Schedule of services in the Blachernae temple in Kuzminki. Vlaherna is a church under the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Kuzminki Estate: Church
What is what in the churchIt is believed that this image was painted by the Evangelist Luke, and at first it was located in one of the areas of Constantinople - Blachernae. After the fall of Byzantium, the icon was transferred to Athos, and from there to Russia. One image was placed in the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow, and the second image was granted by Alexei Mikhailovich to Dmitry Stroganov, the father of the first owner of the Kuzminki estate.
The first wooden church for the icon of Our Lady of Blachernae in Kuzminki was built in 1720, and the stone one was designed by I.P. Zherebtsova - in 1759-1774. Another 10 years later, Rodion Kazakov added a bell tower. He also rebuilt the temple itself in the style of early classicism. The Blachernae Temple was painted by Antonio Claudi.
The church in Kuzminki suffered from Napoleon's invasion, but it was restored. Then a new marble iconostasis by M.D. appeared in the temple. Bykovsky and several sculptures by I.P. Vitali.
In 1928, the Presidium of the Moscow Council decided to close the church in Kuzminki and transfer its building to the Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine.
Now the temple in Kuzminki has been restored and returned to believers. In addition to the church and bell tower, the ensemble also includes a family crypt and a cone-shaped vault at the sacristy, built in 1830 (the author of the project is D. Gilardi). And the list of the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God - the Stroganov family shrine - is in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery.
Palamarchuk P. G. Forty forty. T. 4: Outskirts of Moscow. Heteroslavism and heterodoxy. M., 1995, p. 192-197
Church in the name of the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God in the Kuzminki estate on the Goledi River
Kuzminskaya st., 26
"Owners of the estate: Simonov Monastery in the 17th century; Stroganovs since 1702; Golitsyns - 1820-1917." (- more precisely since 1755 - P.P.)
"At the beginning of the 18th century, the estate belonged to A.G. Stroganov, who built here a wooden church in the name of Our Lady of Blachernae, master's chambers and a house for Peter I, who loved to visit the estate. In the second half of the 18th century, the new owners built a stone church (1759 -1774, rebuilt in 1784-1787), the main house (1780s, burned down in 1913), a number of outbuildings - a kitchen, a greenhouse, a horse yard, etc. Architects participated in the construction: I. P. Zherebtsov (from 1760 to 1770), I. V. Egotov and R. R. Kazakov (late 1770s-1790s).After the Patriotic War of 1812, new work was launched on the estate, associated with the name of D. Gilardi, who supervised the construction from 1811 to 1852. The main house was not affected by alterations, and all the architect’s attention was paid to the design of the park with its pavilions, bridges, piers, grottoes. The Musical Pavilion of the Horse Yard is especially expressive ( 1819), radically rebuilt by D. Gilardi, with equestrian groups - copies of sculptures by P. K. Klodt. Among the attractions of Kuzminki is a cast-iron fence with sculptures of lions, made according to drawings by A. N. Voronikhin and D. Gilardi at the Ural Pashiysky factories."
"The main cube of the church was built in 1762; the porticoes, dome and bell tower - in 1784."
"The architects who built the temple, successively: I. Zherebtsov, V. Bazhenov, R. Kazakov, D. Gilardi."
"Chapels: St. Sergius; Alexander Nevsky."
"First wooden church built on the estate in 1716-1720. G. D. Stroganov and his widow Marya Yakovlevna with children. Soon it burned down.
In 1732, Baron A.G. Stroganov built a second wooden church, which burned down around the time the estate passed to the Golitsyns in 1755.
The chapel of Alexander Nevsky already existed at the first wooden church in 1716.
The stone temple was built in 1759. The chapel of Alexander Nevsky was the first to be consecrated in 1762, and in 1774 the main altar was also consecrated. In 1784, the roof of the temple was converted from an octagon to a dome.
In 1812 the church was destroyed by the French; re-consecrated in 1813
In 1829, in addition to the southern Alexander Nevsky chapel, the northern one was also built in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
The bell tower was built in 1784, made of wood; that same year it was dismantled and a stone one was built. In 1841, a clock was placed on the bell tower; in 1833 a large bell weighing 260 pounds was cast for it.
In 1825, the iconostasis in the Alexander Nevsky chapel was replaced with a new one. In 1866-1867 it was replaced by another one, made according to a drawing by the architect M. D. Bykovsky. Iconostasis of the chapel of St. Sergius was made in 1829, also based on a drawing by M. D. Bykovsky.
In 1899-1900 A major overhaul of the temple was carried out, and instead of the wooden main iconostasis, a new one was installed - made of Italian marble with bronze decorations. The repairs were carried out under the supervision and guidance of K. M. Bykovsky.
An ancient icon of Our Lady of Blachernae - a copy of the second half of the 17th century. from the original, located in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. In the temple there were many jewelry and shrines, including an image with the Stroganov family tree, as well as part of the Robe of Christ in a special reliquary.
Also noteworthy was the unusual tabernacle in the form of a coffin with obvious Masonic symbols, donated by Mich. Mich. Golitsyn according to the will of Second Major Vas. Iv. Pavlov, buried at the Blachernae Church in 1776."
"The village of Vlakhernskoe is popularly called Kuzminsky; the third name - Mill - is almost forgotten: it was called so after the mill that stood on the site of the village. According to legend, the miller's name was Kuzma - hence the second name of the village. It was called Vlakhernsky when a mill was built here Church in the name of the Blachernae Icon of Our Lady The village has existed for no more than 180 years.
In the church there is a remarkable Blachernae image of the Mother of God. Some say that this is a genuine ancient icon, sent along with the head of St. Gregory from Jerusalem to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and met by Patriarch Nikon himself at the Execution Ground. Others claim that this is a copy, and the original is located in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin in the chapel of Peter and Paul in the altar behind the altar. From the documents it is known that two identical icons were sent, painted on boards made of special mastic. By order of the tsar, one icon was placed in the Assumption Cathedral, and the other was subsequently blessed by Baron Dimitri Grigorievich Stroganov. On the reverse side of the icon there are two inscriptions: 1. This is the same icon that was the patroness of Constantinople and the Greek kings; King Heraclius had it with him on campaigns against the Persians, and history tells about its miracles. 2. The icon is decorated for July 2, the feast of Our Lady of Blachernae, with a rich robe with expensive stones, thanks to the zeal of Princess Anna Alexandrovna Golitsyna, Knight of the Order of St. Vmch. Catherine, in 1806
In 1926, the church was still described as follows: “Church in Kuzminki. different time The main rounded walls of the temple, four-column porticoes, a dome, and a cylindrical bell tower, topped with domes resembling white stone pavilions and rotundas, appeared successively. In 1784, significant reconstruction was carried out here. A beautifully painted stone bell tower appeared, porticos were added to the central massif, and the dome drum was redone. The innovations have a clearly expressed “Cossack” character. The hand of a skilled architect changed the modest appearance of the church, dressing it in the classical attire of typical Moscow architecture. In 1825, according to the drawings of Domenico Gilardi, a new empire-style iconostasis with two columns, decorated with gilded carvings and having sculptural figures at the top, was built in place of the old one, which had fallen into disrepair. It has come down to us in a new copy in marble. Among the decoration of the church, we note the old Blachernae icon of the 17th century, made with a special relief technique; a number of crosses and family icons, among which one with the Stroganov genealogy is very curious; the ark is especially remarkable - the whole architectural structure fine jewelry work of the 17th century."
The church, according to old-timers, was closed in 1929.
Currently, it is terribly disfigured and hardly resembles a temple in any way. The bell tower was completely destroyed. The extensive dome of the church was also broken - in its place was a third floor with balconies in place of the pediments. New windows were cut on all sides. The appearance of the temple - peeling, uprooted, mutilated - is terrible. Inside in the 1960s. there were living quarters. In 1978, the office building of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine (VIEV) was located here, which also occupied the rest of the buildings of the estate. There were only vague rumors about restoration. Since 1989, the building has been deserted and restoration has begun.
