The Kushelev-Bezborodko estate is one of the oldest estates in St. Petersburg. Peter I himself could have been here soon after the founding of the city; in Peter's times there was a manor house with the garden of the Swedish commandant of the fortress Nyenskans.
At the time of Catherine II, the vast estate of the almighty Chancellor Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko was already spread out here, this was the heyday of the estate, an extensive landscape park with ponds, which could be put on a par with the park in Tsarskoe Selo.
The Empress herself took part in the feasts hosted by the Chancellor. Derzhavin took part in literary evenings, and Glinka himself played music. Alexander Dumas, the father, was received at the estate. This event caused a stir in St. Petersburg, many townspeople asked to take a walk in the park of Kusheleva Dacha to look at the celebrity.
And for the last time, the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate became famous all over, then the USSR. It was shot by Eldar Ryazanov himself in his comedy "The Adventures of Italians in Russia" (1974).
The plot of the film revolved around the search for treasures hidden under a lion in Leningrad, and there are many, many lion sculptures in Leningrad, living lions are much smaller. And as many as 29 lions sit along the fence of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate.
The famous lions of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate
Nowadays, the estate is already located in the industrial area of the city, at 40 Sverdlovskaya embankment. Sometimes the estate is called the Kusheleva dacha or the Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha, and the area where the estate is located is called Polyustrovo, after the name of the village that was previously located here, and later the resort mineral waters.
Many residents of the Kalininsky and Krasnogvardeisky districts of St. Petersburg had the misfortune to visit the anti-tuberculosis dispensary No. 5, which is now located in this historic building. About the prevention of tuberculosis at the end of the post.
Manor lion sculpture A bit of history
Even in pre-Petrine times, on the site of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate, there was a house with a garden of the Swedish commandant of the Nyenskans fortress, now completely lost. The house was equipped with extensive dungeons and secret underground passages, along which the Swedish commandant of the fortress was supposed to flee in the event of a Russian attack.
But as usual, time flies forward uncontrollably, and after the end of the Northern War in 1721, Russian lands already stretched here.
The estate was named after the names of its former owners, and at first the estate was owned by the statesman and diplomat Prince Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko (1782 purchase of the estate), and after his death the estate was inherited by his grand-nephew A.G. Kushelev, who was no less a director Department of the State Treasury and the Chief State Comptroller. For services to the fatherland and in memory of his great ancestor, Alexander G. Kushelev, received the right to be called Kushelev-Bezborodko.
Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko was very famous in his time, he was called the almighty chancellor. He was honored to be depicted on the monument to Catherine II on Ostrovsky Square, which is next to Nevsky Prospect, you can almost say on it. His portraits now hang in, not one portrait, but portraits. He is depicted in the multifigured historical painting by EV Moshkov “Confirmation of the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Alekseevna on May 9, 1795” next to Catherine II, and in the painting “Transfer of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God on June 9, 1798” next to Paul I, although it is known for certain that that by the time depicted in the picture, the chancellor had already died.
Doors with vases of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate Such people had a hand in the construction of the masterpiece famous architects, like V. Bazhenov, he is credited with the initial construction of the estate without side galleries in 1773, but it cannot be said with absolute certainty that it was he. V. Bazhenov also built the Pashkov house in Moscow and the Tsaritsyno palace complex, that is, at that time he was one of the leading architects in the Russian Empire.
The front facade of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate A large-scale reconstruction of the estate was ordered by A.A. Bezborodko from the architect Quarenghi. Then the estate took on the form we were accustomed to with side galleries and side wings. Galleries were originally open in imitation of the Italian style, but in the climate of St. Petersburg, open galleries were not in demand for most of the year. During subsequent reconstructions, the galleries were turned into closed ones.
Side wing of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate 
Side wing of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate 
Facade of the side wing of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate A chic landscape park with ponds, bridges and flowers was laid out around the estate. They say that Catherine the Great herself and many prominent statesmen of Catherine's era attended the feasts hosted by Bezborodko.
Ivan A. Bezborodko's dacha in Polyustrovo. Watercolor by G.S. Sergeev. 1800 BC Opposite the estate, a large-scale granite pier with sphinxes was built; underground passage... The pier was recently repaired, but the underground passage was lost.
