300 Years To The First Palace And Park Ensemble In The Vicinity Of St. Petersburg - Happy Anniversary, Oranienbaum

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

In August of this year we will celebrate the anniversary date - one of the suburbs of St. Petersburg - Oranienbaum - will celebrate 300 years. Near the lush and rich ensembles of Petrodvorets, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoe Selo and Strelna, Oranienbaum often remains in the shadows. He is not so visited, and far from being so famous. Foreigners are not brought here, not even all residents of St. Petersburg know about it. And in vain! Oranienbaum is interesting not only for its history, its parks and palaces are good for their, not ceremonial, beauty inherent only to them. I would very much like to hope that the upcoming anniversary and the new (after years of restoration) opening of the palaces of Oranienbaum will become a new stage in its wonderful history and will return it to its former glory.

Meanwhile, Oranienbaum is historically the very first of the suburban palace and park ensembles in the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Both the time and place of its occurrence are not accidental. In 1703-1704, a military fort was built on a scattered island near Kotlin Island. And an important transport route connecting the new capital with the sea fortress under construction was the road that ran along the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland and has been known since the 17th century. It was here that Peter the Great conceived a kind of "sea façade" of the new capital - a series of country palaces and estates located on the southern coastal ledge and perfectly visible from the sea. This "palace" chain was to continue further, along the Neva and Ladoga, striking foreign guests arriving in St. Petersburg and further on to central Russia. General-engineer B.-Kh. Minich, who was in the service of Peter, wrote: “In a word,so that from Kronstadt to Ladoga on the Volkhov River, the entire area of 220 versts was covered with cities, castles, palaces, entertainment and country houses, gardens, parks … " …

And in 1710, by decree of the emperor, a special commission was created under the leadership of Prince Yu. F. Shakhovsky. The entire southern coast of the bay, by special order of the king, was divided into equal sections 100 fathoms wide and 1000 fathoms long. Each site had access to the sea, and the same old road, later called the Peterhof prospect, served as their border from the south. The plots were intended for the construction of "amusement palaces of handsome stone architecture" and "amusement gardens". Interestingly, to the south of the Peterhof prospect, any construction was generally prohibited - there remained “reserved forest groves” for menageries and hunting with the condition “… Peter I took four plots for himself in Strelna and Peterhof, and his closest friend and colleague,the first St. Petersburg governor-general, His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov - only one site each in Strelna and Peterhof, but five in Oranienbaum. According to legend, this place was chosen by Menshikov at the request of the wife of Tsar Catherine. She was afraid for Peter, who often returned from Kronstadt by stormy sea, and hoped that he would look into the estate to his favorite and then go on land. The rest of the lands along the southern coast of the gulf were received by the king's relatives and his entourage.that he will look into the estate to his favorite and then go on land. The rest of the lands along the southern coast of the gulf were received by the king's relatives and his entourage.that he will look into the estate to his favorite and then go on land. The rest of the lands along the southern coast of the gulf were received by the king's relatives and his entourage.

However, the construction of parks and palaces in Peterhof began only in 1714, in Strelna - in 1716. But in Oranienbaum, the country residence of Alexander Danilovich was laid on August 18 (29), 1710. In a letter dated August 23, 1711, D. Anichkov, who was in charge of the construction, for the first time mentioned its distorted name "Rambow". Now, "according to updated data", it has been decided to consider 1711 as the date of foundation of Oranienbaum. However, there are indications that a settlement with the name "Ranib" is already in the old calendar of 1710. It is interesting that the popular name of the city "Ranbov" or "Rambov" was even recorded in the explanatory dictionary of V. I. Dal and is still used today.

Of course, this area was inhabited long before Menshikov began to build his estate here. In 1846, a treasure of coins of the 9th-10th centuries was found in the vicinity of the city, and in the Scripture Book of Votskaya Pyatina for 1539, an unnamed village "Morskoe by the Sea" of the then Dudorovsky churchyard of the Novgorod land is mentioned. During the years of Swedish rule, the center of the large Lutheran parish of Türis (translated from Swedish - "dear, beloved") was located here. Back in 1642, this parish included 62 villages, the church owned a large plot of land, and there was also a village with the then name "Tyurre". The Lutheran parish, which received the Russian name "Tirinsky", existed here and after.

But back to Alexander Danilovich. In 1711, on a high coastal ridge, the construction of a two-story palace of the Most Serene Prince began. The authors of the project are Giovanni Maria Fontana and Gottfried Johann Schedel, who also built the Menshikov Palace in St. Petersburg. There is an assumption that Andreas Schlüter, who was then living in Germany, and later worked in Peterhof, also participated in the development of the draft design of the palace. And just as the capital Menshikov's palace was the largest and most elegant building in the city (the Summer Palace of Peter I is much more modest), so here the country palace of Alexander Danilovich, which was being built here, had no equal at all (recall once again that the construction of both Monplaisir and the Grand Palace in Peterhof began only in 1714, and even then they were much smaller both in size and in richness of decoration).

In 1716, Johann Friedrich Braunstein joined the work, and he completed the construction of the central building of the palace. At the same time, the curved wings of the palace adjoining the central building on the east and west sides were built. And in 1719, tower pavilions were erected - east and west (church). It is believed that the author of their project was Jean Baptiste Leblond or his assistant Nicolas Pinault. The pavilions were connected to the palace by semicircular galleries.

