street and beyond. On B. Kaluzhskaya we see a group of buildings with the following explication: "1 - Kaluga outpost, 2 - philistine buildings, 3 - Golitsyn hospital." Among the "philistine buildings" a house is depicted, which, by a number of signs, is recognizable as the house of Orlova-Chesmenskaya (see ill.). It seems to be located too close to the Golitsyn hospital, but when measured to scale from the center of the building to the left wing of the Golitsyn hospital, 150 fathoms are obtained, just like on the plan of the adjacent properties of the Alexandrinsky Palace, the Golokhvastov site and the Golitsyn hospital. In addition, the "profile" shows a long one-story building, which is on the plan of 1804 and is visible in the engraving and, therefore, is an additional landmark.

* (Central Military Historical Archive, f. VUA, No. 22174.)

Since the topographic reference is beyond doubt, that the "profile" depicts the house of Orlova-Chesmenskaya, it can be said with certainty that it has already been rebuilt. The cornice, so magnificent on Demidov's house, is missing here. Instead, three attics torn off from each other complete the risalits. There are no columns or balconies marked on the facade, and the scale of the image is so small that it is impossible to determine the shape of the window openings, except for the semicircular windows at the top of the side risalits. But it is impossible to imagine a large house of the late XVIII - early XIX century. without the classic order. It is clear that the compiler of the "profile" simply omitted the details of the facade due to the meagerness of the scale. And this has a certain effect. Deprived of decor, the facade in its purely constructive scheme is associated with the architecture of the first half of the 18th century. Its triple risalits, located close to each other, are typical for the buildings of that time. Peter's Winter Palace (in Zubov's engraving) and the Anichkov Palace, and in Moscow Gagarin's house on Tverskaya, constructively represent the same compositional scheme. And thus, the façade on the "profile" confirms its "oldness", its kinship with the garden façade on the engraving in Pallas's book.

On the other hand, it is important that semi-circular windows are fixed on the street facade, albeit conditionally and exaggeratedly - a characteristic attribute of the new classicist decor of the building, and their shape corresponds to the motif of semi-circular windows on the garden facade. The semi-circular windows testify to the rebuilding of the house by the time it was depicted on the "profile", i.e. by 1808, and with the corrections of the reviewed plan of MGINTA - by 1804 *.

* (Although it is known that the works of 1792-1795 were used for the Atlas. on the preparation of the general plan of Moscow (P.V. Sytin. History of planning and development of Moscow, vol. II. M., 1954, p. 396), we have no reason to date this particular "profile" and will rely on 1804.)

So, in the period from 1781 to 1804, the house could be rebuilt: Demidov himself, Vyazemsky, F. Orlov and A. Orlov. What arguments can be here "for" and "against"?

In 1781, P. A. Demidov was already over 70 years old and it is hard to imagine that, having lived a quarter of a century in his house, in his old age he would begin to remake it in a new fashion.

It is very tempting to assume that it was A. A. and E. N. Vyazemsky who rebuilt the house. They buy a rich estate with greenhouses, services, with a huge, but already old-fashioned house. 1788-1793 - the heyday of classicism, then it would be to rebuild the house. But, from our point of view, this is done by the next owner - Fedor Orlov.

As you know, the Orlov brothers - Grigory, Alexei, Fedor and Vladimir - having retired in 1775, moved to Moscow. In the book "Biographical Sketch of Count Vladimir Grigorievich Orlov", published by his grandson, there are the following lines about Fyodor Orlov: "He lived for several years now with Vladimir, then with Alexei, who each pulled him to his own side; having a great taste in architecture, he built a palace on the beautiful banks of the Moskva River, exceeding in elegance the mansions of Count Alexei (on the Donskoy field, which later gave way to the City Hospital) and Count Vladimir (on Nikitskaya) "* .

* (V. Orlov-Davydov. Biographical sketch of Count V. G. Orlov, vol. II. SPb., 1878, p. 25.)