“Not far from the altar apse of the temple, within the fence, there is a small completely round building, tapering upward, with 4 semi-circular windows under a wide, far protruding cornice supporting a flat, low dome. The building, like a grave crypt, is a sacristy.” "It was built in 1828 by D.I. Gilardi." This building resembles a pavilion-sacristy in the courtyard of the Pavlovsk hospital. In the 1960s inside it there was an aquarium (!), then a utility room for VIEV.
In 1978, a leisurely restoration was underway at the Horse Yard. In 1977, they tried to drain the pond for cleaning, but it was unsuccessful; they had to fill up the bank again and prepare the “chemical measures” more sensibly. The estate buildings occupied by VIEV were in varying degrees of abandonment. The cast iron lions of the famous fence are partially broken.
The entire complex is under state protection under No. 393. According to the protection list, it, along with the temple and the sacristy, also includes:
"Kuzminki Estate, 1702-1850: horse yard with a musical pavilion and 2 outbuildings, 1793, 1819, architects R. R. Kazakov, D. I. Gilardi, sculptor P. K. Klodt; greenhouse, 18th century - beginning XIX century, architects N. P. Zherebtsov, D. I. Gilardi, R. R. Kazakov, I. V. Egotov; classical pavilion, 1793, 1805, 1820s, architects R. R. Kazakov, I. V. Egotov, D. I. Gilardi; classical pavilion, 1950 (recreation), designed by D. I. Gilardi; Egyptian pavilion, 1811, 1820s, architects A. N. Voronikhin, D. I Gilardi; gates of the Red Court with 4 floor lamps and 2 sculptures of griffins, 1810-1820s, architects A. N. Voronikhin, D. I. Gilardi; fence of the Red Court with 2 sculptures of lions, 1810-1820s. , architects A. N. Voronikhin, D. I. Gilardi.
Buildings of the Red Court: wing No. 2 “Connection”, 1809; east wing, 1809; western wing, 1950 (recreation), designed by D.I. Gilardi; southern wing, 1809
Bath house, 1788-1811, 1820s, architects R. R. Kazakov, A. N. Voronikhin, D. I. Gilardi.
House on the dam, 1838 (18th century cellars).
Three two-story outbuildings, 1788, 1827, 1832, architects D.I. Gilardi, A.O. Gilardi - along Poplar Alley: outbuilding No. 3 (clergy house), outbuilding No. 4 (servants), outbuilding No. 5 (laundry); fence near the clergy house, first third of the 19th century, mid-19th century, architects D. I. Gilardi, A. O. Gilardi; one-story wooden outbuilding No. 6 along Poplar Alley, late 18th century. - beginning of the 19th century, architects R. R. Kazakov, I. V. Egotov; well, 19th century; forge, 1783, 1818, architects I. V. Egotov, D. I. Gilardi; Poludensky's house with an outbuilding, 1838, late 19th century.
Gardening buildings: two-story stone house, 1832 - No. 21, architects D.I. and A.O. Gilardi; two-story wooden house, 1832 - No. 23, architects D. I. and A. O. Gilardi; wooden cottage "Seraya" for gardening, 1793 - building No. 17.
Farmyard buildings: 2-story central wing, 1805, 1832-1838, architects I. V. Egotov, A. O. Gilardi; 1-storey U-shaped building, early 19th century.
Fence, early 19th century; grotto in park No. 1, early 19th century; three-arched grotto in park No. 2, early 19th century; single-span stone bridge on a dam, early 18th and 19th centuries, architects I. V. Egotov, M. D. Bykovsky; bridge with sculptures of griffins on 4 white stone pylons, late 18th - early 19th centuries, architects R. R. Kazakov, A. O. Gilardi; ruins of Lion's Pier on the Bolshoi Pond, early 19th century. (to be recreated); ruins of the Propylaea, early 19th century. (to be recreated); ruins of the pier at the Propylaea, early 19th century. (to be recreated); white stone obelisk, early 19th century; a park of 270.2 hectares with ponds, canals, dams, bridges."
Neighboring residents still like to take walks in Kuzminok Park on weekends.
"From January 1, 1977, by decision of the executive committee of the Moscow City Council, the territory of the Kuzminki estate became a new city park, and it was decided to build a new complex in an industrial zone. In the Orange Dacha, deep in the park, by decision of the Moscow City Council, a regional library will be located, and a museum will be located in a house on the dam. One of the houses on Poplar Alley, from which the residents were evicted, housed the restoration workshop of the Society for the Protection of Monuments. She will have to return Kuzminki to its former appearance. First of all, the Horse Yard, the Music Pavilion, the fence of the Red Yard, griffins, lions, and gates are being restored; and the total number of buildings in the decision of the Moscow City Council is 33.”
“The main manor house, as well as the side Western wing, were restored externally so as not to destroy the ensemble.”
“In 1991, Deputy Chairman of the Volgograd District Council E. Shurygin, in response to a question about the emergency condition of the temple, suddenly announced that it was being transferred to the Patriarchate. Meanwhile, the roof was threatening an imminent collapse.”
In April 1992, “Deputy Prime Minister Yu. Luzhkov signed an order on the transfer for free use to the Orthodox parish of Our Lady of Blachernae in Kuzminki with the sacristy (St. Kuzminki, 16) and the clergy house (Topolevaya Alley, 3). To the research institute located in them Experimental veterinary medicine has been asked to release them within a month."
Ilyin M., Moiseeva T. Moscow and Moscow region. M., 1979. P. 479.
Monuments of estate art. M., 1928. P. 43.
Moscow. Architectural monuments of the 18th - 1st third of the 19th centuries. M., 1975. S. 336-337.
(Blagoveshchensky I.A.). Brief information about all the churches of the Moscow diocese. M., 1874. P. 57. No. 148.
Zakharov M.P. Guide to the outskirts of Moscow. M., 1867.
Lazarevsky Iv., Zgura V. Museums near Moscow. M., 1926.
(Bondarenko I. E.) Architectural monuments of Moscow. M., 1904. Issue. 1. Sheet 33: photo of the temple.
Sparks. 1902. No. 32. P. 500 (photo of the temple from the estate gate).
Helmsman. 1903. No. 26 (photo of the temple).
Kholmogorov V. and G. Historical materials about churches and villages of the XVI-XVIII centuries. M., 1892. Issue. 8. Pekhryan tithe. P. 207.
At different times, three documented churches successively existed in Kuzminki. The first of them was built in 1716 by the Stroganovs, who received a blessed charter, that is, permission to build it. That church was wooden, consecrated in honor of the family shrine of the owners of Kuzminki - the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God and had a chapel of Alexander Nevsky. The whole estate was named after this church - the village of Vlahernskoye. The church was destroyed by fire in 1732, and then a new church of the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God, also wooden, was built in its place. She, in turn, died from “fiery ignition” on November 18, 1758. The currently existing church is the third in a row. It was built in two stages. In 1759-62. A church building was built, as well as a separate wooden bell tower, the author of which was Zherebtsov. However, by 1779 the church building was in need of repair. Prince M.M. Golitsyn soon rebuilt the building in the forms of mature classicism and built a new bell tower instead of the old one. These works were carried out according to the design of the architect R. Kazakov in 1784-85.