View of the Smolny Cathedral from the gates of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate Now it could be very useful, since crossing the embankment next to the estate is impossible due to heavy car traffic and the absence of pedestrian crossings nearby.
The entrance to the underground passage leading from the pier to the estate 
Sphinx on the pier In the 19th century, a resort arose on the territory of the estate, here they began to extract the ferrous mineral waters of Polyustrovo. The resort thrived for 30 years, but a massive fire ended that prosperity.
Since 1896, the history of the estate ends, but begins new story- the history of medical institutions, located in a formerly very famous manor. It all started with the community of sisters of mercy, and ended with a tuberculosis dispensary in our time.
The best historical reference about the estate hangs on the website of the tuberculosis dispensary.
State of the art
Now it is no longer a suburb, but an urban area, built up around the perimeter by large industrial enterprises, a beautiful view of the Neva and Smolny Cathedral opens from the porch of the estate. Hundreds of cars rush past the lattice of the once quiet country estate every second.
Car traffic on Sverdlovskaya embankment is very busy at the moment, six lanes in both directions. The state of the building itself, alas, evokes only negative emotions. The building is in need of major repairs and restoration.
Facade of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate For the tuberculosis dispensary, a new building has already been built near the Mechnikov hospital, this is much more comfortable spot in terms of transport accessibility for the population, than the Sverdlovskaya embankment, but due to bureaucratic delays, the move is delayed. I heard that the move was scheduled for 2011, but did not take place due to the bankruptcy of the construction contractor, now the move is promised in December 2015, but as they say, wait and see.
The interior is in the same terrible condition as the façade. From the estate with a rich collection of paintings and numerous objects of art, alas, nothing has survived in the interiors
The interior of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate This staircase, located in the tower, leads to the children's department, and therefore this green, unattractive, wooden lattice was erected there. To prevent small patients from crawling between the staircase railing and bending over it.
The staircase of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate Restoration work is already underway behind the rear facade of the estate. there are houses for the staff of medical institutions and former park pavilions.
Back facade of the manor 
The central alley of the old manor park The park of the estate has been ennobled, now it houses a business center, inside the houses of the offices of various enterprises. Of course, this is no longer a gorgeous park rivaling the Tsarskoye Selo park, but a pitiful likeness of it, but it's better than a wasteland with ruins.
Modern buildings of business centers are located next to the old park pavilions. Several ponds have survived.
The restored pavilions of the manor park And on this pond I went skiing as a child. During my childhood, there were factories around this pond, now factories are being demolished, business centers and residential areas are being built. Fishermen are trying to catch fish in the pond, I would disdain to eat such fish. And the area next to the pond was then called Babarovka, and I still don't know why.
Pond in the Bezborodko public garden near Polyustrovsky prospect Squirrels live in the park, although the area cannot be called quiet. On the one hand, there is an embankment with heavy car traffic, on the other side, Polyustrovsky Prospekt, which is also very busy with transport.
The restored pavilions of the manor park The church in the name of St. Panteleimon was closed in 1923, later it housed a children's infectious diseases hospital. Attempts are now being made to recreate the building.
Church in the name of the healer Panteleimon, built in 1901 
This is what the church looked like in the 1900s I hope that in a few years I will have the opportunity to write about the renovated Kushelev-Bezborodko estate. I plan to build a cultural and business center there.
Prevention of tuberculosis
And a little about the sad, I naturally visited this estate in the direction of examination at the tuberculosis dispensary. As it turned out, this year the Ministry of Health issued an order to examine all children whose Mantoux reaction exceeds 13 mm. At school or kindergarten, a formidable direction is issued that you must provide a certificate of examination from a tuberculosis dispensary within a month, otherwise the child will not be allowed to attend school.
The interior of the tuberculosis dispensary I recommend making an appointment right away, the queue is 2-3 weeks. During this time, the child needs to be tested, and fluorography should be done for all adult family members, but this is only the beginning. In the dispensary, they will give a direction for a chest X-ray for the child and give him a Diaskintest, this is a type of Mantoux test, you need to check after 72 hours. It is imperative to check it in the dispensary, in the district clinic it is impossible. After that, once again make an appointment with a phthisiatrician, so that, based on the results of the examination, you will finally receive the coveted certificate, this can be done without a child.
