Ulitsa Varvarka 10
Tel. (495) 298 3706
Open: 10am- 5pm Sun,
10am- 5pm, Thu- Sat, Mon, 11am- 6pm Wed
It is a limited access sight.
Call them for booking your trip
Palace of the Romanov Boyars is a former residence of famous Romanov Boyar (aristocratic) family that later became the ruling dynasty of Romanov family. In the time of Rurik dynasty they rose to a modest level. Their family became particularly famous since they started their own Romanov dynasty in 1613 that lasted until 1917 when the last of the Romanov family Nicholas II was deposed and subsequently executed with his whole family in Siberia. The remains of the last Russian Romanov family were discovered on in the late 20th century in Ganina Yama.
Residential wards
The chambers of the Romanov boyars in Zaryadye
were built at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. The property was
located on an elevated area called Pskovskaya Gora. The estate had the
shape of an irregular quadrangle and consisted of a boyar court, a
church garden, a vegetable garden, utility and residential buildings. In
the center of the estate were "chambers in the lower cellars", which
were the main living quarters. Another building - "chambers on the upper
cellars" - was auxiliary, erected in connection with the growth of
family household needs. In the southeastern part of the property there
was a house church of the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos with two
aisles: in the name of the Annunciation of the Mother of God and in the
name of St. Nikita of Midiki.
In the 1540s, the estate passed
into the possession of the boyar Nikita Zakharyin-Yuriev. According to
legend, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich was born in these chambers on July 12,
1596. During the reign of Boris Godunov, the Romanovs, as the most
likely contenders for the Russian throne, fell into disgrace. In 1599,
Fyodor Nikitich was imprisoned, then forcibly tonsured a monk under the
name Filaret. Since that time, the chambers have remained ownerless. The
Romanovs were declared state criminals, deprived of all titles and
property. The estate on Varvarka, in all likelihood, was "signed off to
the sovereign."
Since 1613, after the residence of the tsar was
moved to the Kremlin, the estate began to be called the "Old Tsar's
Court". Since 1631, the chambers have been included in the complex of
buildings of the Znamensky Monastery, created by decree of Mikhail
Fedorovich. In the courtyard, on the site of the house church in the
name of the Sign, the Znamensky Cathedral was built - the main temple of
the monastery monastery.
After the Moscow fire of 1668, Abbot
Arseny addressed Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with a request to restore the
complex of buildings:
Your pilgrims of the Znamensky Monastery are
bobbing their foreheads that in your sovereign’s old courtyard, your
royal pilgrimage - the monastery - burned out with all the monastic
services and with supplies, the roofs on the churches were burned and
your ancient sovereign building - the chambers - fell apart from
dilapidation and fire, and to us, your wretched pilgrims, now there is
nothing to build; the place is poor; we die at the end.
The
restoration of the monastery was undertaken by the Miloslavskys,
relatives of Tsarina Marya Ilyinichna. On the surviving white stone
foundation of the 16th century, master Melety Alekseev created new
chambers with a porch, reinforced with oak piles. The lower part was
built of white stone, the second floor was built of brick, and the top
was made of wood. Abbot's cells were located in the buildings, then they
housed the administration of the monastery. The Romanov estate was
repeatedly repaired, some buildings were rebuilt, and dilapidated
buildings were dismantled, as a result of which only the chambers
overlooking Varvarka survived.
After the transfer of the capital
to St. Petersburg, the buildings fell into disrepair. As a result of a
fire in 1737, the buildings of the Znamensky Monastery were destroyed,
and the roof on the chambers burned down. In 1743, by decree of Empress
Elizaveta Petrovna, they were repaired and began to be rented out. In
1752-1762, the Georgian Metropolitan Athanasius lived in the chambers,
and they began to be called Bishops. After his departure, they were
leased to the Little Russian V. Grigoriev, then to the Moscow merchant
T.F. Bolkhovitinov, and at the end of the 18th century, the premises
were occupied by the Greek A. Yu. Gorgoli.