In the church there was a family heirloom - the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God (Hodegetria), dating back to the 17th century. They were brought from Constantinople as a gift to the father of Peter I, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, in 1653. Along with the icon, a letter was sent in which its origin was associated with the Blachernae Monastery of Constantinople, and the history of its veneration with the early history of the Hodegetria of Constantinople. The icon was kept in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin; the tsar took it with him on military campaigns. The Blachernae icon is in relief, made using the wax-mastic technique. The relics of Christian martyrs are added to the wax, thus the icon is a reliquary. In terms of iconographic type, the Hodegetria list, close to the Smolensk icon of the Mother of God, was created in the second half of the 15th - early 16th centuries, possibly as a repetition of an ancient icon on an old board. The icon has a Greek inscription - “God-protected”. Currently, the icon is in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in the Moscow Kremlin. One of the revered relief lists of the second half of the 17th - early 18th centuries was kept in the family estate of the Stroganov-Golitsyns in the village of Vlahernskoye. The father of Grigory Stroganov was granted to them for his services to the Fatherland.
After the temple was built, the area received a third name - the village of Vlahernskoe. In 1920, the Blachernae Church closed, and the icon of the Mother of God was transferred to the Assumption Church in Veshnyaki. When it closed in 1941, the icon went to the Tretyakov Gallery, where it is kept in storage to this day. In 1923, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church opened in Moscow, at which a decision was made to close churches. In Kuzminki, in response to the “lofty” ideas of building a new state, all the gravestones and crosses of the small churchyard behind the church were destroyed, freeing up the territory for the construction of a dormitory for the institute’s employees. Not far from the dam there once was a well with holy water, which was filled up.
In 1929, the village council confiscated the keys from the rector of the Church of the Blachera Icon of the Mother of God, prohibiting the conduct of services. One day in 1929, a cart rolled along Lipovaya Alley to expropriate church valuables in favor of the state and transfer the temple to the Central Committee of the automotive industry. In the fall of 1929, the drum of the temple and the bell tower, on which the ancient tower clock was located, were destroyed. When the temple was rebuilt, only the main frame of the building and the portico remained. The pediments were replaced by large and disproportionate attics. The windows were altered beyond recognition: instead of round windows, rectangular ones appeared, and the cast metal bands that held the structure together were damaged. Everything inside has also been redone. A toilet was installed in place of the altar, and the wall paintings were painted over. Many manuscripts and icons were burned. The only picturesque icon of the Vlahere Mother of God known to us hung for a long time in the left aisle of the Veshnyakovsky church. Miraculously surviving, this icon was of undoubted value and, by decision of the commission, was transferred to the funds of one of the museums in Moscow.
In 1992, by order of the mayor of Moscow, the building of the Church of the Blachersk Icon of the Mother of God with the chapels of St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Alexander Nevsky were transferred to the Patriarchate. An important stage in the restoration was the dismantling of the water tower, ugly Soviet architecture (it was destroyed by the explosion so carefully that none of the surrounding buildings were damaged). Many organizations and restoration teams took part in the restoration of the temple. The Gvozdev brothers and their sons worked here. And the multi-pound bell helped to cast the staff of the plant named after. Likhacheva.
Source: http://www.kuzminky.ru/p1.htm
The current Blachernae Church in Kuzminki is the third in a row, it was built in the period from 1759-1762. according to the project of the St. Petersburg architect S.V. Chevakinsky and architect I.P. Zherebtsova. The central part of the church was finally finished and consecrated in 1774. In 1784-1785 the church was rebuilt in classicist forms. The author of the restructuring project was architect. R.R. Kazakov and V.I. Bazhenov.
In 1812, the church was plundered by Napoleonic soldiers; according to eyewitnesses, the French entered the temple on horseback, church utensils, and icons were stolen. In 1828, Empress Maria Feodorovna presented the family shrine of the Blachernae Icon Church with a brooch made of pearls and diamonds, which adorned the main icon. In 1829, in a church designed by architect. M.D. Bykovsky and D.I. Gilardi built the chapel of Sergius of Radonezh, which in 1839 was connected by a wooden gallery. In 1842, a clock was installed on the side chapel, which differed from the usual ones in that it had one hour hand. During the period of 1858, the church was visited by Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Feodorovna. After the death of S.M. Golitsyn (1774-1859), the chapel of Sergius of Radonezh was turned into the Golitsyn family tomb, where S.M. was buried. Golitsyn. In 1899-1900 the church was again restored and consecrated in 1901.
In the first years of Soviet power, all religious objects were removed from the church, and the domes were demolished in 1929. The Blachernae Church was rebuilt as a rest house for the Central Committee of Automobile Industry Trade Unions. Subsequently, the church was used for residential premises and administrative buildings of VIEV.
In 1994-1995 designed by architect E.A. Vorontsova carried out the restoration of the church. On October 14, 1995, the Blachernae Church was consecrated by Patriarch Alexy II. Thrones: the central chapel is consecrated in honor of the Blachernae icon of the Mother of God, the southern one - in honor of the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky, the northern one - in honor of St. Sergius, abbot of Radonezh.
Source: http://ppb-uvao.ru/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=63
The sacristy at the Blachernae Church in Kuzminki, designed by Gilardi. Below it, before the 1917 coup, was the entrance to the Golitsyn family tomb, which was devastated during the Soviet period.
Behind the Church of the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God there is a small one-story, round sacristy building with slightly sloping walls, built in 1829-1830. In it D.I. Gilardi repeated his earlier work - the chapel at the Pavlovskaya (now 4th city) hospital in Moscow (Pavlovskaya St., 25). The building was reconstructed in the 1990s.
Construction of the first temple in Kuzminki began in 1716 and was completed four years later. It was built specifically to store a copy of the miraculous Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God, which the then owner of the estate, Grigory Stroganov, “for great merit” received as a gift from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. And along with the icon, Stroganov was given a blessed certificate for the construction of the temple. The church was consecrated, of course, in honor of the precious relic. The village also began to be called Vlaherna. From the book of priest N. A. Poretsky “The village of Vlahernskoe, the estate of Prince S. M. Golitsyn.” 1913 we can find out that: “The first wooden church was built on the estate in the 1716-1720s by G.D. Stroganov and his widow Maria Yakovlevna with children. It soon burned down. In 1732, Baron A.G. Stroganov built a second wooden church, which burned down around the time the estate passed to the Golitsins in 1755. The chapel of Alexander Nevsky already existed at the first wooden church in 1759. The chapel of Alexander Nevsky was the first to be consecrated in 1762, and in 1774 the main altar was also consecrated In 1784, the covering of the temple was converted from octagons into a domed one... In the temple there were many jewels and shrines, including an image with the Stroganov family tree, as well as part of the Robe of Christ in a special reliquary. a coffin with obvious Masonic symbols, donated by Mikhail Mikh. Golitsyn according to the will of Major Second Vas. Iv. Pavlov, buried at the Blachernae Church in 1776." M.P. Zakharov, in his “Guide to the Outskirts of Moscow,” which was published in 1867, noted that “the village of Vlakhernskoye is popularly called Kuzminsky; the third name - Mill - is almost forgotten: it was called so after the mill that stood on the site of the village. According to legend, The miller’s name was Kuzma, which is where the village’s second name came from... On the temple holiday on July 2, there are big festivities here, in terms of the vastness of the place and the crowds only slightly inferior to the festivities on May 1 in Sokolniki and Semik in Maryina Roshcha.”
The current temple designed by the St. Petersburg architect S.I. Chevakinsky began to be built by the new owner of the estate - Prince M.M. Golitsyn (by the way, a descendant of the Stroganov dynasty) in 1759. The modern Blachernae Church took quite a long time to build. First, within three years, the church building itself, decorated in the Baroque style, appeared, as well as a separate octagonal bell tower, the design of which was developed by I.P. Zherebtsov. The completion of the temple was also made in the form of a traditional octagonal drum. However, time passed, the work seemed to continue, but very sluggishly... and by the end of the 1770s, the literally just completed building was already in need of repairs. It was then that the decision was made to rebuild the temple in the style of mature classicism. So, reconstruction began in 1784, when such architects as Rodion Rodionovich Kazakov and Ivan Vasilyevich Egotov were working in Kuzminki. It was Egotov and Kazakov who gave the church a classic look. The temple received a new completion in the form of a round drum with lucarnes and a dome. Porticoes and porches appeared. And a new round bell tower was erected in front of the church. There is a possibility that V.I. took part in the construction of the Kuzma temple. Bazhenov: at least his name appears in the estimate drawn up before the purchase of building materials. Construction of the current, “classical” version of the temple in honor of the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God was completed in 1787. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the Blachernae Church suffered enormous damage. The French soldiers mocked her quite a bit, after which the temple had to be re-dedicated, which was done in 1813. By the middle of the 19th century, the time had come for a new renovation. New marble iconostases were installed in the main church and its chapels, and a clock tower was installed on the bell tower, in accordance with the fashion of that time.