Consider two versions arising from this family tradition. If here we mean the house of F. Orlov on the former site of Pokhodyashin, then we are talking about a relatively small, summer (without stoves) * really elegant house (now the so-called Tea House), built in the style of classicism, like the "bathroom" pavilion below at the pond. But the word "palace", of course, is more suitable for the former house of Demidov, and the essential nature of the perestroika that took place is equivalent here to the concept of "built".

* ("In the garden of the Alexandria Summer Palace on the banks of the Moskva River, there is a very solid and beautiful stone building without stoves, which is called the Summer House." - From a report in the affairs of the Moscow Palace Office for 1833, TsGIAL, F. 472, op. 12/846, No. 43, l. 94.)

In addition, in 1878, when V. Orlov-Davydov wrote his essay, they no longer remember Demidov's house, but they know that the Orlovs' house became the royal Alexandrinsky Palace.

Thus, the family memoirs of the Orlovs give us the greatest reason to believe that the house was rebuilt in 1793-1796. Fedor Orlov.

On the plan of possession of Orlova-Chesmenskaya 1804 and on the "profile" of B. Kaluzhskaya st. we see a house with the features that it has retained to this day - semicircular columned balconies, attics, semicircular windows. Apparently, significant work on the facades was not carried out under Orlova. Orlova herself moved to St. Petersburg in 1820 (she was a maid of honor), and in 1832 the tsar bought a house from her with the entire estate.

Nicholas I's interest in Orlova's house arose as early as 1826, when during the days of the coronation the royal family lived in her house in Neskuchny *. To this year belongs the case of the vacation from the "Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty" 12,850 rubles for the construction in the house of Orlova-Chesmenskaya of a hanging cast-iron staircase, cast at the Shepelev factory according to O. I. Bove's bruillon **. Note that this is the first name of the architect extracted from documents in the construction chronicle of the house.

* (TsGIAL, f. 472, op. 12/846, No. 43, l. fourteen.)

** (TsGIAL, f. 472, op. 58/893, no. 35, ll. 1-16. The author owes the reference to these documents to A. N. Petrov.)

The condition of the building is carefully documented when preparing the house for sale. In 1831, an appraisal commission headed by the architect Mironovsky made a graphic fixation, inventory and estimates for all buildings *. From a comparison of these materials with the plans presented by Orlova-Chesmenskaya ** and with the modern building, it can be seen that the interior of the house in its basic layout has not been changed, retaining the planning structure obtained during the restructuring in the 90s of the 18th century. and largely inherited from the middle of the XVIII century.

* (TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 60, no. 29712.)

** (State. Research Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva, b. 1, no. 5673.)

High entrance steps made of gray stone lead to the front vaulted vestibule. In the right half of the house from the first to the third floor there are flights of oak stairs on creeping vaults. In the left half, the main cast-iron staircase of 1829 leads to the mezzanine. Two more narrow white stone staircases, located symmetrically along the garden facade, lead to all floors and to the basement.

The front drawing rooms located in the mezzanine suite, lined with artificial marble, with painted shades, were called the blue, raspberry and large yellow drawing rooms according to the color of the furniture sets; towards the southern end were, also with paintings on the ceilings, a small living room and a corner dining room. The doorways of the enfilade are directed along an axis starting from the southern end facade of the building. At the other end, the prospect of the suite is closed by a high white marble fireplace in the blue living room, from which the suite turns, stringing on its axis the front bedroom with a columned alcove and the corner study room. The enfilade opened on both sides of the middle large living room, to which a solemn approach led from the main staircase through the entrance hall and the small columned hall.

A number of living rooms were located on the lower and upper floors: on the third floor there was a library, on the first floor there was a kitchen in the left half, near the utility stairs, and a bathhouse near the front entrance. All rooms on the ground floor are vaulted, including the part along the garden façade, which was added at the end of the 18th century.