In total, for all this examination, I had to take time off from work 3 times. The tuberculosis dispensary is open from 9 am to 6 pm only on weekdays, there are no options. The child missed a workout and two lessons. I went to the doctors instead of going to the fitness club in the morning. A fair question arises, is such an examination justified? Maybe our Ministry of Health should better direct the money allocated for this large-scale campaign to really sick children in need of treatment, and not drive healthy children to doctors.
On the other hand, tuberculosis is, of course, a dangerous infectious disease. And it is not so far from each of us as we would like to think about it. St. Petersburg is an unfavorable region for tuberculosis. The huge overcrowding of the population, poor ecology, the presence of a large number of migrants all this increases the risk of infection.
During my life I have heard about 4 cases of tuberculosis. My husband worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the 90s. There is a mandatory annual clinical examination of all employees, an annual universal fluorographic examination, but two of their employees died of tuberculosis, when the diagnosis was made, nothing could be done.
In the kindergarten where my son went, one girl fell ill. It was a normal family, i.e. the girl ate normally, dressed normally, absolutely pleasant parents and such a misfortune. Nobody is immune from tuberculosis, alas. Only strong immunity can save the situation. In St. Petersburg, 90% of the population is infected, but not sick. The disease may never occur, as it happens in the vast majority of cases. It is necessary to strengthen immunity for any diagnosis. I heard a similar story about a sick child in the kindergarten where my nephew goes from my brother.
Naturally, all children in contact with the sick are subject to compulsory examination at the tuberculosis dispensary and observation throughout the year.
The incidence in St. Petersburg is about 50 people per 100 thousand of the population, in general, not so much. Mortality from tuberculosis is 12 people per 100 thousand of the population.
There is a popular place in Petersburg, where there used to be mineral waters, whose health was improved by noble people. During the day they drank healing water, in the evening they played cards and sipped champagne. Years passed, the place changed. Nowadays, nothing reminds of those springs and warm summer evenings here, and the lions guarding the entrance to the estate cry and remember how they used to dance the square dance here.
2. Places where you are dacha Kushelev-Bezborodko, and it will be about her that they were not empty even before the founding of St. Petersburg. The commandant of the Swedish fortress Nyenskans founded a summer house and a cozy garden here. On warm summer days, he came here with his family, tended apple trees and had a picnic. But Peter I came, knocked on the foreheads of the Swedes, slapped a pendel and drove them from their homes. He gave a cozy dacha to Catherine, if anyone does not remember - to his wife.
photo from http://spbfoto.spb.ru/
3. During one of his visits, Peter I tasted local voditsa, rolled it across the royal palate, smacked his lips and said: "Local voditsa is no worse than Belgian voditsa, now we don't need to go anywhere, we will make our SPA here, it would be better if we have overseas guests. come". Well, I have no confidence in the historical justice of the words, because I have invented them myself, but I think the meaning was similar. As a result, the source was nicknamed Polyustrovsky.
4. True, no one began to go here, but the secret adviser Teplov, who needed treatment, realized that it would be cheaper to improve his health here than in the Belgian SPA. He bought a plot for himself, called Vasily Bazhenov and persuaded him to build a mansion in the Gothic style. In the stone house, greenhouses were also built, where fruits, vegetables, flowers, tobacco were grown, so that Teplov would not be bored.
5. It is not known exactly whether the water helped, but Teplov eventually gave up the ends. His son did not need a dacha and sold it to Chancellor Bezborodko. He hired the famous architect Quarenghi, and they completely rebuilt the house from scratch. The buildings already located here were used to the maximum. Thus, the building keeps not only the remains of the Bazhenov building, but possibly also traces of the very first estate of the Swedish commandant.
6. A friend of the chancellor, Lvov, came here to play cards, dance a square dance and drink some water. Nikolai Alexandrovich owned many professions: engineer, inventor, geologist, botanist, historian, archaeologist, poet, playwright, prose writer, translator, drawing master and architect. He was both a reaper, a Swiss, and a gambler, so he was often compared to Leonardo Da Vinci. It is to the hands of Nikolai Alexandrovich that the appearance of the fence of 29 lions is credited.
