Lefortovo Palace: the year of construction, architect, history

In the spring of 1675 an unusually charming and bright young man appeared in Moscow. He came from Switzerland in search of adventure and early wealth. We must give him his due - and for that and for the other scent he had excellent. The German settlement, where he settled, was in those years swarming with visiting adventurers, but it was he, Franz Lefort, who prepared the winning ticket for himself, making him the closest associate of Peter the Great.

Young Predator of Fortune

Settled in the German settlement, Franz did not hurry to burden himself with any particular occupation, and to have a livelihood, he married a somewhat overripe but financially secured daughter of Colonel Suge, in search of happiness brought to Russia from France. Young, handsome, and, moreover, received a solid dowry, Lefort led a carefree life, like a never-ending feast. It was in the whirlpool of merriment that he was destined to get acquainted with the young then Emperor Peter I.

The young Swiss had many talents, but the brightest among them was the ability to please the right person. Very soon, the Russian autocrat not only brought him closer to himself, but also made one of his confidants. Since then, the career of Lefort went steeply uphill, and the supportive Fortune lifted the lucky man to the very top of prosperity.

The gift of the tsar to his favorite

Generous to his favorites, Peter makes a new pet truly royal gift - he builds for him in Moscow on the banks of the Yauza a luxurious mansion, surrounded by a park and named Lefortovo Palace. Architect Dmitry Aksamitov, who took the order for the project and erection of the building, completed his offspring in 1698. It was very innovative for its time.

The palaces of Moscow built earlier turned pale before the residence of the lucky nobleman. His mansion was erected in the so-called eclectic style, incorporating elements of ancient tower buildings and the emerging trend in those years, called "Peter's Baroque." It is fairly believed that the author of the project is one of the first Russian architects who made an attempt to escape from the close framework of pre-Petrine architecture.

The magnificence of the reception hall

In it everything was new and unusual in comparison with the established Moscow canons. In order to make the Lefortovo Palace a place for future assemblies capable of accommodating a large number of invited people, the king ordered to place in it a reception hall that is not inferior to the dimensions of European models. D. Aksamitov fulfilled this requirement precisely, and the pride of the palace he built was a gigantic hall of ten meters high and an area of three hundred square meters.

The light of the precious chandeliers, reflected in a multitude of mirrors, illuminated the huge portrait of Peter the Great, looking majestically with the red wall of English wall covered with red. The view of the guests was involuntarily lost in the abundance of paintings and picturesque trellises, brought here from the best workshops in Europe. The hall was so large that fifteen hundred people could admire it at the same time.

Suite of rooms

It struck the Lefortovo Palace and the luxury of the rest of the chambers. From the memoirs of contemporaries, it is known that the eyes of the guests opened a suite of rooms, among which one, covered with green leather, was filled with cabinets with porcelain, the other was amazed by the capricious products of Chinese masters, the third - precious furniture. And there were no such treasuries.

Palace Park

The park around the Lefortovo Palace was also suitable for everything. About him we learn from the letter of the owner, sent to them his brother in 1698. He describes the vast territories that belong to him, where wild animals dwell among shady trees. Also Lefort mentions in a letter about a great rarity of those times - artificial ponds abounding in fish.

The building was designed in such a way that the main facade was turned towards Yauza. It is believed that this expressed the perception of it as a completely navigable river. According to the author's intention, the general view of the palace should be supplemented with fifty cannons placed on the galleries.

The curse that dominates the palace

Housewarming, accompanied by unrestrained fun, took place in February 1699. Literally from this time take their origin of the secrets of the Lefortovo Palace. The fact is that in his story there were many events that were inexplicable and gave rise to the darkest legends. The first of them was the sudden death of the owner of the house, overtaking him three weeks after the stormy celebration.

Its official cause was the ailment that had tormented Lefort for many years, but those who did not want to agree to it hinted at some envious persons, with which the German settlement was full, among which there could well be experts in poisons. But later, when the sinister sequence of deaths continued, the general opinion came together on a certain curse that gravitated over this palace. So it is or not - it's hard to say, but only far from superstitions Peter used a luxurious palace for its intended purpose, arranging in it the techniques of ambassadors, assemblies, and often simply insane binges.