Almost all the mezzanine rooms are decorated with picturesque plafonds and stucco moldings. The plafond of the large columned hall, erected in the 90s of the 18th century, is close to the painting of the large double-height living room on the opposite facade. Both plafonds have components of the late classical large grisaille ornament with brightly colored inserts and flower garlands. In the same features, the painting of the plafond in the small living room, in the corner living room and in the bedroom was done. The painting of the main staircase* and the entrance hall are the same in style. The nature of the ornament and the severity of the one-color grisaille give these rooms a certain formal coldness. The painting of all these rooms, although somewhat different in emotional character, can be dated to the first third of the 19th century. It can be assumed that these paintings are simultaneous with the work carried out in the house during its preparation for the coronation in 1826.

* (The painting was made in 1829 after the installation of a cast-iron staircase. See: TsGIAL, F. 472, op. 58/893, no. 35, l. 16.)

A completely different painting of the plafond of the small columned hall was discovered under the latest layer during the restoration of painting in 1959. The ornamental motif of the plafond and the combination of tones - pale green amphorae on a muted pink background - force us to attribute this painting, as well as the painting in the corner room at the beginning of the enfilade on the left side, to the period of early classicism, i.e., in all likelihood, to the time before the reconstruction of the house in the 90s.

A new stage in the construction history of the building, when it became the Alexandria Palace, is associated with the activities of E. D. Tyurin in 1833-1870, when he was the chief architect of the Moscow Palace Office *.

Here is a strict list of works carried out in the palace under the direction and according to the projects of Tyurin, compiled by us according to the documents of the Moscow Palace Office for 1833-1860. * :

* (TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 21, no. 19327, fol. 5, No. 19326, l. 59; State. Research Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva, b. 1, Nos. 3520, 3524, 3651, 3665. 3699, 5673, 5674, 5676; TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 16, ll. 321, 426, part 60, no. 29712, fol. 32, no. 29748, l. 51, no. 29790, ll. 4-8, no. 29818.)

1833 Installation of cast-iron lattice balconies at the bottom of the mezzanine semi-circular balconies on the main facade. Arrangement of a room for a church on a mezzanine with a ceiling raised by two and a half arshins, arrangement of a flagpole.

1856 Installation of light openings over the dark rooms of the third floor. Addition of a wooden terrace on the left side of the garden facade near the new corner living room on the ground floor and alteration of the arched column opening of the portal in connection with this, replacing the columns with pillars. The device of a through interfloor hatch for the mechanical lifting of a chair near the corner living room. Replacement of the Ionic capitals of the colonnade of the side semicircular balconies of the main facade with Corinthian ones.

1860 Construction of a kitchen building in the distance behind the right wing and an extension to the end facade of the palace of a connecting wooden gallery.

1833-1836 Construction of a wooden guardhouse on a stone foundation, and in 1836 - a stone one.

1836-1870 Installation of allegorical sculptural groups on the pylons of the entrance gate.

That's all that was done by Tyurin (not counting periodic repairs).

In subsequent years, the palace was run by the architects Gavrilov and Kolbe. During the preparation of the building to accommodate the courtyard at the time of the coronation in 1881-1882. marble, stucco and paintings of a restoration nature were made in the interiors *. Later, the facades of the palace were not altered **.

* (TsGADA, f. 1239, op. 3, part 35, no. 24095, ll. 19-24.)

** (The good condition of the Alexandria Palace was certified by the commission of the architectural restoration subdivision of the museum department of the Glavnauka on December 28, 1918 (Academy of Architecture, Archive of the TsGRM, op. 1, No. 248, fol. 5(132), A-1028, No. 3772(6). Commission noted that, for artistic reasons, it was necessary to remove the later wooden coverings of the balconies, dismantle the wooden terrace on the garden facade and restore the arches with columns, which were replaced by pillars in 1856. In the photograph of the palace, signed on October 30, 1927 (State Historical Museum, department architectural graphics, Gubarev's photo album, A-1028, No. 3772(6), the wooden terrace is no longer there, but the columns in the arched opening have not yet been restored. The stone fence with vases at the top, connecting the outbuildings with the palace, adjoins directly to the portal on the right side, blocking the lower part of the garden facade in the same way as it is shown in the aqua relays of the middle of the 19th century. A photograph from it is in the photo library of the State. Research Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva, K. V., neg. 21970.)