7. Let's speed up. Otherwise, I will tell you all the story for a long time. After the death of Bezborodko, his niece lived here, and her son had the surname Kushelev, who changed her to Kushelev-Bezborodko and glorified this dacha all over the world. Unlike many others, he followed the behest of Peter the Great and opened a health center here, in the dacha there is a resort hall of the Polyustrovsky springs. Famous Frenchman A. Dumas senior was invited here to advertise and promote the health center in Europe. The author of The Three Musketeers wrote: We stopped in front of a large villa, two wings of which extended in a semicircle from the main building. The Count's servants in ceremonial livery were lined up on the steps of the entrance. The Count and Countess got out of the carriage, and kissing of hands began. Then we climbed the stairs to the second floor to the church. As the count and countess crossed the threshold, mass began in honor of the "safe return", which the venerable priest was smart enough not to drag out. At the end, everyone embraced, regardless of rank, and by order of the count we were each escorted to his own room. My apartment was set up on the ground floor and overlooked the garden. They adjoined a large, fine hall, used as a theater, and consisted of an entrance hall, a small salon, a billiard room, a bedroom for Moinet and me. After breakfast I went to the balcony. A wonderful view opened up in front of me - large granite stairs descend from the embankment to the river, over which they are erected six feet fifty high. A banner with the count's coat of arms flutters at the top of the pole. This is the count's pier, where the Great Catherine set foot, when she showed mercy to Bezborodko and took part in the holiday arranged in her honor.
8. Needless to say that the place has become popular? Even a free shuttle was allowed here for the townspeople, which was called the omnibus at that time.
photo from the site https://wikimedia.org/
9. I would like to say that the place did not know sadness, that they danced a square dance, drank water and had fun as best they could. But the resort burned down. People stopped coming here, and the water began to be bottled. The fun was gone, the lions were getting bored. Already in the second half of the 19th century, a huge park surrounding the Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha was built up at a rapid pace. The dacha area turned into a factory suburb of St. Petersburg. The brewery "New Bavaria", now a well-known factory producing Soviet champagne, CJSC "Sparkling Wines", began to work here.
10. The place was empty, and therefore it was donated to the community of sisters of mercy of the Red Cross, after that the dacha was transferred to the Promet plant, then to the hospital named after Karl Liebknecht. Now dacha Kushelev-Bezborodko occupies an anti-tuberculosis dispensary. The last restoration was in the 60s. The building is crumbling, no one is watching. Now do you understand why the lions are crying here?
UPD. Lviv was taken for restoration! The dispensary has moved out, and the dacha is being sold under the hammer. I hope the dacha will soon sparkle with colors.
Dacha Bezborodko, or "Kusheleva Dacha", is located on the Sverdlovskaya Embankment of St. Petersburg. This is the second building in the city after the Marble Palace, decorated with marble. Therefore, the estate is often called the Second or Small Marble Palace. It is an architectural monument of classicism.
The place where Piskarevsky Prospekt branches off from the Sverdlovskaya Embankment is called Polyustrovo. Back in the 18th century, a healing source of mineral water was found here. In the 1770s, a manor house in the Gothic style was erected on this site, most likely by Bazhenov. Chancellor Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko began to own the site on the banks of the Neva River in 1782. In 1783-1784 for him, according to the project of D. Quarenghi, the main building was rebuilt. The architect did not rebuild the house, but used the existing structures. Therefore, the house keeps not only the elements of Bazhenov's construction, but, probably, of the Swedish estate, presumably located here even before the founding of St. Petersburg.
The main three-storey building with round towers at the corners was connected by arched galleries with 2 symmetrical side wings. On the north side of the house, a large landscape park in the English style was laid out - a favorite place for country festivities. In addition, garden structures were erected. The garden was decorated with marble sculptures, canals, gazebos. A pier with granite sphinxes was built in front of the house on the embankment. In the years 1857-1860, during the restructuring according to the project of the architect E.Ya. Schmidt, the mansion has taken on its present form.
After the death of Bezborodko, Princess K.I. Lobanova-Rostovskaya, his niece, who raised her sister's son, A.G. Kusheleva. Later he began to call himself Count Kushelev-Bezborodko. It was from this time that the dacha acquired its now well-known name - the dacha of Kushelev-Bezborodko.
After 1917, there was a hospital named after Karl Liebknecht. In 1960-1962, reconstruction work was carried out here, and the building was equipped for an anti-tuberculosis dispensary.
In general, the house was built in the architectural forms of eclecticism. The central facade of the mansion was created in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Finish - pink marble. In the depths of the site, a greenhouse, a library and a theater were built.