The new owner of the palace

This lasted until 1706, while the fire that occurred in Semenovskaya Sloboda did not destroy the house of another tsarist favorite, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov. To comfort a high-ranking fagot, the sovereign gave him the orphaned Lefortovo Palace, having undertaken some restructuring. Invited by the new owner, the Russian architect of Italian origin Giovanni Maria Fontana, in addition to the main building, built an open square of two-story buildings connected by covered passages and decorated the courtyard with intricate arcades.

From that time, the Lefortovo palace became known as Menshikovsky, but the curse that gravitated over him did not allow him to enjoy the magnificence of the marvelous rooms even to the end of days. After the death of his patron, the completely entrenched Alexander Danilovich lost power and was exiled to Siberia, as they say now, with complete confiscation of property.

Further victims of evil spirits

When in the short period of the reign of Peter II the capital was again transferred to Moscow, then this palace became one of the residences of the young sovereign. It was in him that the autocrat stopped in 1727, having arrived at his coronation. However, the curse also reminded of itself - his sister Natalia Alekseevna suddenly died. From sin far away Peter II left the palace, but the following year he returned.

It was very reckless on his part. After living in a "bad palace" for less than a year, the tsar became engaged to the princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova, but the wedding was not destined to take place. On the appointed day, January 18, 1730, he suddenly died. Soon after his death, Empress Anna Ioannovna ascended the throne.

The demon did not miss the opportunity to poke it. In one of the palace halls, he urged her to break the previously signed Conditutions, which limited the lawlessness of the tsarist authorities. As a result, the extravagant empress for a whole decade plunged Russia into a bloody pool of her own tyranny.

Much more successful than its predecessors was only Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, without apparent harm to herself, who stopped here in 1742 during her visit to Moscow. The fate of this blue-eyed beauty, spared the merry merriment, attire and stately Guards officers, spared the fate. By her arrival, the palace's chambers were restored after the Moscow fire that raged in them in 1737.

The future of the palace

Being the property of the treasury, the Lefortovo Palace in Moscow for a long time was used mainly as a residence for foreign ambassadors and the reception of the most important diplomats. In addition, in 1771 there was a plague quarantine here, and later theatrical ministers settled. The palace acquired a new meaning in 1804, when it housed the military state archive.

The end of the palace splendor came in 1812. The fire of the fire that engulfed the ancient capital did not spare these walls either. Since then, on a place where the Petrine baroque once merged in amazing harmony with the Old Russian style of the style, only blackened ruins rallied. The treasury did not have the means to restore it, and the palace was abandoned for many years and forgotten by everyone.

According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, his ruins soon grew with trees and grass, which seemed to try to hide from the eyes of passers-by the painful traces of desolation. Soon new inhabitants appeared in the ruins themselves. They became a haven of local thieves and bandits, hiding there from the police. This contributed to a huge, once well-groomed, and by that time the wild park. In those years Muscovites tried to avoid this gloomy place.

The palace, which became the archive

Revival of the palace began in the late forties of the XIX century, when, according to the highest order of the Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich, it was rebuilt and added to the third floor. In its halls there is the state archive of the General Staff of the Army, which is still there.

But today, in this complex of buildings with military documents, there is a vast collection of audio materials, related to different periods of history. This collection includes numerous sound monuments of cultural and socio-political life. In the collection of this grand library, called briefly RGAFD, you can see and hear a variety of sound carriers, from wax rolls to modern CDs.

Monument to old Moscow

It is impossible to study old Moscow without seeing the Lefortovo Palace. Its address: 2-nd Bauman Str., 3. It's easy to get. You can take the subway and get off at the Baumanskaya station, and you can get by bus number 78. In extreme cases, any Muscovite will willingly tell you where the Lefortovo Palace is.

Today its appearance is somewhat different from that which it had in the past centuries. The reason for this - in numerous restructuring, often carried out exclusively for practical purposes and without taking into account the architectural uniqueness inherent in it by the author of the original project.

As a result of the changes made to the overall layout of the area, the once beautiful view from the direction of Yauza is closed. As for the curse that gravitated over the palace in former times, since the military appeared in its walls, it does not manifest itself at all - from the Russian army even unclean force flees .