I wonder where the name Oranienbaum came from? There are several versions. According to the most common one, "Oranienbaum" in translation from German means "orange (that is, orange) tree", and it is not so named because a greenhouse with orange trees was found in an old Swedish manor on the territory of the estate, not because on In summer, orange and laurel trees grown in local greenhouses were displayed in tubs in the galleries, terraces and areas of the open staircases of the palace. According to another version, AD Menshikov used a slightly changed name "Oranienburg", which Peter I gave in 1703 to his new estate near Voronezh, wishing to please his royal patron. According to the local historian Vladimir Parakhuda,"Oranienbaum" in translation from German and Dutch does not mean "orange tree" at all, but "Orange tree". According to his research, back in the 19th century, German and Russian zealots of antiquity claimed that Prince Menshikov took this name from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.and the "Tree of Orange". According to his research, back in the 19th century, German and Russian zealots of antiquity claimed that Prince Menshikov took this name from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.and the "Tree of Orange". According to his research, back in the 19th century, German and Russian zealots of antiquity claimed that Prince Menshikov took this name from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum. Back in the 19th century, German and Russian zealots of antiquity claimed that Prince Menshikov took this name from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum. Back in the 19th century, German and Russian zealots of antiquity claimed that Prince Menshikov took this name from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.that this name Prince Menshikov took from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.that this name Prince Menshikov took from the castle built by the Princess of Nassau-Orange in 1683-1698 on the border of Saxony near Dessau and named so by its owner in memory of her family. William III of Orange, king of England and ruler of the Netherlands (1650–1702), was the personification of the whole of Holland in Peter the Great's time, and Peter I loved this country very much during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.and Peter the Great fell in love with this country during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.and Peter the Great fell in love with this country during his trip to Europe and highly appreciated its military, diplomatic and cultural traditions. In the coat of arms of the Principality of Orange, the ancestral possession of the Orange - branches with oranges, and later the image of an orange tree with golden fruits on a silver background became the coat of arms of Oranienbaum.

In 1712, two years after the beginning of the construction of the Grand Palace, the so-called Lower Garden was laid in front of it (now its restoration is being completed). It was one of the first gardens in Russia, designed in a new fashionable regular style. The gardener Witzvol supervised the gardening with his assistant, the Swede Christopher Graz, who worked in Oranienbaum from 1709 to 1728. The garden with the palace formed a single ensemble. Initially, its dimensions were much larger than now, it occupied the entire space from the palace to the bay: the width along the facade was 530 meters, and the depth (to the shore of the bay) was 1067 meters. As befits a regular style, the garden was planned out according to the laws of symmetry: along the axis of the palace there was a parterre of three flower beds of a complex geometric pattern, and it was framed by 6 sheared bosquets. Maples, lindens, spruces, oaks, birches grew in the bosquets,and also - a tribute to the typical Russian tradition of gardens of the XVI-XVII centuries - apple trees, cherries, berry bushes. Russian gardens have always had not only decorative but also practical importance. From the dam that dammed the small river Karosta (or Karosta), a fountain water conduit was brought up, feeding three fountains. It is interesting that, as later in Peterhof, water flowed into the fountains by gravity. In the garden there were also 39 wooden and 4 gilded-lead sculptures and trellis grates, on which stood wooden “turning pieces” painted with white paint. Lattices fenced the garden benches and the garden itself. It is interesting that, as later in Peterhof, water flowed into the fountains by gravity. In the garden there were also 39 wooden and 4 gilded-lead sculptures and trellis grates, on which stood wooden “turning pieces” painted with white paint. Lattices fenced the garden benches and the garden itself. It is interesting that, as later in Peterhof, water flowed into the fountains by gravity. In the garden there were also 39 wooden and 4 gilded-lead sculptures and trellis grates, on which stood wooden “turning pieces” painted with white paint. Lattices fenced the garden benches and the garden itself.

The central axis of the composition was the Sea Canal, which connected the palace with the sea. It ended at the gates of the Lower Garden with a "ladle" - a figured harbor with a pier, on which a stone pavilion and a gazebo were built. The banks of the canal were lined with a double row of trees. Such a canal is a very characteristic feature of the seaside palace ensembles of Peter's time: the Sea Canal is in both Petrodvorets and Strelna. According to one of the legends, Peter I, returning from Kronstadt, wanted to swim to the palace of His Serene Highness, but because of the shallow water he could not do it. Then he uttered a "historical" phrase: "Even though the eye sees, but the tooth doesn’t!" and returned to Kronstadt for the night. Menshikov, standing on the terrace of the palace, watched these maneuvers through a telescope. All the serfs were immediately driven away, the work was carried out all night, and in the morning the amazed Peter saw a channel as straight as an arrow,leading from the sea directly to the palace. When the water poured into the canal, many workers drowned … However, this is only a legend, since there is a letter from Menshikov to Peter I dated May 26, 1712, in which he says: "I gave a writing to Vice-Governor Korsakov so that they could dig a canal in Oranienbaum …" … Historians have established that the canal was built for about a year, its length together with the ladle exceeds 700 running fathoms, i.e. more than a kilometer.

The construction of the palace and the estate continued. By 1720, the decoration of the ceremonial interiors was completed. However, on January 28 (February 8), 1725, Menshikov's highest patron dies, and on May 6 (17), 1727, after the death of Peter's wife Catherine I, his young grandson Peter II ascends the throne. Menshikov's time has come to an end. On September 3, 1727, the palace church was consecrated in honor of the Holy Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, on the day of whose memory there were the most important victories of the Russian fleet in the Northern War at Gangut and Grengam. And already on September 8, the Most Serene Prince was placed under house arrest and soon sent into exile. According to the inventory of 1728, the estate of the disgraced prince included about fifty buildings, including an orange greenhouse, stone stables and other outbuildings.

Thus ended the first chapter of the history of Oranienbaum. After the fall of Menshikov, all work in Oranienbaum froze for almost two decades. But the true heyday of this extraordinary place is yet to come.