So, in addition to partial and, in any case, not decisive changes, the building has retained to our time the architectural appearance obtained during the restructuring in the 90s of the 18th century, and the planning structure of the middle of the 18th century has been preserved in the interior.

Address: Russia, Moscow, Leninsky prospect (metro station Leninsky prospect, Oktyabrskaya)
Main attractions: Alexandrinsky Palace, Manege, Summer House, Hunting Lodge
Coordinates: 55°43"14.0"N 37°35"37.0"E
Object of cultural heritage of the Russian Federation

Content:

On the right bank of the Moskva River, in the very heart of the capital, there is one of the largest Moscow parks, which used to be called the Neskuchny Garden. Smooth linden alleys, beautiful fountains, attractions for kids, a huge Green Theater and sports grounds. Everything, as it should be in a place where people come to relax from the city noise. In different parts of the park, you can see the picturesque buildings of the old Neskuchnoye estate.

Alexandrinsky Palace

History of the estate

In fact, on the territory of the modern Neskuchny Garden, park alleys and buildings that belonged to three noble estates have been preserved. The owner of one of them was Prokofy Akinfievich Demidov, who, like his famous father, owned large mining enterprises. P.A. Demidov was known as a passionate gardener, a lover of birds and bees. On the territory of the estate, he built a rich palace for himself and placed many cages with songbirds in it.

The Demidov Botanical Garden appeared in the estate in 1756 and had the form of an amphitheater. In addition to unusual ornamental shrubs and fruit trees, here one could see exotic palm trees for Russians. And the first plants - shoots and seeds came to the Moscow estate from the botanical garden in Solikamsk. In 1781, academician Peter Simon Pallas lived for a month in Demidov's estate and, at his request, compiled a detailed catalog of trees, shrubs and herbs growing around the miner's house.

The eccentricity of the owner manifested itself in different ways. He ordered that the watchmen of the botanical garden be dressed in white suits and forced them to make up to look like park sculptures. The watchmen stood motionless and “came to life” only when one of the visitors tried to break a tree branch or plucked beautiful flowers from a flower bed. Because of this, Muscovites began to call the garden Neskuchny. But this is only one of the versions of the origin of the unusual name.

Maid of honor corps

After the death of Demidov, Elena Nikitichna Vyazemskaya bought the land, and after her, Count Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov. Under the new owner in 1806-1808, a large arena was built on the estate.

From the south, the estate of Prince Nikita Yuryevich Trubetskoy, who acquired these lands in 1728, adjoined Demidov's possessions. In the middle of the 18th century, a beautiful two-story house appeared here. It was erected for the princely family by the architect Dmitry Vasilyevich Ukhtomsky, a famous master of the Elizabethan Baroque. The descendants of the prince remade the estate in their own way. They arranged in it a "Versailles garden", a menagerie and a poultry house, wooden galleries and a stone grotto.

After the Trubetskoys, Neskuchnoye changed several owners. Some owners tried to set up the production of iron and copper products on the estate. Others, chasing profits, opened the first hospital in the city with artificial mineral waters on the Moscow coast. However, all attempts to earn income from the estate failed. Neskuchnoe continued to be a place of mass festivities and amusements, and the public who came here had fun as best they could. At the beginning of the 19th century, balloon flights, which were rare in those days, were very popular.

Summer (Tea) House

At the very beginning of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, vast lands on the right bank of Moscow were bought by the palace department in order to create a new summer royal residence here. The southern section of the lands acquired by the treasury was occupied by the former estate of N.Yu. Trubetskoy Neskuchnoye. It is believed that it gave the name to the entire palace and park ensemble built later. Nearby was the Golitsyn estate. The north of the new royal residence previously belonged to the Orlov counts and consisted of several sections. And in the center of the vast palace property was the old Demidov estate with a botanical garden well known to Muscovites.