In the 1920s, in Kuzminki, by decision of the new authorities, all grave monuments and crosses were demolished. They even filled up the well with holy water. By the end of the 1920s, they reached the church: services were banned, and the keys were taken from the rector. A little later, all the valuables were expropriated, and the building itself was transferred to the central committee of the automotive industry. The abbot could not bear this and turned to local residents and former parishioners with a request to intercede for the temple. True, the confrontation turned out to be fruitless - soon the church lost its drum, and then its bell tower. And then a long series of rough alterations began. The place of the pediments was taken by attics, the windows changed beyond recognition - instead of round ones they were made rectangular, Church building They built another floor with balconies, but the metal strips that were supposed to hold the building together were seriously damaged. Inside now former temple They also disfigured it: a toilet was built in the altar, as often happened then, and the wall paintings were covered with paint. Icons and manuscripts stored in church archives were thrown into the fire. It was possible to save only the unique image of Our Lady of Blachernae. For a long time the icon was in the Assumption Church in Veshnyaki, and then it ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery. Shortly before the Great Patriotic War, the premises were converted, this time into one of the buildings of the rest house of the Central Committee of the Automobile Industry Trade Union.
In the 1960s, the former temple became a hostel, then in 1978 the office building of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine was located in the premises, which occupied the rest of the buildings of the estate. In N. Karmazin’s article “The Temple is Perishing,” published in “Evening Moscow” on June 17, 1991, one can read that “Deputy Chairman of the Volgograd District Council E. Shurygin, in response to a question about the emergency condition of the temple, suddenly announced that it was being transferred to the Patriarchate. Meanwhile, the roof is in danger of collapsing." A year later, the then mayor of Moscow Yu.M. Luzhkov ordered the donation of the church, as well as the sacristy and the clergy house, to the Orthodox parish in Kuzminki. In just a couple of years, the church was restored. Architect Elena Arkadyevna Vorontsova developed a special restoration project. To put the ruined and dilapidated temple in order, it was necessary to dismantle the third floor that had been built on, and then recreate all the previous arches and vaults, conduct archaeological research on the location of the bell tower and re-erect it. Also, a lot of effort was required to replace part of the old brickwork and restore the white stone and stucco decor of the facades. In 1995, the church was consecrated, and a little later a Sunday school and library were opened with it. At the initial stage of construction of the Blachernae Church, in the late 1750s, it was assumed. that the temple was built in the Baroque style. However, the work was only roughly completed at that time; the building was not used for many years, and by the end of the 1770s it began to require repairs. Where there is repair, there is remodeling...
The current building was built in the forms of mature classicism. Experts note another feature of the Blachernae Church: the very original design of the large light drum, which replaced the previous Baroque octagon. At its base there were four low semicircular windows, which at the same time served as lucarnes for the inner vault of the church. The lucarnes went straight into the light drum! Along its circumference alternated high arched windows with niches in the walls between them; the powerful, smooth lower belt of the rotunda looks like a plinth for a tall, elegant drum. Not obvious from the outside (and up close you can’t see it at all, the quadrangle obscures it), but extremely unusual solution rotunda-drum. In fact, it turns out to be two-light, and the semi-circular windows of the lower tier are the lucarnes of the dome vault. This “two-tier structure” looks most impressive from the inside: the lower tier is a darkened vault with individual “bursts” of light from the lucarnes, in its center there is a bright spot of light from the abundantly glazed upper tier. A rather interesting architectural technique is the rounded corners of the quadrangle. This is not a rotunda, although the rounded corners framed by Tuscan porticoes and even with circular windows create such an illusion. If you look closely, behind the colonnades we see absolutely flat planes of the walls. So it’s still a quadruple! In the tympanums of the pediments there is a bas-relief image: an intricate floral ornament, and in the upper corner there is an image of the Holy Spirit descending on an open Bible. The temple is surrounded by a continuous symphony of colonnades. They are also in the openings of the bell tier, at the through lanterns - “gazebos” on the temple itself and its belfry, at the potiks on the sides of the quadrangle, and even semi-columns along the entire circumference of the lower tier of the bell tower! The widespread use of columns gave the buildings of mature classicism an unexpected, sometimes downright airy lightness - an art that was completely lost with the advent of the Empire style.
Magazine " Orthodox Temples. Travel to Holy Places". Issue No. 173, 2016.
This year marks the 600th anniversary of the family of princes Golitsyn and the beginning of their service to Russia. Before the revolution, they also owned the Kuzminki estate with the house Blachernae church. It was created by the most famous Russian architects, saints, emperors, great people prayed under its arches, and the estate itself was compared to Peterhof, Pavlovsk and Versailles.
Then the shrine ended up in Jerusalem. In the first half of the 5th century, Empress Eudokia, the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II, traveling around the Holy Land, sent the icon as a gift to the Emperor’s sister Pulcheria in Constantinople, where it was placed in the Blachernae Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary - hence its name. She miraculously defended the Second Rome more than once. It was with this icon that in 626 Patriarch Sergius walked around the walls of Constantinople, besieged by the Avars, after which they fled away, and in honor of this miracle the Feast of the Praise of the Virgin Mary was established. Byzantine emperors had the custom of taking the Blachernae icon with them on military campaigns.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Blachernae icon was transferred to Athos, and then sent to Moscow as a gift to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. In October 1654, Patriarch Nikon solemnly greeted her at the Execution Ground. The message from the proto-Singelian Patriarch of Jerusalem Gabriel said: “The holy icon that was delivered to you, sir, is the patroness of Constantinople. She will now be the protector of Russia and the sacred person of Your Majesty, as she was once the protector of Constantinople and its pious kings.”
The icon was placed in the Assumption Cathedral. From now on, the king of the Third Rome also took her with him on military campaigns, and the list was granted to “eminent people” by the Stroganovs. This is how the Blachernae icon ended up in Kuzminki.
“Vlakhernskoe village, Mill also”
Legend says that in ancient times here, in the dense pine forest On the banks of the Goledyanka River, there were mills, and one of them belonged to the mysterious miller Kuzma - as if his name remained in the name of Kuzminka. Scientists believe that the name comes from the local church or chapel of Saints Cosmas and Damian, revered as healers and patrons of animals. Their holiday was popularly called Kuzminki.Reliable information about the history of Kuzminki appears in the first half of the 17th century, when these lands and “the wasteland that was the Kuzminsk mill” belonged to the Simonov and Nikolo-Ugreshsky monasteries: here were their fishing and forest lands. Perhaps earlier, before the Time of Troubles, there was a small village here called Kuzminki: a chapel of holy healers could have stood there. After the Time of Troubles, only the mill remained, which is why the area was also called the Mill. Its third name - the village of Vlahernskoe - appeared under the next owners, the famous Stroganovs, who were one of the most ancient and wealthy Russian industrialists.
