"To this day I love Arkhangelskoye. Just see the charms of this tiny spot between the Moskva River and the road! Here man communes with Nature in a most unusual setting. He asks for only pleasure and beauty and forgets about the useful."

                                  Alexander Herzen

Arkhangelskoye is perhaps the best known of the country estates around Moscow, being the only surviving palace and park ensemble in Moscow Region. There were many similar country estates all over Russia long ago but in the 1920s and 30s most of them were plundered and destroyed.

An outstanding architectural and artistic ensemble and monument of Russian culture of the turn of the 19th century, Arkhangelskoye was the work of several generations of talented craftsmen. All the main elements of the layout and buildings have survived to this day. With all its artistic uniqueness, the estate represents the best that the Russian art of country estates created in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Arkhangelskoye is first mentioned in the 16th century, a time when it was frequently changing hands. In the 17th century it came into the possession of the Odoyevsky princes, who laid out a farm with a mansion and a stone church honoring St. Michael the Archangel. Built in 1667 by the well-known architect Pyotr Potekhin, the church has survived to this day.

From 1681 to 1703 the estate belonged to a Prince Cherkassky. It then passed into the hands of Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, a close associate of Peter the Great and later a member of the Supreme Privy Council, the body that ran the affairs of state after Peter's death. In 1730, following an aborted attempt of high-ranking dignitaries to limit the autocratic rule of Empress Anna Ioannovna. Prince Golitsyn left Saint Petersburg for Moscow, where he busied himself with work on the estate. He built a new mansion and laid out a French park, which is the centrepiece of today's park. But he could not complete work on the estate, because in 1736 Empress Anna ordered his arrest and confinement in the Schlisselburg fortress, where he died a year later.

In the 1780s Prince Golitsyn's grandson, Nicholas Golitsyn, launched reconstruction of the estate. The old mansion was replaced with a magnificent palace designed by the French architect Charles de Gerne. Family legend has it that reconstruction was started to please the heir to the throne Pavel Petrovich, who allegedly kept urging his courtiers to build an estate as grand as the one at Versailles in France, which he had seen during travels in Europe. It is largely owing to the expansive park that Arkhangelskoye came to be called the Moscow Versailles. The Italian architect Giacomo Trombaro had three terraces with marble balustrades   erected   in  front  of  the  palace.

The  terraces were adorned with flowerbeds and the balustrades with vases, statues, and busts of ancient gods, heroes, and philosophers. Seen from the upper terrace the palace on its low foundation seems to be rising from the green lawn. The central walk is symmetrically lined on both sides with larches and large vases of white marble.

On retiring, however, Prince Golitsyn lost all interest in the estate. Finishing of the interiors was completed by a new owner, Prince Nicholas Yusupov, a wealthy dignitary and well-known collector and lover of the arts who bought the estate in 1 810 to accommodate his collections.

The Yusupov family went back to the Tatar khans of Kazan, who had no scruples about seizing as much land and as many serfs as possible. By the 18th century the Yusupovs were one of the wealthiest families in Russia. They owed several factories and also extensive fish-breeding farms on the Caspian Sea. In his youth Nicholas spent much time abroad, where he made the acquaintance of prominent European artists, actors, and men of letters. These contacts prompted the idea of collecting paintings, sculptures, stone carvings, and books. Yusupov bought paintings by leading French masters from the artists them- selves or at auctions.

Returning to St. Petersburg in 1782, Yusupov enjoyed the favor of Catherine the Great for some time but was then sent to Turin, Italy, as ambassador. After six years in Italy he moved to Paris, where he carried out diplomatic errands for the Empress and bought paintings, statues, gems, and cameos for the Hermitage and other collections. At the same time he obtained paintings by famous masters for himself.

Back in Russia, Yusupov supervised the Imperial theatres and the Hermitage. Later, dismissed from public office and retired abroad, he renewed his contacts with artists. With three, Jacques-Louis David, Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, and Carle Vernet, he corresponded after returning to Russia. The large canvases of these artists grace the halls at Arkhangelskoye to this day.

Prince Yusupov was undoubtedly a connoisseur of art. He had a theatre company and orchestra of his own, a large library, and an extensive collection of paintings and sculptures. He displayed considerable taste in furnishing and decorating his residence. His factories produced decorative porcelain, glass, and fabrics. The factory at Arkhangelskoye, though, had no industrial value; it was little more than a whim of the European-educated prince, a tribute to his sophisticated taste. His workshops produced rugs not for profit but to please his aesthetic passion. Rare flowers and other plants were nurtured in his gardens for pleasure alone. "Since Arkhangelskoye is not a profit-making but rather a profit-losing estate, meant for producing' pleasure, not money," he said, "I will obtain rarities and make sure that everything is better than elsewhere." Even the smaller premises on the Arkhangelskoye estate had rare furniture and gave an impression of magnificence.

In a pinewood at the western end of the estate there stands Prince Yusupov's famous theatre. The building was designed by the distinguished Moscow architect Osip Bovet with the participation of Pietro Gonzago, the Italian architect and decorator whose name is inseparable from the history of the Imperial theatres in the late 18th century. The auditorium is most impressive, circled by columns and two rows of boxes. The theatre owes its fame to the sets made by Pietro Gonzago, sets that created the illusion of vaulted halls. Of the twelve sets only four have survived, along with the curtain designed by Gonzago. The Yusupov theatre has gone down in the history of theatre as a landmark on the world cultural scene. The last performances took place in 1896.

The rooms with their palatial furniture, bronze, sculptures, paintings, porcelain, dainty souvenirs, and grand chandeliers tell us much about their owners and the life, tastes and interests of the Russian aristocracy.

Though a lover of the arts, Prince Yusupov differed little from his contemporaries in many ways. He had an enormous income from his many factories scattered all over Russia and willingly spent money on extravagant personal whims but was stingy in everyday life. A fire on the estate in 1820 was attributed by outsiders to his stinginess: he had ordered the palace to be heated with shavings instead of logs. There was also much talk in Moscow about the numerous love affairs of the ageing prince. Yusupov had long since separated from his wife and kept a house in Moscow for a dozen or two of the most attractive of his serf girls, his concubines. He also made no secret of having a famous dancer for a mistress, whom he showered with rare diamonds at her gala performances. Archives suggest that during his life on the estate he kept several more mistresses.

At the same time Prince Yusupov enjoyed the company of actors, artists, and poets and was closely acquainted with Alexander Pushkin. In his younger years, the Prince had known Pushkin's parents and now looked upon the poet as a person from his own social environment. Yusupov served as best man at the poet's wedding and attended the first ball arranged by the young couple. Pushkin in turn visited him at Arkhangelskoye, where Yusupov lived during the warmer months, and dedicated several poems to him. In 1903 Yusupov's descendants erected a marble bust of Pushkin in the park. Excerpts from Pushkin's message "To a Dignitary", written for Prince Nicholas Yusupov, are carved on the pedestal.

By 1830 the estate ensemble was complete. A year later the old prince died. His heirs neglected the estate and even removed some of the paintings and sculptures, sold the plant collection and disbanded the orchestra and the theatre com-pany. The estate's last owner, Prince Yusupov-Sumarokov-Elston, however, returned the estate to its former fame and in time the estate welcomed as visitors artists Alexander Benois, Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin, Vladimir Makovsky, pianist Konstantin Igumnov, and many other Russian artists and musicians.

In 1918 the Soviet government assumed protection of the Arkhangelskoye estate and in the following year opened a museum there.

by Alexandra Balashoiva

(“Moscow today and tomorrow” September. 2002)