In 1821, due to
dilapidation, the chambers were planned to be demolished and new ones
built. Archbishop Philaret (Drozdov) stood up to defend the building. By
his decree, the building was renovated without changing its appearance.
19th century
In 1856, by order of Alexander II, the
restoration of the chambers began with the return of their appearance of
the 16th-17th centuries to establish the museum "The House of the
Romanov Boyars" in them. For this, the building was bought from the
Znamensky Monastery and transferred to the Court Office of the Moscow
Palace Office. For archaeological work, a commission was created, which
included Ivan Snegirev, Alexander Veltman, Bernhard Koehne, Alexei
Martynov. On the basis of archival documents and graphic materials, the
architect Fyodor Richter developed a restoration project. In the process
of work, preserved ancient windows, doors, passages, stairs were
discovered. Under the territory of the museum, the north-eastern part of
the monastery was taken, having dismantled the later buildings. The
official ceremony for the laying and lighting of the House of the
Romanov Boyars took place in August 1858.
According to the idea
of the founders of the museum, he had to recreate the domestic
environment of the ancestors of the Russian Tsar. During the
restoration, Iosif Ivanovich Artari painted the cross chambers and the
maiden's room. The ornament was based on the coat of arms of the
Romanovs, made by Alexander Fadiev. The vaults of other rooms were
plastered and painted, window frames, cornices and ceilings of the rooms
were decorated with carvings. Relief tiles were made on the site of the
unpreserved stoves. The exposition of the museum included nine rooms: a
kitchen, a cross, a chapel, a boyar, a girl's, a nursery, a tower, a
bedchamber and a room. They were furnished with furniture made from
analogues of the furniture of the Terem Palace, the Ipatiev Monastery,
as well as images on miniatures, letters, fabrics of the 16th-17th
centuries. The rooms contained silver and enamel-painted utensils,
sewing, women's jewelry, chests, and furniture. The second, third and
wooden floors were completed, the floors were re-laid, the porch and the
roof were restored, on which, in the form of a weather vane, the
heraldic sign of the Romanovs' house - a griffin - was installed.
The opening of the museum took place in August 1859. Persons of the
upper classes could get into it with a free ticket. Among the first
visitors to the museum were Grand Dukes Vladimir Alexandrovich and
Alexander Alexandrovich (the future Alexander III). Until 1917, repairs
were carried out in the museum about once every ten years. They were
first made in 1875 under the guidance of the architect of the Moscow
Palace Office Nikolai Shokhin.
XX—XXI centuries
After the
revolution of 1917, the “Museum of Old Russian Life”, or “Museum of
Boyar Life”, was opened in the chambers, preserving authentic antique
items. After reorganization in 1923, it was transformed into a branch of
the Armory Chamber State Museum of Decorative Arts. A year later, the
association was transformed into the United Museum of Decorative Arts.
In March 1932, by a decree of the Secretariat of the Central
Executive Committee of the USSR and Order No. 134 on the People's
Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, the Museum of Boyar Life of the
17th Century became a branch of the State Historical Museum (SIM). The
Trinity Church in Nikitniki was also attached to it. In 1937, on the
occasion of the anniversary of Alexander Pushkin, the exhibition
"Materials for the tragedy of A. S. Pushkin" Boris Godunov "on the
history of the early 17th century" was organized.
In the first
months of the Great Patriotic War, the exposition of the chambers was
dismantled, and the museum was closed. The vacated premises were leased
to various organizations and individuals. In 1951, a commission for the
restoration of the building was created under the leadership of
architects Ivan Vasilievich Makovetsky and I. A. Sakharova. On the top
floor, the carved wooden paneling was removed from the walls and
ceilings as traces of a “false restoration of the middle of the 19th
century” and covered with canvas over the plaster. For the convenience
of visiting the museum, an internal staircase was installed connecting
the basement with the first and second floors of the building, and the
arched gallery of the courtyard facade was glazed.