According to legend, their founder Spiridon was the son of a Tatar prince. He, against the will of his father, converted to Christianity. He allegedly went to Moscow with an army, captured his son, who dared to come out to meet him, and demanded that he renounce Christ. Without waiting for the abdication, the prince put his son to execution by planing. This happened in 1395. The descendants adopted the Stroganov surname. Also N.M. Karamzin doubted this legend, and now it is generally accepted that the Stroganovs are rich natives of Veliky Novgorod, but their ancestor was really Spiridon, who lived during the time of Dmitry Donskoy. According to legend, his grandson Luka Kuzmich ransomed Grand Duke Vasily II the Dark from Tatar captivity.
Under Ivan the Terrible, the Stroganovs were engaged in salt mining. They created saltworks in Sol Vychegda, and the tsar granted them huge estates in the Perm region. To protect these possessions and for the sake of further territorial expansion of Russia, the Stroganovs, at their own expense, organized Ermak’s campaign to Siberia. During the Time of Troubles, they donated almost a million to the state for military needs, for which they were awarded a special, established only for them, title of “famous people” and the right to be written with “-vich,” that is, with a full patronymic. This rank was above the “guest” - the merchant elite, but still not the nobility. The title of nobility remained the Stroganovs' cherished dream; it could only be achieved by diligent help to the Fatherland. In the meantime, for this help the Stroganovs received other highest awards, testifying to the attitude of the Russian sovereigns towards this family. They supported the first Romanov in his election to the throne and soon received as a gift part of the Robe of the Lord, brought in 1625 from the Persian Shah Abass. Another award was the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God, which Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich presented to the Stroganovs for their services. According to one, the most accepted version, three copies were made from the miraculous icon sent to Rus' from Athos. One was donated by Stroganov, the second ended up in the church in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, the third in the village of Dedenevo near Dmitrov, in the Spaso-Vlaherna Monastery.
According to another version, these lists were also brought to Rus' from Athos along with the miraculous image. There are also disagreements regarding which of the Stroganovs the icon was presented to: some believe that it was Dmitry Andreevich Stroganov, others believe that it was his son Grigory Dmitrievich. By the way, Saint Demetrius of Rostov corresponded with him and once asked him to borrow the book “Chronograph” from his personal library.
At the end of the 17th century, Grigory Dmitrievich Stroganov, having united the main family holdings in his hands, became the richest man in Russia, supplying more than 60% of Russian salt. They tell this legend. One day Peter I invited him to dinner at Summer Garden. G.D. Stroganov brought a large wine barrel as a gift to the Tsar. He seemed indignant: “What do I need your keg! It would be better if St. Petersburg lent money to build!” Stroganov threw off the lid, and it turned out that the barrel was filled to the top with gold. And then Peter granted Stroganov a fief in Kuzminki.
This, of course, is a legend, but Stroganov really helped the Tsar in the Northern War, when he built and equipped two military frigates at his own expense. With these ships, Peter won his first victory near Arkhangelsk and, in gratitude, in 1704 he presented Stroganov with his portrait with diamonds and many estates, including Kuzminki with the right to have his own house church. G.D. Stroganov, the last “famous man,” was not involved in the estate. He died in 1715 and was buried in the family parish church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Kotelniki near Taganka, where their Moscow house stood on Shvivaya Gorka.
After his death in 1715, his heirs took over the organization of Kuzminki: his wife Maria Yakovlevna, the first Russian lady of state, granted by Peter as a sign of respect the privilege to wear Russian dress, and his sons, especially the eldest Alexander Grigorievich, who was famous for his education, carried with him a “travel library” and translated into Russian " Lost heaven"Milton.
It was under him that an estate with outbuildings, a cascade of ponds, and the first park appeared in Kuzminki. And first of all, in 1716, a wooden church was built, consecrated in honor of the Stroganov family heirloom - the Blachernae Icon of the Mother of God. There is also this explanation: the Stroganovs piously did not dare to keep their shrine in the house where assemblies, social balls, and feasts were held, and they built a temple for it. One of the chapels was consecrated in the name of Saint Prince Alexander Nevsky on the name day of A.G. Stroganov. An icon depicting the Stroganov family tree was also kept in it. The property began to be called “the village of Vlahernskoye, Melnitsa also.”
Stroganov’s friendship with the Tsar continued: Peter was the father-in-law at Stroganov’s wedding, often visited (a wooden house was even built for him), prayed in the old church and came with his wife and daughters Anna and Elizabeth to its consecration. And in 1722, the emperor, returning victoriously from the Persian campaign, of which Alexander Stroganov was a participant, stopped with him before the ceremonial entry into the capital. And he granted the Stroganovs barons “as a sign of the merits of their ancestors” - they became the third Russian family, after Shafirov and Osterman, to receive this title. Their family coat of arms depicted a knight's helmet with the visor down. It symbolized that the Stroganovs never turned their heads and did not pay attention to what others did and said, but silently and honestly obeyed their sovereign. Their motto was “Earthly riches for the Fatherland, a name for yourself.”
In 1757, the owner’s daughter, Baroness Anna Alexandrovna Stroganova, maid of honor to Elizabeth Petrovna, married Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn, nephew of the famous Peter the Great’s field marshal. The Kuzminks went to him as a dowry and remained with the Golitsyns until 1917.
Noble nest of the Golitsyns
The Golitsyns were descended from the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas. His grandson, Prince Patrick, in 1408 went into the service of the Great Moscow Prince Vasily I, son of Dmitry Donskoy, and was received “with great honor.” The Moscow sovereign gave his daughter Anna as a wife to the prince's son, Yuri Patrikeevich. The grandson of Yuri Patrikeevich, Prince Ivan Vasilyevich, nicknamed Bulgaka (that is, the proud man), had four sons, among them was the founder of the Golitsyns, Prince Mikhail Ivanovich, nicknamed “Golitsa”. It is usually believed that the nickname was given to him for the habit of wearing an iron combat glove - a glove - on only one hand. But there is another opinion: the prince lost his hand in battle and since then wore an iron glove as a prosthesis.
He was a okolnichy and a governor under Grand Duke Vasily III, but fate treated him harshly. In September 1514, at the Battle of Orsha, he was captured in Lithuania, where he spent 38 years, and returned to his homeland only in 1552, released by the king for loyalty to his sovereign, when his fourth cousin Ivan the Terrible was already reigning on the Russian throne. Seriously ill and exhausted, the first Golitsyn became a monk at the Trinity Monastery under the name of Jonah and died a few years later.
His distant descendant, Lieutenant General Prince M.M. Golitsyn, who became the first owner of Kuzminki from the Golitsyns, was the leader of the Tarusa and Kaluga nobility and the president of the Admiralty Collegium. There is such a legend about him. As if Peter III forbade his wife Ekaterina Alekseevna to sniff tobacco, but she could not live without it and asked M.M. Golitsyna sat next to her at dinner, where she quietly helped herself from his snuff box under the table. The Emperor once noticed this trick and scolded Golitsyn, but disgrace did not follow. Then Golitsyn even acted as a mediator in the reconciliation of the august couple after another quarrel.
His own marriage turned out to be successful; in honor of his wife, he even founded the village of Annino in the vicinity of Kuzminki. His wife handed over all the affairs to him, and he began to build a real noble nest here, inviting young I.P. for the work. Zherebtsov, the architect of the beautiful bell tower of the Novospassky Monastery. And again, the first task of the new owner of Kuzminki was to build a manor church: in the middle of the 18th century, the wooden Blachernae church burned down for the second time, and Golitsyn decided to build a stone one. Sometimes the design of this temple is attributed to the St. Petersburg architect S. Chevakinsky, who erected northern capital the famous St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral on the Kryukov Canal, and in Moscow - the Golitsyn estate on Volkhonka, 14. In 1759–1762, a stone church was built in Kuzminki, but the bell tower remained wooden. In 1762, the Alexander chapel was consecrated by Archpriest Ioann Ioannov, rector of the Tagan Church of the Savior in Chigasy, and the entire church was consecrated only in June 1774 by Archpriest of the Archangel Cathedral Peter Alekseev. However, ten years later the temple fell into disrepair again. Then Golitsyn, having asked for permission from Archbishop Plato for the reconstruction, invited Rodion Kazakov, who erected the now existing temple with a magnificent rotunda dome and a stone bell tower in 1784–1785. This temple is sometimes compared in style to another magnificent creation of Rodion Kazakov - the Church of Martin the Confessor on Bolshaya Alekseevskaya near Taganka, built in the image of the Cathedral of the Apostle Paul in London. It is sometimes believed that the Blachernae Church had some kind of Western European prototype. According to legend, Matvey Kazakov participated in the construction of the Kuzminsky temple, but he was probably confused with Rodin, but Vasily Bazhenov actually worked for some time in Kuzminki during the reconstruction of the temple. The images for the iconostasis were painted by the Italian artist Antonio Claudio, who also painted the aforementioned Martinovsky Church.
