Happy Anniversary, Oranienbaum! - 2

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

A new period in the history of Oranienbaum is associated with the name of the grandson of Peter I, Karl Peter Ulrich Holstein-Gottorp, the future Emperor Peter III. He was the son of Peter I's daughter Anna, married to Karl Friedrich Holstein-Gottorp, a German duke, nephew of the Swedish king Charles XII. Karl Peter, thus, could lay claim to both the Swedish and Holstein crowns. The childless Empress Elizaveta Petrovna summoned her nephew to Russia and declared him heir to the Russian throne.

The boy was brought to Russia at the age of 14, and at the age of 17 he was married to Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst, whom we know under the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna, the future Empress of Russia Catherine II. Now more and more historians are raising their voices in defense of Pyotr Fedorovich, as he was called in Russia. It is possible that the accusations of ignorance, ignorance, rudeness, dislike of everything Russian and even dementia, which often sounded in the memoirs of contemporaries, in fact do not correspond to the truth and were written to please and justify Catherine, who overthrew him and seized the throne.

Even at home, the boy was brought up as the future heir to the Swedish throne and was given an excellent education. He knew several European languages, Latin, loved art and music, played the violin himself, 1000 volumes of his library are dotted with notes made with his own hand. And the decrees that he managed to take during his short (186 days) reign speak volumes. The Manifesto on the Abolition of the Secret Chancellery, the Decree on Freedom of Foreign Trade, the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility, the cessation of religious persecution of the Old Believers, the decree on the punishment of landowners for cruel treatment of peasants (for the murder of a peasant - life exile!) About 200 most important documents in just 186 days of rule. His foreign policy is now being considered differently, which allegedly became the cause of the coup. Well, time will judgeand we will return to Oranienbaum.

In 1743, almost immediately after the arrival of Pyotr Fedorovich to Russia, Elizabeth presented him with the Great (former Menshikov) Palace. The interiors are being finished anew, the terraces, the stairs to the Lower Garden are being altered, the formation of the front yard from the southern facade is being completed. And these works are supervised by Francesco Bartolomeo (Bartholomew Varfolomeevich) Rastrelli, the best architect of that time. And, as it is assumed, it was he who redesigned the Lower Garden of the palace. Its composition is now even more closely related to the architecture of the palace and represents a magnificent example of the Baroque regular style of planning. The continuation of the palace staircase is the central alley, on both sides of it there are "lace" parterre flower beds. Complicated bosquets, bordered with trellises of trimmed bushes and trees,are located opposite the side pavilions of the palace and include figured paths and platforms in their composition. In the summer, orange and lemon trees, flowering oleanders, box trees and laurels were displayed in the garden. Later, instead of a dilapidated wooden one, marble sculptures brought from Italy, including works by the famous Padua master A. Bonazza, appeared in the park. The courtyard-courdoner on the south side of the palace is decorated in the same magnificent baroque style. The courtyard-courdoner on the south side of the palace is decorated in the same magnificent baroque style. The courtyard-courdoner on the south side of the palace is decorated in the same magnificent baroque style.

And in 1756 another remarkable architect of the VIII century, Antonio Rinaldi, was appointed the chief architect of Oranienbaum. There is such an expression - "the genius of the place." It was Rinaldi who became the "genius of the place" for Oranienbaum, it was he who created a wonderful ensemble of nature and architecture, which made Oranienbaum famous along with other masterpieces of the palace and park necklaces of St. Petersburg.

