Location: 30 km (18 mi) East of Moscow, Fryazino, Moscow oblast Map
Grebnevo is a former country retreat for several powerful aristocratic families (dvoryanin) including Belsky, Trubetskoy and Bibikov. The lands around Grebnevo were initially given to Bogdan Belsky although most of the buildings date back to 1780s to 1830s. Grebnevo residence was constructed in the time of reign of Catherine the Great and Alexander I they have distinct Neoclassical style.
Initial period
The history of the estate can be
traced back to the 16th century as the village of Bokhova Stan in the
Zamoskovnaya half of the Moscow district[2]. The cadastres of that time
(1584-1586) mention that the village belonged to Bogdan Yakovlevich
Belsky, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich's gunsmith. In the Time of Troubles, the
estate passes into the possession of the Vorontsovs, who were its owners
even before Belsky, and then into the possession of the princes
Trubetskoy.
Prince Dmitry Timofeevich Trubetskoy was an associate
of Prince Pozharsky, who headed the first Russian government in 1612. It
was under him that large hydrotechnical work was carried out on the
Lyuboseevka River, adjacent to the village and the estate from the
south, consisting in the construction of a dam, which gave rise to the
Barsky Ponds system, consisting of a reservoir complex shape and several
picturesque islands, some of which have survived to this day.
In
the 1720s, the estate was owned by Prince Ivan Yurievich Trubetskoy,
father of Nastasya, the second wife of Prince Dmitry Kantemir.
Kantemir's daughter from the 1st marriage, Maria Kantemir, buys Ulitkino
next to Grebnev.
In 1760, the estate passed to Princess Ekaterina
Dmitrievna Golitsyna; since 1772, it was owned by a relative of
Golitsyna, Princess Anna Danilovna Trubetskaya; the mother of the
outstanding poet of the 18th century - Mikhail Matveich Kheraskov, the
creator of the grandiose poem Rossiad.
On December 8, 1769, 12
peasants of the Shchelkova village of the Grebnevsky estate were
recorded in the Manufactory Collegium as the first legitimate peasant
entrepreneurs who bought tickets for silk weaving mills: Timofey Efimov,
Timofey Simionov (for 2), Philip Antonov (for 2), Timofey Petrov ( by
4), Ivan (by 1) and Yakim (by 3) Vakhrameev, Fedor Andreev, Philip
Tikhonov (by 5), Nikita Emelyanov (by 3), Kalina Trofimov (by 3), Ivan
Borisov (by 2), Fedor Ivanov (by 4).
Main House built in 1790s. Pictures are from the time then the estate became sanatorium.
Doric entrance (1821) a monument to owner's modesty is designed after Roman triumph arches.
A hole in the former fireplace. A common place for storage of owner's treasure this did not disappoint.
Church of Theotokos of Grebnevo
Since 1781, the estate has changed its owners again: this time it
passes to Gavrila Ilyich Bibikov through the millionaire Tatyana
Yakovlevna Tverdysheva, his first wife, who bought Grebnevo. Tatyana
Yakovlevna died in childbirth on August 12, 1782. After some time, the
child also died. A year later, Tatyana Yakovlevna's father died,
bequeathing his entire fortune to his son-in-law. However, Gavrila
Ivanovich took only a seventh part for himself, passing the rest of the
inheritance to the nieces of Yakov Borisovich Tverdyshev.
From
the previous owner of the Grebnevo estate, Prince Nikolai Nikitich
Trubetskoy, an old prison remained. Bibikov ordered the prison to be
dismantled and invited Stepan Prokhorovich Zaitsev from the Military
Engineering Department to supervise the works. In 1786, construction
began on a summer church in honor of the Grebnevskaya Icon of the Mother
of God in memory of "the bright soul of Tatyana Yakovlevna." The church
was consecrated (according to the name of the village) in honor of the
Grebnevskaya Icon of the Mother of God, which was kept in the Church of
the Grebnevskaya Mother of God on Lubyanka.
Under Bibikov, the
manor begins to take on the appearance that has survived to this day: by
the 1790s, the main manor house was being built.
In 1794, Bibikov
founded the stone temple of the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit
in the village of Shkin, the construction of which was entrusted to the
famous architect Rodion Rodionovich Kazakov (1758-1803). According to
the memoirs of her granddaughter, Ekaterina Raevskaya, during the life
of Gavrila Ivanovich and after him, the whole family spent the summer in
Grebnevo. “The house there stood huge, stone, surrounded by large
gardens, among which there were huge ponds with some islands on them,
and gardens were also planted on the islands and pavilions were built.
along the wide paths of the garden, crossed the pond by ferry and drank
tea in the gazebo.