A crystal lamp set in silver burned in front of the Blachernae icon. And a piece of the Lord’s Robe was kept in a gilded silver reliquary studded with diamonds. These shrines were brought to the Golitsyns by Anna Stroganova, and since then they have become a relic of their family. The Golitsyns also brought their family shrines into the temple: a piece of the Tree of the Lord, pieces of the relics of the great saints John the Baptist, the Apostle Matthew, and John Chrysostom.
The temple did not have a permanent parish. Its parishioners were gentlemen who spent the summer at the estate, and their courtyard servants (and the temple did not have a separate chapel for serfs, like, for example, the Church of the Intercession in Fili), employees, managers of the Golitsyns, then summer residents and surrounding peasants who came to venerate the miraculous icon. However, the Blachernae Church had its own clergy supported by the Golitsyns, and, moreover, in the 1870s the summer Peter and Paul Church in neighboring Lyublino was assigned to it.
There is a version that A.V. visited here in 1774. Suvorov, who married Varvara Prozorovskaya, a distant relative of the Golitsyns. And the hospitable host presented the newlyweds with a cup made by B. Cellini. And in 1775, Catherine II came to Kuzminki. She served in the church, dined at Golitsyn’s house and, according to legend, rewarded the owner with her traveling gold tea set for the magnificent reception.
In 1804 M.M. Golitsyn died, and all his affairs were managed by his widow. The architects invited by the Golitsyns to Kuzminki did not change the estate layout that had developed under the Stroganovs, but only rebuilt individual buildings or built additional new ones. In 1808, the architect I.D. began working here. Gilardi, who built both according to his own designs and those of A.N. Voronikhin, a former serf of the Stroganovs. The father was helped by his son, Domenico Gilardi - it was to him, the “genius of the Russian Empire style,” that the honor of creating the integral appearance of the estate after the Patriotic War belongs.
In 1812, the youngest son of Mikhail Mikhailovich, Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn, donated 100 thousand for defense. No one then expected that Moscow would be abandoned, so he did not have time to take almost anything from the estate, and in the fall Blachernae was taken by the troops of Marshal Murat. According to legend, some Moscow landowner met Napoleon with keys that she passed off as Kremlin ones. And as if for this Napoleon granted her Kuzminki. In reality, the French were rampaging here. They plundered and desecrated the church, which they rode into on horseback, and the manor house. The poultry house and barnyard were not spared. But already in December 1812, divine services began in the chapel of Alexander Nevsky, and in 1816 the estate finally passed to Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn, under whom it experienced its dazzling heyday.
Blachernae perspective
He was called the last Moscow nobleman, but he remained in the memory of Moscow primarily as a great philanthropist. Suffice it to say that after the Patriotic War, he completely restored the Orphanage at his own expense and became its honorary guardian, was the manager of the Pavlovsk and Golitsyn hospitals, a trustee of Moscow University, and president of the commission for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. He was a member of the State Council and was awarded all Russian orders of the first degree, including the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. Almost every summer, Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, visited him in Kuzminki and consulted with him about state affairs. Saint Innocent, “the Apostle of Siberia and America,” the future Metropolitan of Moscow, also visited him here.
Both beggars and poor students came to him here, and Golitsyn did not leave anyone without help. He was considered the second person in Moscow after the Governor-General, but not everyone had a kind word to say about him. Herzen, for example, called him “a holy fool with the reputation of a good man,” but he had his reasons for this: Nicholas I appointed Golitsyn chairman of the investigative commission in the case of Herzen and Ogarev. P.A. Vyazemsky, having visited Golitsyn at a ball in his house on Volkhonka, saw that the university trustee had not invited a single professor, and compared him to a horse master, “who is in charge of a stable, but does not let horses in.” According to legend, S.M. Golitsyn was the godfather of Alexander II. He remained a staunch supporter of serfdom, although he was a good gentleman. They said that Golitsyn, having learned about the impending reform and that the obligatory relations of the peasants to their landowners would be maintained for 12 years, prayed that he would die in these 12 years - which came true, and even earlier.
In the personal life of S.M. Golitsyn was not happy, and this affected the fate of Kuzminki. Paul I loved to arrange “equal marriages” of his subjects. At his insistence, Sergei Mikhailovich married the beautiful Evdokia Izmailova, the famous princesse Nocturne (“princess of the night”). As a child, a gypsy predicted death for her at night, and therefore she went to bed early in the morning, and stayed awake at night and held receptions. Pushkin often visited the princess’s night salon in St. Petersburg, who was a little in love with her and dedicated poems to her. She captivated me with her extraordinary personality. She was fond of science, wrote a two-volume work on mathematics in French, and was the first among Russian women to publish a scientific treatise “On the Analysis of Force”.
However, the couple’s life did not work out. Two years after the wedding, they lived separately, then she asked Golitsyn for a divorce in order to marry an English lord for love, but was refused, and a few years later she repaid her husband in kind. Both remained childless. Prince Golitsyn devoted himself entirely to the estate near Moscow, retreating into it from personal sorrows, and achieved the transformation of Kuzminki into a primordium - a family estate, inherited only by the eldest in the family, which could not be divided or sold.
He wanted to embody here the idea of “Peisan life”, the image of an earthly paradise within the estate. To do this, Golitsyn invited Domenico Gilardi to reconstruct the estate in a single classicist style. It became a single architectural ensemble, which included both a ceremonial complex and outbuildings, which also turned into a work of art, be it a barnyard or an ordinary bathhouse.
This ensemble developed from the entrance, which was decorated with magnificent Cast Iron Gates, cast at the Golitsyn Ural factories based on the model of the Nikolaev Gates created by C. Rossi for Pavlovsk. From the gate, the alley led to the manor house and to the manor church, which is why it received the name Blachernae Perspective (bus route No. 29 now runs along it). In 1829, with the permission of St. Philaret S.M. Golitsyn renovated the temple and built a second chapel in it in the name of Sergius of Radonezh on his name day. Its iconostasis was crowned with a golden Chalice in radiance with angels on the sides. An amazing clock with one hand appeared on the bell tower, and for the family tomb the owner built a rotunda-mausoleum nearby, but this building was never used for its intended purpose and turned into a sacristy. In August 1856, Saint Philaret, visiting the newly decorated church, said to the priest: “For the upcoming coronation, you have crowned your church well.” Golitsyn ordered his clerks to ensure that all servants “perform their Christian duties every year” in the Blachernae Church, and to report those who evaded “to determine punishment.” The clerks themselves pledged to be sober at all times, not to treat their subordinates harshly, and to always “observe justice.” The peasants were supposed to be dressed cleanly, and on holidays - in national attire.