It all started with the game. In 1756, Peterstadt, a small "amusing" fortress "about five bastions armed with 12 cast-iron cannons", was laid for Peter Fedorovich on the high bank of the Karosta River at its confluence with the Lower Pond, according to the project of "stone craftsman" Martin Hoffmann. Do not forget that military affairs and fortification were an obligatory part of the education of the heir to the throne. Or maybe the future emperor already had a presentiment of his tragic fate … The fortress, despite its small size, corresponded to all the rules of fortification art. In plan, it was a 12-ray star, was surrounded by earthen ramparts and a moat filled with water (their remains can still be seen in the park), and drawbridges were thrown over the moats. Pyotr Fedorovich bore the rank of commandant of this fortress, and its garrison was made up of Holsteins,specially discharged from his homeland. The fortress fought "funny battles" with a "conditional enemy" - a very small fortress Yekaterinburg, located not far to the south of the Grand Palace. On the Lower Pond, called the "Small Pleasure Sea", naval battles of the "amusing fleet" - the miniature 12-gun ship "Oranienbaum", the frigate "St. Andrew "and the galley" St. Catherine "and" Elizabeth ". It is characteristic that during battles at the "sea" "St. Catherine "… It seems that it says a lot …naval battles of the "amusing fleet" - the miniature 12-gun ship "Oranienbaum", the frigate "St. Andrew "and the galley" St. Catherine "and" Elizabeth ". It is characteristic that during battles at the "sea" "St. Catherine "… It seems that it says a lot …naval battles of the "amusing fleet" - the miniature 12-gun ship "Oranienbaum", the frigate "St. Andrew "and the galley" St. Catherine "and" Elizabeth ". It is characteristic that during battles at the "sea" "St. Catherine "… It seems that it says a lot …

Antonio Rinaldi built a small two-story palace for Peter Fedorovich inside the fortress. The Palace and the Honorable Gate, unfortunately, are all that have survived to this day from the numerous structures of the fortress. These are also the first buildings of Rinaldi that have survived to this day. They already show love for the style that will glorify the Rococo architect, light and graceful, so different from the solemn and magnificent baroque. The miniature palace (a total of six ceremonial rooms), with the elegant simplicity of the external architecture, delights in the variety and sophistication of the interior decoration. One of the hallmarks of the new style was the use of fashionable details in the "Chinese" spirit in the interior - lacquer panels, paintings, genuine Chinese and Japanese porcelain. And a small parkdesigned by Rinaldi with the participation of the gardener Lamberti in the valley of the Karosta River next to the palace, it was also distinguished by its ease and grace of layout. Elements of the regular style - trimmed trellises of shrubs, regular rows of trees lining the alleys, symmetrical platforms were combined in it with natural bends of the river bank, cascades, light bridges and graceful pavilions - the Menagerie (Menagerie) with a fountain, the Hermitage, the Nightingale gazebo, the Chinese house. From the fortress, from a high cliff to the river bank, one could go down a wooden staircase with a figured balustrade. The garden looked more like Italian terraced gardens, traditionally laid out on the slopes, rather than French, but lacking the strict symmetry and decorative splendor of regular Baroque gardens. A continuation of this theme was the next work of the architect - the ensemble of the Own Dacha, created by Rinaldi for Catherine II.

December 25, 1761 (old style) after the death of Empress Elizabeth, Peter III was proclaimed emperor. And just six months later, on June 28, 1762, as a result of a conspiracy in which his wife, the future Catherine II, participated, he was deposed. It was in Oranienbaum that he was arrested, and a week later, on July 17, a mysterious death followed in the Ropsha palace (it is located in the village of Ropsha, Lomonosov district - ed.), Where the former emperor was sent after his arrest.

But the change of state power served only to further flourish of Oranienbaum. Even before the coup, the future Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna was buying a plot in the vicinity of the Grand Palace, dreaming of building a "small house" on it. Antonio Rinaldi was also invited as the architect, and he also developed the plan for the entire park. And immediately after the accession of Catherine II to the throne, construction work began.

In the layout of the Own Dacha park, you can see the same techniques that Rinaldi used when creating the garden in Petershtadt - a free combination of regular and landscape elements, the absence of the main axis of symmetry, an abundance of decorative pavilions, gazebos, bridges and other garden buildings. But the large area of the park (about 160 hectares) allowed the architect to fully develop his imagination. The plan of the park is striking in its diversity: in its eastern part there are geometrically correct patterns of alleys leading to the pavilions of the "cavalier's houses", and in the west - a landscape layout with whimsically winding paths, a kind of "water labyrinth" - a figured pond with sixteen islets connected by bridges and decorated carved wooden arbors. The two parts of the park are separated by the Triple Linden Alley. And also "Chinese offices" with miniature gardens,garden labyrinth, carousel, parterre flower beds, coffee house … Freedom and lightness of planning, departure from generally accepted laws and regulations, grace, entertaining nature of buildings and structures - all the signs of the same Rococo style, examples of which we know very few in garden architecture.