From that moment on, the territory of the Neskuchny Garden began to be equipped as a single architectural and park complex. The regular parks of individual noble estates were gradually planted with new trees and shrubs and turned into landscape ones. The well-known architect Evgraf Dmitrievich Tyurin magnificently decorated the two-story building of the Oryol arena and gave it a solemn look.

Demidov Palace, or as it began to be called, the Alexandria Palace was also remade in the traditions of the late Empire and equipped with chambers for the emperor and spacious halls for receiving guests. Then, according to the project of E.D. Tyurin, two large buildings were completed to the main palace - Freylinsky and Cavalry, as well as a small guardhouse building. From Kaluzhskaya street to the main entrance to the palace there was a main access road. It originated from the beautiful gate, which was decorated with the allegorical sculpture "Abundance".

Hunting lodge. Filming of the program "What? Where? When?"

In 1917, the royal estate was nationalized. Then the Neskuchny Garden was renamed the Park of Culture and Leisure named after Maxim Gorky. Year after year, many new buildings and pavilions were erected here, as well as the landscape was changed - alleys were broken, the river bank was strengthened and new plantations were made. Therefore, the modern park is very different from what it was 100 years ago.

What buildings are preserved in Neskuchny Garden

In the "Demidov" part of the park, the Alexandria Palace has been preserved, built in the middle of the 18th century in the style of classicism and reconstructed in the 1830s as an imperial residence. On the sides of the luxurious house are small colonnades that support neat semicircular balconies. To the left and right of the central entrance, you can see chamber statues of dogs. In 1930, a beautiful cast-iron fountain appeared on the square in front of the palace, which until that time had adorned Lubyanka Square. And this fountain was built at the end of the 19th century according to the project of the talented sculptor Ivan Petrovich Vitali.

Former arena. Mineralogical Museum named after A.E. Fersman in the Neskuchny Garden

Nowadays, the palace is occupied by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and, unfortunately, it is impossible to see the building inside. On the terrace where the famous botanical garden once grew, today there is a large Green Theater that can accommodate up to 15 thousand spectators.

From one of the owners of the estate, Count Fyodor Orlov, a two-story building of the arena, built at the beginning of the 19th century, remained in the park. Since 1936, it has housed one of the most famous mineralogical museums in the country, named after Academician A.E. Fersman. Unique museum collections began their history in 1716 and still attract many visitors.

The Summer (or Tea) house also remained from the Oryol estate. It was erected in 1796 and today is the oldest of the manor buildings. The picturesque two-storey building in the classicism style is decorated with a slender colonnade, and one-storey outbuildings are made on the sides of it. A small playground is equipped nearby and there are benches where visitors to the park like to relax.

Small (Grotesque) bridge

From the estate of Prince N.Yu. Trubetskoy in the Neskuchny Garden, a small neat hunting lodge-rotunda, built in the middle of the 18th century, has been preserved. In it, the hospitable owner liked to spend time with friends. In modern history, this ancient building became famous as a filming location for the TV show “What? Where? When?". In memory of the princely estate of Neskuchnoye, there was also a large ravine with a dam and several alleys of the old regular park.

Relaxing garden

The park area has long been chosen by Muscovites for walking and leisure. Guests of the Neskuchny Garden can walk along the paths past several ponds, admire the picturesque bridges thrown across the ravines and feed almost tame squirrels. Many people like to just sit on the benches in the shade of trees and look at the pleasure boats cruising along the river.

Some places in the Neskuchny Garden look like a dense forest. Oaks, maples, poplars, lindens and birches grow on the territory of the former noble estates, and in summer there are many flower beds. Playgrounds and attractions have been built for children in the park. For horse lovers there is a Center for the Development of Equestrian Sports.