At the end of the Blachernae prospect there was a Grand Courtyard with cast iron lions. In the corners it is decorated with amazing cast-iron floor lamps with winged griffins guarding the palace. According to legend, these formidable birds guard countless treasures and tear apart anyone who encroaches on them. At the same time, they are symbols of strength and protection of the weak, and in manor parks they also symbolized relaxation and celebration. In the depths of the courtyard there was a magnificent Lord's house with 28 rooms. It was a miniature copy of the royal palace in Pavlovsk. Near the house there is an Egyptian pavilion (kitchen), where the princely cooks prepared food and lived. Its architecture uses motifs from ancient Egyptian architecture, with capitals in the form of lotus flowers and the head of a sphinx on the pediment - this style is believed to have come into fashion after Napoleon's Egyptian campaign.
Golitsyn created an exemplary estate farm. The pride was the Orange Greenhouse, where exotic trees grew, bringing great income to the owner, and fruits were served to the table when august persons visited Kuzminki. And they even sent them to the Winter Palace. At the Animal Farm, once decorated with sculptures of bulls based on the sketches of P.K. Klodt (they were moved to the Mikoyan meat processing plant in Soviet times), kept pedigree Yorkshire cows imported from England. They said that a liter of their milk cost more than a liter of champagne. A “guest” section was set up here, where high society ladies could milk the cows themselves if they wished. In the Aviary, along with turkeys, geese and ducks, peacocks, swans, Egyptian pigeons and other exotic creatures walked around. After 1812, Gilardi rebuilt the Poultry House into a Forge to supply horseshoes to the neighboring Stable Yard, the estate's most famous building and considered Domenico Gilardi's finest work. In its center, the architect placed a Musical Pavilion with excellent acoustics, which, according to the last rector of the Blachernae Church, Fr. Nikolai Poretsky, “has a place of honor among the architectural vagaries of the Russian Empire style.” The pavilion is located opposite the manor house so that you can delight your ears with music without leaving the palace. On the sides there are copies of two of Klodt’s “Horse Tamers” cast at Golitsyn factories that decorate the Anichkov Bridge in St. Petersburg. In the ideas of classicism, these were symbols of the victory of the human mind over the elements of wild, unbridled nature. As you know, Nicholas I gave the same copies to the Prussian king.
The two-story House on the Dam, built in the 1840s by M.D., was intended for guests. Bykovsky on the base of the oldest building of the estate - a mill, the same one that supposedly belonged to the legendary miller Kuzma. They say that friends of S.M. Golitsyn was jokingly nicknamed “the miller,” and he decided to get rid of his historical mill, replacing it with a guest house. Near it, according to legend, there was a well with holy water, filled up after the revolution.
Two ceremonial piers were also intended for guests, to which boats moored so that the ladies who stepped on them could not get their skirts wet. The first is the Lion's Room, with cast iron lions. The second was romantically called “at the Propylaea”, as it was located next to park pavilion The Propylaea, built by Gilardi in the form of a wooden two-tiered colonnade, is a place for secret meetings between lovers.
The staff lived in a separate complex in Poplar Alley, called Slobodka. There was also a clergy house for the clergy of the Blachernae Church and a summer hospital for courtyard people.
Every year on July 2, Golitsyn organized celebrations in honor of the temple holiday, which he, as usual, celebrated on this day, and not on July 7. All the surrounding peasants were freed from work and went to pray at the estate church of Blachernae. Wide hospitable festivities for all classes took place here, with festive services, tea drinking, and fireworks, and the collection from the stalls went to the maintenance of the temple. All that was required was to be cleanly dressed, not to break trees, not to pick flowers and fruits, not to pick berries and mushrooms. In those days, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, and Zagoskin, the author of Yuri Miloslavsky, visited Kuzminki more than once. There is a legend that Pushkin also visited here and wrote “The Mermaid” here. He was friendly with S.M. Golitsyn and was going to marry N. Goncharova in his home church on Volkhonka.
The highest persons continued to visit the estate. In the summer of 1826, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna visited Blachernae - this was a sign of her special affection for the prince, who was engaged in charity and restored the Orphanage, which she headed, from oblivion. The Empress donated a diamond and pearl brooch to the Blachernae icon to decorate the chasuble. In response, Golitsyn built a monument to Maria Feodorovna in the place that she liked most in the estate: inside the cast-iron rotunda there was a bronze statue of the empress with a palm branch in her hand (an allegory of the world), made by the sculptor I.P. Vitali. He also presented the august guest with an album - a series of engravings with views of the estate, executed by the artist H. Rauch in honor of her “picturesque journey” through Kuzminki and in order to “leave a memory for posterity.” This truly invaluable publication contributed to the modern restoration of the estate. Her son Nicholas I, beloved Emperor S.M., also visited the estate. Golitsyn.
In 1830, a cholera epidemic broke out, the same one with the strictest quarantines, because of which Pushkin could not get to Moscow to see his bride. In Blachernae, no one even got sick, and Golitsyn, in gratitude, cast a bell for the temple. When the heir Alexander Nikolaevich visited Kuzminki in 1837, he held a prayer service in the estate church and venerated the icons. Hearing the ringing of this bell, he was simply shocked.
The last monument to Kuzminki, erected during the life of Sergei Mikhailovich, was the monument to Emperor Nicholas I, built in 1856 according to the design of M.D. Bykovsky and sculptor A. Campioni in the form of a granite column topped with a crown. This was the first monument to Nicholas I in Russia. In August 1858, Emperor Alexander II and his wife Maria Alexandrovna came to pay homage to him and entered the temple again. The old prince was already very ill and could not come out to meet him. He died in February of the following year. He was buried in the house Catherine Church of the Orphanage with a huge crowd of people, and then, according to his will, he was buried in his beloved Kuzminki - in the Sergius chapel of the Blachernae Church.
On August 9, 1859, on the half-year anniversary of his death, Saint Philaret served a funeral liturgy for the deceased in this church and spoke of the prince as “his true friend, an accomplice in deeds of goodness and Christian charity.” His death marked the beginning of the decline of Kuzminki.
Summer season
His nephew Mikhail Alexandrovich, who was the Russian ambassador to Spain, briefly became the new owner of the estate. It was he who collected a valuable collection of rarities, including books by the Marquise of Pompadour and exhibits from Pompeii, which became the basis of the Golitsyn Museum on Volkhonka. He sometimes visited Kuzminki, but, having become the owner, he never visited the estate; he only ordered in writing that a marble tombstone be placed on his uncle’s grave. Mikhail Alexandrovich died in France in 1860. His son, also Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn, who became the last owner of Kuzminki, was “not so much a friend of books as a friend of horses,” but at his expense a monument to Suvorov’s soldiers was erected in Switzerland, and then he became chairman of the construction cathedral St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Nice.
CM. Golitsyn the Second, as historians call him, was distinguished by his eccentricity: after retiring, he joined the merchant class and began to engage in commerce (later many nobles followed his example). He himself was the elder of the Blachernae Church. After the first attempt on the life of Alexander II by Dmitry Karakozov in April 1866, Saint Philaret allowed Golitsyn to renovate the chapel of Alexander Nevsky in the Blachernae Church in memory of the salvation of the emperor. On the same occasion, in August, the prince arranged a solemn reception in Kuzminki for Admiral Fox, who arrived in Russia on behalf of the US President to bring congratulations to Emperor Alexander II, for which he was the first foreigner to be awarded the title of honorary citizen of Moscow.
In the same summer of 1866, F.M. came to Kuzminki for a walk. Dostoevsky, who rented a dacha in Lyublino. On July 15, 1868, Saint Innocent came here again to serve a memorial service for S.M. in the church. Golitsyn the first. And in 1871 cholera struck again. The sick watchman sent to Moscow died, and local residents surrounded the Blachernae icon with the Robe of the Lord around the village with prayers. After this, cholera, which raged in neighboring villages, did not touch Kuzminok.