Count Kushelev-Bezborodko, a writer and philanthropist, was fond of collecting rare paintings. His mansion housed the richest collection of them. Every resident of St. Petersburg and a guest Northern capital on certain days they could see the pictures absolutely free of charge. V.V. Krestovsky, A.F. Pisemsky, V.S. Kurochkin, A. Dumas was passing by.
After the death of the count, the mansion was acquired by the family of the emperor. Prince Nikolai Konstantinovich and Princess Yekaterina Mikhailovna Yurievskaya lived here, who placed the personal belongings of the murdered Emperor Alexander II in the house.
A number of ceremonial rooms, a main staircase and elements of decoration of windows and doors have been preserved in the mansion in its original form. The most beautiful rooms of the Small Marble Palace are the Gold, White and Blue drawing rooms, the Saxon Porcelain drawing room, the Big Study and others.
The wings of the mansion are connected to each other by an unusual fence that separates the front garden from the embankment (mid-19th century). It is made in the form of sculptures of 29 identical lions holding cast-iron chains in their teeth. All lions are set on square pedestals, under which there is a foundation made of Pudozh stone. There are many lion sculptures in St. Petersburg, but in most cases these are guard lions that keep their paws on the ball. There are so many lions - only here. Behind them, in front of the house, is the usual fence.
Now in Maly marble palace the European Institute is located, where students are trained in international programs in history and economics, sociology and law.
Continuing the previous commentary - an excerpt from the memoirs of the artist A.N. Benois: Alexander Benois. My memories. M., "Science", 1980, p. 311-318. (This book is easy to find on the Internet. I downloaded it to an e-book and am reading it right now.)
A.N. Benois (1870 - 1960) in his childhood saw this park, still almost destroyed. The text is long, but interesting to me.
"It must have been a desire to be closer to your eldest daughter[Camille, sister of A.N.Benois - S.P.] expecting the birth of her second child, as well as a need for dad[architect N.L. Benois - S.P.] often visit the construction of the bell tower at the church at the Catholic cemetery (on the Vyborg side) prompted my parents in the summer of 1877 to settle on Kushelevka. Sister Kamishenka lived here for the second year already with her Mat[Matthew (Matvey Yakovlevich) Edwards - entrepreneur, husband of Camilla - S.P.] and with the firstborn Jommi. Kushelevka was the name of the dacha near St. Petersburg of the counts Kushelev-Bezborodko, located not reaching Okhta, along the embankment of the Neva.<…>.
In the 50s of the XÍX century. The magnificent and extravagant Count Kushelev could still, without risking losing his face, give in the palace his ancestor - the famous Chancellor, refuge "to Alexander Dumas, the father himself," and during these years a luxurious life full of lordly whims proceeded on Kushelevka. But since then, an English paper mill has grown up on the side of the park on Okhta, and one of its red buildings, with a chimney throwing out puffs of black smoke, and with its incessant noise, has completely changed the character of the entire neighborhood. In addition, the awakened passion for profit through the sale land plots pushed the heir to the Kushelevs, Count Musin-Pushkin, to part with some of his estate, and just in 1875 another building was built on one of such sites (a stone's throw from the palace), no less grandiose than a paper mill, a building - Slavyansky brewery, also with a chimney, with smoke and with its own peculiar noises.
My uncle Cesar Kavos also took advantage of Count Musin-Pushkin's inclination to "sell" his lands.[architect Ts.A. Kavos (junior) - uncle of AN Benois - S.P.] - a man and an enterprising in himself, and now he fell under the influence of a new member of our family, the husband of my sister Camilla M.Ya. Edwards, who persuaded my uncle to invest some capital in a rope factory. For this enterprise, my uncle acquired another significant piece of the park, and in 1876 the first building of the plant was laid there, which then grew over several years into a whole factory settlement.
Both factories, brewing and paper-spinning, located on the banks of the Neva, crowded from two sides the estate created for the leisure of Catherine's nobleman, nevertheless, in 1877, both the palace built by Quarenghi and the granite pier, descending with monumental staircases all the way to the Neva, and and many of the buildings scattered throughout the park were still intact. Several rooms in the palace were rented in the early days after their marriage, the Edwards, and I remember that empty, smooth marble hall, in which, under a huge chandelier, their small round dining table was quivering in complete disproportion. The entrance to my sister was from the garden, but not through a door, but through a window, to which one had to climb a cast-iron staircase attached to the façade, while there was no way from the hallway of the palace to their apartment cut out of the main apartment. The Edwards lived there for only a little over a year, and then moved to a house located nearby in the park and finally settled in a purpose-built house already in the immediate vicinity of the cable plant.