In the southern part of the park, a small one-story palace was built for the empress, rather resembling a garden pavilion. Due to the fact that some of the premises were decorated in the same fashionable "Chinese" style, the entire palace was also called "Chinese". The palace in Oranienbaum is unique - it is the only architectural monument of the Rococo era in our country, and one of the few in the world. The undisputed world masterpiece is the famous Glass Bead Cabinet, the walls of which are decorated with panels embroidered with multi-colored chenille on a background of silver glass beads. Unique and patterned parquets created according to Rinaldi's drawings from more than 140 types of wood. “The Chinese palace is a one-of-a-kind pearl, a work of art so integral, so harmonious, so amazingly executed - such a graceful, elegant trinket that, looking at it,one cannot help but admire … "- this is how the famous art historian A. Benois wrote about him.

But the most remarkable structure was the Roller Coaster, designed for the favorite entertainment in Russia - skiing from the mountains. Back in the 50s, a similar structure was built by Rinaldi in Tsarskoe Selo. But the Oranienbaum hill was much grander than the Tsarskoye Selo hill. It adjoined an amazingly beautiful stone pavilion, from its gallery one could climb to the platform, which was at a height of about 20 m, and already from the platform, a slope of more than 500 m in length, consisting of three small hills, began. We rode not in winter, but in summer, in special wheelchairs that moved along special tracks. The hill was surrounded by a colonnade with lower and upper walkways, decorated with vases and sculptures. Ethnographer and traveler I. G. Georgi described it as follows: “The mountain is a vault of about 10 sazh. heights, having a gallery and a lodge at the top,in which there are six carved and gilded decorated one-bells, in the likeness of triumphal chariots, gondolas and saddled animals - a slope and in general everything is the same as it was in Tsarskoe Selo. On each side of the slope there is a covered colonnade, along which you can walk up and down, and especially above, - not only free air, but also has a very pleasant view. " Not all of the architect's ideas were brought to life. For example, in the western side of the park, a figured spiral pond was planned with the Round Temple on the spiral peninsula. And from the side of the bay, a ceremonial ascent with semicircular staircases, a balustrade on the upper platform and a figured fountain on the bottom was supposed to lead to the pavilion of the Roller Coaster.as it was in Tsarskoe Selo. On each side of the slope there is a covered colonnade, along which you can walk up and down, and especially above, - not only free air, but also has a very pleasant view. " Not all of the architect's ideas were brought to life. For example, in the western side of the park, a figured spiral pond was planned with the Round Temple on the spiral peninsula. And from the side of the bay, a ceremonial ascent with semicircular staircases, a balustrade on the upper platform and a figured fountain on the bottom was supposed to lead to the pavilion of the Roller Coaster.as it was in Tsarskoe Selo. On each side of the slope there is a covered colonnade, along which you can walk up and down, and especially above, - not only free air, but also has a very pleasant view. " Not all of the architect's ideas were brought to life. For example, in the western side of the park, a figured spiral pond was planned with the Round Temple on the spiral peninsula. And from the side of the bay, a ceremonial ascent with semicircular staircases, a balustrade on the upper platform and a figured fountain on the bottom was supposed to lead to the pavilion of the Roller Coaster.in the western side of the park, a figured spiral pond was planned with the Round Temple on the spiral peninsula. And from the side of the bay, a ceremonial ascent with semicircular staircases, a balustrade on the upper platform and a figured fountain on the bottom was supposed to lead to the pavilion of the Roller Coaster.in the western side of the park, a figured spiral pond was planned with the Round Temple on the spiral peninsula. And from the side of the bay, a ceremonial ascent with semicircular staircases, a balustrade on the upper platform and a figured fountain on the bottom was supposed to lead to the pavilion of the Roller Coaster.

The entire ensemble of the Own Dacha with the palace, park and pavilions is also unique, it has no analogues. This is the only one of all the palace and park ensembles of St. Petersburg, in which everything - the architecture of the park structures, and their interior decoration, and the very layout of the park were made according to the idea of one author. That is why, despite the subsequent changes and losses, he still amazes us with amazing charm and harmony.

The ending follows

Natalia Golubeva, phytodesigner, employee of the Botanical Garden of St. Petersburg State University