In 1963, the
branch was renamed the Museum of Stock Exhibitions of the State
Historical Museum. In 1972, the production workshop of the
Rosrestavratsiya trust began repair work in it, which was completed five
years later. The last major scientific restoration was carried out in
1984-1991 by workshop No. 13 of Mosproekt-2. The craftsmen reconstructed
the interior of the tower based on the designs of Fyodor Richter, old
photographs and surviving carving fragments. On the facades, the
painting and the lost details of the roof were restored. On the eastern
side of the chambers, under the balcony, they cleared a mortgage board
installed in the 19th century. Archaeologists have discovered a
white-stone capital of the end of the 15th century and a necropolis of
the 16th century. Two log cabins were opened, the eastern part of which
went under the retaining wall. Behind it was the Church of St. George,
in which in the 1450s stood the court of Maria Feodorovna Goltyaya, the
great-granddaughter of Andrei Kobyla, from whom the Romanovs descended.
In 2013, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the election of
Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the kingdom, the descendants of Fyodor
Richter - the Chernov-Richter family - and Paul Edward Kulikovsky, a
relative of Nicholas II's sister, allocated funds to update the interior
of the front refectory chamber.
The building consists of three parts, divided into
different historical segments: the boyar pantry, monastic cells and the
museum superstructure. The chambers have retained the classic type of
Russian hut, consisting of a cage and a basement. From the outside, the
walls of the building have decorative decoration of the 17th century -
window frames, cornices, semi-columns at the corners. Inside are small
rooms, low, vaulted ceilings, thick walls.
The chambers are
divided into two halves - men's and women's. On the ground floor
interiors are presented: "Dining room", "Boyar's study", "Library",
"Room of elder sons". On the second floor - "Canopy", "Room of the
noblewoman", "Svetlitsa". The interiors and furnishings of the rooms are
mostly authentic items from the 17th century.
An underground
museum with exhibited rarities of the 12th-16th centuries is arranged in
the chambers. It also demonstrates the cultural layer of the 16th
century, enclosed in a special showcase. Portraits of the Romanovs hang
in the basement, there is a Russian stove, for which 314 tiles were
made. In the center of the room is a layout of the building. A light is
installed in the brick basement. Next to it is a white-stone cellar of
the end of the 15th century, in which the master's treasury was kept.
The canopy connects several living quarters and a utility room. They
have preserved stove mirrors, which show tiles with floral patterns that
adorned stoves immediately after the opening of the museum in the second
half of the 19th century.
The largest room is the boyar dining
room, where the family dined, feasts were held, and guests were
received. The vault is decorated with a floral ornament, the room has a
cupboard with dishes, a Swedish chandelier, a German engraving, a framed
portrait of Moscow Governor Tikhon Streshnev, a table, armchairs,
benches are installed along the walls. The room of the boyar is
decorated with Dutch leather wallpapers of the 17th century. There is
also a table with writing utensils and a chair upholstered in leather, a
chest with books. Near the entrance door there is a stove made of green
glazed tiles, with relief images of historical plots, fairy tales and
everyday scenes.
In the chambers of the eldest son there are
monuments showing how the sciences developed. The spherical ceiling,
walls and floor are lined with limestone slabs. The chest with books is
decorated with a painting depicting Sirin bird. The walls of the library
are upholstered with green cloth. In the red corner there is an icon of
John the Theologian, to the right of the entrance there is a tiled tiled
stove, between two windows there is a table made in the first quarter of
the 18th century. The noblewoman's room is decorated with wooden lace -
"carpenter's attire". On the wall hangs a portrait with the inscription:
"Tsaritsa Natalya Kirillovna." However, a number of researchers suggest
that Evdokia Lopukhin may be depicted in the picture. The room also
displays the image of the “Sign of the Mother of God”.
The
brightest room in the house is called the room. Near the walls there are
benches on which spinning wheels and a loom are installed.