<…>
We lived on Kushelevka in 1877, 1878. and then back in 1882, and these three summers gave me a lot. Of course, at that time I could not fully realize what I was witnessing, namely, that before my very eyes the decomposition of the remnants of the glorious past was taking place; but when daddy scolded the commercialism of Count Musin-Pushkin, when he bitterly recalled what Kushelevka was like in his youth, when the Ludwigs told me about those festivities that they themselves "quite recently" witnessed, when other old-timers reported details about , what statues and vases stood in the park and how clean the channels along which the gilded gondolas glided, then all this caused a vague sadness in me, and what lived out its days in the same places awakened in me a kind of alarming foreboding, as if all this did not perish. It died, but much later.
A year before we settled on Kushelevka, and just when the Slavic plant was being built (the builder of which was my cousin Jules Benoit[architect YU Benois, cousin of AN Benois; elsewhere in his memoirs, he was given an unflattering characterization - despite his profession - as business person completely devoid of a sense of beauty; I personally still doubt its fairness - S.P.] ), I visited Kushelevka for the first time, and on this first visit I was most impressed by the Ruin. It was one of those undertakings in which, in anticipation of romantic trends, already in the 18th century, the dream of the Middle Ages was expressed. This ruin, built in the days of Catherine by the famous Quarenghi (her image is in the uvrage dedicated to his creation), was supposed to represent the ruins of a castle, with a "surviving" round tower. At that time I had no idea about Quarenghi, about the Middle Ages - very vague and rather "fabulous", but I, like many children, was easily aroused by everyone that simply bore the imprint of mystery. If Dad hadn't taken me then by the hand, I would never have dared to pass by these grandiose columns and cornices that had been thrown to the ground and climb up the moldy roll steps of an endless, as it seemed to me, spiral staircase. But with my dad, the fear disappeared, and I really liked the view from the upper platform of the Ruin. On the other side of the Neva, reflected in it, shone the heads of the Smolny Monastery, in the foreground towered the imposing building of the Bezborodkinskiy Palace, on the other side, a park merged with the distant forests, in which pavilions and statues gleamed white. In the same place where the construction of the brewery was being prepared, the soil was all dug for the foundation, there were heaps of rubbish, beams, boards, bricks. Naturally, when we settled on Kushelevka in 1877, my first duty was to ask for the Ruin, but it turned out that the Ruins no longer exist; it "had to be demolished" under some sort of sheds for beer barrels, and it seems to me that it was then that I first understood (without knowing the word itself) the horror of artistic vandalism. I even hated my cousin Jules, on whose orders this monstrous act was performed, which ruined the very thing that remained in my memory like a wonderful dream.
Our generation, which still found a lot of remnants of beautiful antiquity and at the same time witnessed the beginning of the systematic death of this antiquity under the onslaught of new living conditions (and theories), could not help but cultivate in me some special bitterness at the sight of a process that was taking place in connection with more and more crumbling of life. Everything in the world is subject to the law of death and change. Everything old, obsolete and even the most beautiful must at some point give way to a new one, caused by vital needs and at least ugly. But to see how such gangrene spreads and especially to be present at the moment when gangrene has just touched something, when the doomed body as a whole seems still healthy and beautiful - to see this delivers incomparable grief. These feelings of something infinitely sad and pitiful, experienced by me as a child, have left a deep imprint on my whole life. They undoubtedly predetermined my historical sentimentalism, and indirectly, my "Kushelev sentiments" played a role in the formation of that cult of the past, which at the beginning of the XX century. I was led by a significant group of artistic figures who set themselves the goal of preserving historical and artistic values.<…>.