In 1796, the village of Shchelkova of the
Bibikov estate Grebnevo took first place in the Moscow province in the
production of peasant textile products, releasing it for 524.4 thousand
rubles out of a total volume of 939 thousand rubles, and the share of
the entire estate accounted for 60% of peasant textiles of the province.
At the turn of the century, Grebnevo became a notable center of
culture - Bibikov set up a theater on the estate, created a ballet
troupe and an orchestra under the direction of the talented serf
musician Danila Kashin.
After the death of G. I. Bibikov in 1803,
his widow Ekaterina Aleksandrovna supported the estate for 7 years, but
in 1811 she was forced to sell it. From the description it is clear what
works were invested by the Bibikovs: “Gothic exit gates to the courtyard
with a stone fence, in this courtyard the main building is stone in 3
floors of civil architecture with two portals, at which portals there
are 12 columns of white stone, between which there are 2 balconies with
two outdoor porches of wild stone. From the chambers to the two
pavilions of the gallery, of which one is covered with sheet black iron,
and on the top there is a terrace, in these galleries in a straight line
26 arcades are light, domes of 3 arshins are covered with sheet black
iron with pedestals and on them weathercocks made of English tinplate ..
3 stone stores in 2 floors of Gothic architecture for pouring different
bread ... Outbuilding for people in the garden of Gothic architecture
... Stable yard, in this courtyard: the first is a stone outbuilding of
Gothic architecture for the steward, the second is a stone Gothic
office, the third is an outbuilding for grooms stone, the fourth - a
stone stable, the fifth - 2 stone carriage sheds ... The garden is
regular and English, around the garden there is a stone fence, in the
corners of this garden there are 3 Gothic towers for guards and luggage
of garden tools, covered with sheet iron. In this garden there is a
Chinese gazebo, a pond, a wooden master's soap-house with living rooms
... "
In 1811, the estate passed to Anna Stroganova, whose son, Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn, starting from 1817, started new large-scale construction work. By 1820-30. two wings are being erected, the main entrance gate, resembling a triumphal arch, and the winter St. Nicholas Church, consecrated in 1823. The ensemble of the estate finally takes on the form that has survived to this day.
In 1845, the Golitsyns sold the estate to the merchant Panteleev, who
set up a vitriol and a distillery in the estate, which led to the death
of the interiors of the main estate house, which were restored by the
efforts of the next owners of Grebnevo - the silk-weaving manufacturers
of the merchants Kondrashevs, who came from the serfs of the village of
Fryazino, which was part of the Grebnev estate.
Sanatorium
On
October 4, 1913, the estate was bought by the famous Moscow doctor
Fyodor Alexandrovich Grinevsky, a relative of the outstanding Russian
writer Alexander Stepanovich Green, as a branch of his Moscow hospital,
located in the former house of Countess Shuvalova, at the corner of
Povarskaya and Maly Rzhevsky lane (now the concert hall of the Moscow
Conservatory). The new purpose of the estate is a sanatorium near
Moscow, which comes in handy in connection with the outbreak of the
First World War, which deprived the Moscow intelligentsia of the
traditional opportunity to go on vacation abroad.
For four
months, electricity, water supply from an artesian well, steam heating,
and a telephone were installed in the estate. An elevator was installed
in the big house. A tennis court, a library, a hydropathic center, a
massage room, a gym, and a laboratory were also equipped. For proper
medical nutrition, a farm was used, where potatoes and vegetables were
bred, products were obtained from a dairy farm and fish from the Grebnev
ponds.
During the war, the sanatorium received refugees, treated
the wounded and those who fell under gas attacks at the front.
With the advent of Soviet power, the estate was nationalized, and its
future underwent several abrupt and dramatic changes. With each new
zigzag of fate, Grebnevo loses its historical appearance: first of all,
the interior decoration and interiors disappear forever. In 1919, a
sanatorium for tuberculosis patients was built within the walls of the
estate.
Until 1940, the sanatorium was headed by Vyacheslav
Nikolaevich Kolerov, a wonderful doctor Nikolai Andreevich Zevakin
worked here, who, before coming to Grebnevo, maintained his own
sanatorium in the Crimea. At various times, the patients of the
sanatorium were the widow of the famous general practitioner Alexander
Alexandrovich Ostroumov - Varvara Sergeevna; financier and merchant,
founder of Elektrostal Nikolai Alexandrovich Vtorov, Russian botanist
and biochemist, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Vladimir Ivanovich Palladin; artist of the Moscow Art Theater Leonid
Mironovich Leonidov. On June 7, 1915, the poet Konstantin Dmitrievich
Balmont visited the sanatorium. Among those treated at the sanatorium
were also the wife of General Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov, historian,
director of the Archives of the Ministry of Justice Dmitry Vladimirovich
Tsvetaev.