Meanwhile, the “dacha season” was heating up here. Golitsyn showed a commercial streak here too. He turned the house on Volkhonka into rented furnished rooms, closing the museum, and in Vlakhernskoye he began to rent out land and premises for dachas, since after the abolition of serfdom it turned out to be unprofitable to maintain such a huge estate. But personal feelings again played a decisive role in the fate of Kuzminki, only now - fatal. Once Golitsyn invited Fyodor Sokolov’s gypsy choir here. Soloist Alexandra Gladkova captivated the prince's heart, and in 1867 he married her. After the wedding, the couple constantly spent the summer months in Kuzminki until 1873 came. CM. Golitsyn indulged in a new love feeling, abandoned his disgusted wife in Kuzminki, and he himself moved to his other estate - Dubrovitsy. After the owner left, Kuzminki finally turned into an expensive suburban village, and pious summer residents now invited the Blachernae icon to their homes.
The architect I.E. had dachas here. Bondarenko, who built Old Believer churches on Basmannaya and Rogozhskaya Sloboda, art critic I.E. Grabar, M.T. Elizarov, husband of Anna Ulyanova. In the summer of 1894, at his dacha, Lenin wrote the article “What are enemies of the people and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?” On this occasion, under Soviet rule, a Lenin museum almost appeared in Kuzminki.
CM. Golitsyn II gave the hospital in Poplar Alley to the local zemstvo hospital. In 1880, the future proletarian poet Fyodor Shkulev, author of the song “We are blacksmiths, and our spirit is young” and a friend of Maxim Gorky, was treated there. The son of a washerwoman, who lost his father before birth, at the age of 11 he went to work in a factory, there he injured his right hand and was taken to Kuzminki. And two years later, in the mezzanine of this hospital in the apartment of the zemstvo doctor K.K. Tolstoy was settled by the artist Vasily Perov, who was dying of consumption - he himself asked to be taken to Kuzminki. Here he was visited by the young K. Korovin and M. Nesterov, and here on May 29, 1882 he died. Probably, A.P. also visited his colleagues in the zemstvo hospital. Chekhov, who mentioned Kuzminki in the story “At Friends”.
In 1888, the Blachernae Church received a new and last rector - Father Nikolai Poretsky. A young native of Tver, he married the daughter of the Kuzminsk priest Fr. Dimitri Zverev, and his father-in-law gave him his parish that same year. The parishioners fell in love with him and after the service they went to his house for tea. Having once refused to marry S.M. Golitsyn II with his next wife (he was married four times in total), he earned even more respect. And on June 21, 1890, the temple saw Father John of Kronstadt within its walls when he arrived in Kuzminki to visit A.I.’s dacha. Osipova. Soon after this, the Blachernae Church shone with even greater splendor - Elder Golitsyn paid so much attention to it, bringing it into a “wonderful appearance.”
In 1899, he and the rector turned to Metropolitan Vladimir with a request to renovate the church. Permission was granted on the condition that the style be kept intact. All work was carried out under the supervision of architect K.M. Bykovsky, who built the buildings of the University Library on Mokhovaya and the Zoological Museum on Bolshaya Nikitskaya in Moscow. Then a new luxurious unusual marble iconostasis appeared in the temple in the form of a double colonnade, vaguely reminiscent of the cast iron gates of the estate. It is completed by a huge and very beautiful bronze figure of the God of Hosts with angels. After the restoration, the Blachernae Church became one of the most best temples in Moscow. One of her parishioners, Andrei Genrikhovich Tsim, who converted to Orthodoxy here, presented in memory of his deceased wife an unusual image of the Holy Spirit in the form of a life-size silver dove, sprinkled with diamonds.
In May 1901, Moscow Governor General Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife Elizaveta Fedorovna visited the renovated church. The Grand Duke sincerely admired the temple and praised it for its excellent contents. A legend has been preserved that the passion-bearer Emperor Nicholas II also visited the Blachernae Church.
CM. Golitsyn II died in the summer of 1915 in Lausanne. Kuzminki passed to his eldest son, Prince Sergei Sergeevich Golitsyn. And in February of the following year, the main disaster befell them: the manor’s house, where at that time there was a hospital for wounded Russian officers, burned down to the ground, either from an unextinguished cigar, or it was deliberately set on fire by a certain quartermaster who had lost at the hippodrome in order to destroy documentation. The Earl S.D. Volunteer Fire Department helped extinguish the fire. Sheremetev. They intended to restore the estate, but did not have time.
"Cultural Terror"
Already in 1918, by Lenin’s personal order, the Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine (IEV) was evacuated from Petrograd, and Kuzminki was provided to it. Of course, the new owners disfigured the estate to the limit with various reconstructions for non-core needs and merciless exploitation. The cast-iron gates, the monument to Peter I that stood on the site of his house, the monuments to Nicholas I and Maria Feodorovna were melted down, and the granite pedestal of the monument to Nicholas I was crowned with a statue of Lenin - while it still stands there.
In 1922, jewelry was confiscated from the Blachernae Church, and the management of the automobile and tractor industry laid claim to its building. The priest tried to defend the temple and even called local residents for help, but it was all to no avail. In 1925, he was forced to leave the clergy’s house, where Taras Shevchenko’s autograph was then mysteriously discovered. And in November 1928, the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet adopted a resolution to close the Blachernae Church, “taking into account the desire of the population of the village of Kuzmiki... the small number of believers and the presence of other churches of the same kind nearby.” It was decided to transfer the church to the IEV “for use for cultural and educational purposes.” P. Smidovich himself refused the request of the believers not to close the temple. “Cultural and educational goals” required a radical restructuring of the temple building, which was a valuable monument of classicism. According to legend, the chairman of the village council, who was removing the cross from the dome, fell and fell to his death. In the fall of 1929, the bell tower and drum were demolished, the church was built with an additional third floor, new windows were cut, and the temple turned... into an ordinary residential building. The Blachernae icon was transferred to the Assumption Church in Veshnyaki, and after its closure - to the Tretyakov Gallery. Grave S.M. Golitsyn was destroyed. The rector was repressed “for hooliganism,” that is, for trying to protect the temple. He died in the camp and was rehabilitated in 1988. During Soviet rule, the former church served as a bus station, a cafeteria, a rest home, a laboratory, a hostel and residential building, completely losing its historical appearance.
And in the 1930s, according to the design of architect S.A. Toropov, on the site of the burnt manor house, a new stylized palace in the pseudo-classical style was built for the institute. They were quick to comment unflatteringly about it: “Deprived of any artistic interest, the building appears as an ugly stain on the general tone of the estate.” Although it was the best that could be done under those conditions. At the same time, Kuzminki continued to be a place of privileged country holidays. Among the summer residents were Lyubov Orlova, Klim Voroshilov, and Semyon Budyonny.
The bombs of the Great Patriotic War bypassed the estate, but losses followed one after another and continued even in our time: the Propylaea was dismantled for firewood, the figures of lions from the pier were taken to Lyubertsy, the Music Pavilion and some other monuments burned down. Just a few years ago, it seemed that Kuzminki would “never be revived after the communist era.”
Renaissance
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And already in 1998, by decree of the Moscow government, the estates of Kuzminki and Lyublino were combined into a historical and recreational complex. Now the Veterinary Academy has left Kuzminki, and restoration of the estate, which was once called the Russian Versailles, is in full swing. Soon guests of Kuzminki will see the recreated Golitsyn palace with interiors, the Egyptian pavilion, the Orangery greenhouse, monuments to royalty and even the Cast Iron Gate.
In the meantime, Muscovites can relax here in nature, admire the recreated Horse Yard and Lion's Pier, wander along the alleys, visit an interesting museum, and most importantly, pray in the original, saved Blachernae Church and feel extraordinary grace under its arches.
The following materials were used in writing the article: Romanyuk S.K. Through the lands of Moscow villages and settlements. M., 1999. Part 2; Kuzmina N.D. Kuzminki. The village of Vlahernskoe. Mill. M., 1997; Korobko M.Yu. Kuzminki–Lublino. M., 1999