Kushelevsky Park, also called Bezborodkinskaya Dacha, occupied an irregular quadrangle that stretched along the Neva on one side and went into the depth, perhaps a whole mile. Almost in the middle of the embankment stood<…> summer palace Chancellor Prince Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko<…>
The Bezborodkinsky Palace opened onto the garden with a terrace with wrought iron railings. A wide linden avenue, which approached the garden façade itself, was lined on both sides with marble busts of Roman emperors; it reached the bridge, again decorated with lions, and the end of this alley rested (since 1877) against a wooden fence that separated the site of the Neva plant from the rest of the park. To the left of the palace, in the garden under the trees, there was a graceful gazebo, the so-called "Coffee House", similar to the Turkish pavilion in Tsarskoe Selo. Inside, this house was painted on a yellow background with birds and arabesques, but already in 1877 it served as a warehouse for all junk and, looking through a crack in a locked door, one could distinguish inside a pile of broken sculptures interspersed with benches, tables, parts of trellises and garden tools. Even more to the left of the palace stood until 1878, for a rather open place the remembered Ruin, whose purpose was to serve as a "belvedere", and next to it was the house of the steward, built in the English Gothic style<…>... A simple triumphal arch towered near the Gothic house, through which, as the legend said, Mother Catherine the Great herself more than once entered the holidays given by Count Bezborodko. To the right of the palace, the park was closed from the side of the embankment by a blank board fence with stone pillars. The gate closest to Okhta was in it and led to the dacha village in which we lived. Almost at the very gate, next to a small two-story yellow dacha, a granite pedestal has been preserved, on which once stood a vase, the stone lid of which was still lying there in the grass; another beautiful vase of polished granite survived not far from my son-in-law's plant. A cubic house with a domed cover (typical for Quarenghi), next to our dacha, served as a dwelling for the half-deaf janitor Sysoy and his grumpy old woman; but once this hut was a bath-bath, and Alexander Dumas himself steamed in it.
A neglected path led from the gate into the depths of the park, teeming with trees of all kinds. Centennial oaks, birches, lindens, spruces stood either in close-knit groves or formed the center of small meadows. The path led to a wooden "Chinese" bridge, of which only pitiful fragments remained of the Chinese attire. Once the fragile railing of this bridge, on which one of our guests inadvertently leaned, broke, and he almost broke his neck, falling into the shallow waters of the canal. Since then, the dilapidated patterned railings have been replaced by new, simple, but durable ones, and the entire bridge has been altered in a simple manner.
Behind the bridge there was a "slide", which is obligatory in every park, it was all overgrown with bushes of wolf berries<...>A few more steps behind the bend of the canal, a view of the main curiosity of Kushelevsky park opened up - the Kvarengievskaya rotunda, perhaps too colossal in its place, but which was an exemplary monument of classical architecture. The rotunda consisted of a low granite base and eight stately columns with lush Corinthian capitals supporting a flat dome, richly decorated with stucco caissons inside. The columns were white, the roof was green. Back in the 60s, this monumental pavilion served as a canopy for the monument to Catherine II in the image of Cybele, but in my time the statue was no longer there, and it was said that Count Kushelev presented it to the sovereign. Is this not the statue that stood in the Tsarskoye Selo "Grotto"? The very same Quarenghi rotunda stood, despite the absence of any repairs, completely intact until the 90s, and only then it was sold for scrap for a penny sum by my cousin Sonya Cavos, who inherited this part of the park from her father.[Note by A.N. Benois: “I recently learned that at the time of the sale for scrapping, the rotunda was a ruin. A monstrous storm that swept over Petersburg tore off the roof and knocked down one of the columns.”]
Fifteen years later, she dealt the last blow to Kushelevka, selling her land on the plots on which the most ordinary houses and small houses soon grew. Only here and there the surviving trees and half-dried ponds among them continued to remind that one of the most magnificent manor estates was once located here.
To the left of the rotunda was located the once famous, but gradually completely neglected orchard, from which only a few bushes of wild raspberries and gooseberries survived; further, behind the main alley by the bridge with lions, a view of the first big pond, in the waters of which two pavilions connected by one common marble staircase were reflected. These buildings, already on the territory that belonged to the Slavyansky plant, resembled the Peterhof Ozerki.