After the Great Patriotic War, the estate housed the Shchelkovsky
technical school of electrovacuum devices, after which the estate was
occupied by the NPO Platan.
In 1960, Grebnevo was declared an
architectural monument of republican significance. Several restoration
attempts are made, and by the end of the 1980s, there is hope for the
revival of the estate: a historical and cultural center is located on
its territory, concerts and exhibitions of paintings by famous masters
are held. However, in 1991, when the restoration of the palace was
nearing completion, under unclear circumstances, a fire broke out in it,
destroying not only the interiors, but also the ceilings with a roof,
leaving only bare burnt walls ... Attempts to conserve the palace were
unsuccessful, and by the beginning of the 21st century the estate ,
being in a state of extreme desolation and abandonment, actually turned
into ruins.
The historical and architectural complex of the estate and the
village of Grebnevo includes the following buildings:
Main manor
house (1780-90)
Temple of the Grebnevskaya Icon of the Mother of God
(1791)
Front entrance gate (triumphal arch, 1821)
Church of St.
Nicholas the Wonderworker (St. Nicholas Church, 1823)
East wing
(1780-90)
Western wing (1780-90)
Carriage house (XIX century)
Stable (19th century)
Animal Farm (XIX century)
Manor fence
(mid-18th century)
"Golitsyn" hospital (1830-32) in the village of
Novaya Sloboda
Temples Grebnevo
At the estate, two churches
were erected, which have survived to this day, unlike the estate, in a
form practically untouched by the Soviet era.
Under Gavril Ilyich
Bibikov, a stone church was being built in Grebnevo, which was
consecrated in 1791 in the name of the Grebnev Icon of the Mother of
God, according to legend, brought to Dmitry Donskoy by the Cossacks
after the Battle of Kulikovo. The temple with an unusual for Russia
pommel in the form of a figure of an archangel holding a cross on the
dome was built by the "care" of the general and twenty peasants, whose
names are carved on the bronze temple plaque that has survived to this
day. In 1991, the 200th anniversary of this temple was solemnly
celebrated and a book dedicated to the history of the temple was
published.
At the beginning of 1817, Prince Sergei Mikhailovich
Golitsyn attracted the architect Oldelli to the construction in Grebnev,
and later the architect N. I. Deryugin. The final accents in the
creation of the estate were the construction of the front entrance gate
(1821) and the Empire-style Nikolsky Church (consecrated in 1823).
As of the end of 2006, the monument of architecture and history of
federal significance continues to be in an abandoned state and is slowly
being destroyed. The palace, the building of the coach house and the
stables look the most deplorable. On April 17, 2007, a new fire broke
out in the estate, as a result of which the roof of the eastern wing was
almost completely destroyed by fire. In July 2013, the fires recurred.
As of August 2013, the Grebnevo estate was actually abandoned, its
future fate was in question.
In 2014, Grebnevo, which is owned by
the Moscow Region, was put up for auction and became the ninth estate
rented out under a preferential system (31,243 rubles per year) as part
of the Governor's Estates of the Moscow Region program.
Measures
to save the monument were not taken. In early May 2016, two floors of
the facade of the main house collapsed (in the place where the
double-height ballroom was located). After that, the Government of the
Moscow Region turned to the Ministry of Culture of the Russian
Federation with a proposal to transfer the monument of federal
significance, the Grebnevo estate, to regional ownership.
The
landscape park around the estate is a protected area, however, the
administration of the rural settlement issued permits for construction
on this territory.
In May 2018, the estate was purchased for
restoration by entrepreneur Andrey Kovalev. For seven years, the owner
is obliged to develop a project for the reconstruction of the entire
estate complex, approve it and implement it. The lease is for 49 years,
including the period of restoration. According to information as of
spring 2020, the scientific restoration project is still being prepared.
I hope that at the end of this summer [2020] we will start restoring the
entrance group to the estate - the arches, as well as the historical
building, where in the future I plan to place a museum of weapons and
armor, the collection of which I already collect at specialized auctions
in many countries,
Andrey Kovalev said.
In addition to the
territory belonging to the estate, the businessman bought a number of
land plots near the estate:
There will be recreational areas,
hotels, glampings and campsites, a stable, a museum of carriages, old
cars and motorcycles and a craft town for craftsmen, as well as places
for lectures and master classes. Much of what is being created has no
analogues in Russia.