The first pond was connected by a strait with the second, which was in the full possession of my son-in-law[Edwards - S.P.] and famous for its white and pink water lilies. Here in some places on the banks one could discern the remains of granite piers with terracotta sculptures, and here there was a "farm" - a large building painted in red with a round tower, similar to a farm in Tsarskoe Selo. Beside her, rusty water flowed down a straight canal from the iron spring of the village of Polyustrovo over broken marble bowls and over porous stone ledges. This village stretched "inland" for about a mile on both sides of the mentioned canal, the waters of which became redder and redder as they approached their source. At the very source, the canal expanded in the form of a "bucket", on the banks of which a long, dark-red building of the "Mineral Waters Establishment" stretched out. miserable existence. In the neglected garden of this "Establishment" only one kiosk for music and some crooked barracks for benches remained from the former splendor, but nowadays music has never played here, and the benches were boarded up, from which it was evident that the belief in healing " iron water "was shaken. Accordingly, the dachas in Polyustrovo, once inhabited by rather wealthy people, were now rented exclusively by small people. Right behind the village of Polyustrovo, a forest began, a real forest where we went to pick blueberries and mushrooms, and in which, they said, wolves and foxes were found. On the other side of Polyustrov, a distant expanse of fields and vegetable gardens opened up, and in the distance, at the very line of the horizon, the domes of the church at the Powder Factories barely shone. "
All this was housed in different departments of the vast, once lordly house, lived, ate, drank, played cards, took walks in the Count's carriages, not in the least embarrassed by the owner, who, due to the endless weakness of character and part of the pain, was not at all intervened, giving everyone the freedom to do whatever ”Grigory Aleksandrovich went down in history as a publisher, philanthropist and novelist. At his expense, books of poems by A.N. Maikov, the first collected works of A.N. Ostrovsky, the works of L.A. Mey and other publications were published. In 1861 he visited AI Herzen in London, and in 1863 made a significant contribution to the "General Fund", created to help needy young emigrants. The works of G.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko himself were published both in magazines and in separate editions. In 1857 in St. Petersburg, under the pseudonym Gritsko Grigorenko, his "sketches and stories" were published, in 1868, also in the capital, were published in two volumes "Essays, stories and travel notes". In the 1850s, he spent the whole summer at Kusheleva Dacha. The estate was visited by many writers - A.F. Pisemsky, A.K. Tolstoy, D.V. Grigorovich and others. Literary evenings and concerts were held here.
In 1858, G.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko invited Alexander Dumas, his father, to travel across Russia and received him at his dacha in Polyustrovo. He met the French writer in Paris during his stay abroad. Dumas had long had an interest in Russia, but he came here only after the death of Nicholas I. The Emperor could not forgive Dumas of the novel "Notes of a Fencing Teacher", the heroes of which under assumed names were the Decembrist I.A. Annenkov and the Frenchwoman P. Geble, who followed him in exile to Siberia. G.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, the last representative of the richest family, died in 1870 at the age of 38. By the end of the 19th century, the landscape park surrounding the Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha was gradually decreasing, as various industrial enterprises were built on its territory. In 1896, the Elizabethan Community of Sisters of Mercy of the Red Cross was housed at Kusheleva Dacha, for which the building was rebuilt, typical hospital buildings appeared here.
In 1960-1962, the building was restored; during the construction of the Sverdlovskaya embankment, the underground passage to the Neva was destroyed. The embankment opposite the dacha is still a pier-terrace, decorated with figures of four sphinxes. All the sculptural decoration is made of gray granite. Above the entrance to the grotto, a lion's head is carved in the castle stone. At the end of the 19th century, the sphinxes disappeared and were restored only in 1957-1958. The model was the sphinxes standing in the courtyard of the Stroganov Palace (17 Nevsky Prospect). The famous fence, which includes figures of twenty-nine seated lions, was restored in 1999.
From Soviet times to the present day, the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate houses a tuberculosis dispensary. In the Krasnogvardeisky district, a new building is already underway for him, the relocation of the TB dispensary to which is scheduled for 2011. The architectural monument was handed over to investors who plan to use the premises of the estate as a cultural and business center.
The author of the article: Parshina Elena Aleksandrovna References used: Bunatyan G.G., Charnaya M.G. Walking along the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg. Guidebook. Parity., St. Petersburg 2007; Lisovsky V.G. Architecture of St. Petersburg, Three centuries of history . Slavia., SPb., 2004; Pylyaev M. I. Forgotten past of the outskirts of Petersburg. Parity., St. Petersburg. 2007; Sindalovsky N. A. From house to house ... From legend to legend. Travel guide. Norint., St. Petersburg. 2008.
© E. A. Parshina, 2009
