Kushelev bezborodko's dachas on Sverdlovskaya embankment 40. Kushelev-Bezborodko's dacha

The area and the manor house have a rich and interesting history.

Cottage history

The surname Kushelev-Bezborodko will tell a rare person in Russia something. But the building of the count's dacha, which is currently located within the city of St. Petersburg and bears this name, is known to many.

It is known with certainty that this area was inhabited before the construction of the city. On the map of the 17th century, you can see the estate of the commandant of Sweden. According to legend, a system of underground passages ran from it to the Neva River. Nearby was the Swedish city of Nien.

After this territory was returned to Russia, and was built with the adjacent territories, it was presented by Peter I to his wife Catherine. In those days, not far from the estate there were Cossack gardens, it was on them that natural springs with mineral water were discovered, which, according to Emperor Peter I, who was treated by her, was in no way inferior to the Belgian one. The springs brought fame to this place.

The first owner of the estate

After some time, the chancellery in charge of the territories suggested that those wishing to buy the estate together with the Cossack gardens. His desire was expressed by the real privy councilor G.N. Teplov, who was ill and had to go abroad for treatment on the waters. The acquisition of the plot gave him the opportunity to receive medical treatment not far from his home. It is on it that in our time there is a building known as the Kushelev-Bezborodko Palace in St. Petersburg.

G.N. Teplov settled the nearby village with his peasants, named it and the estate Polyustrovo. This name was not given by chance, since the area around was swampy, and the word "swampy" in Latin sounded like palustris.

The Privy Councilor began to arrange the estate. For this he invited the famous architect V. Bazhenov. Under his leadership, it was rebuilt in the Gothic style. According to legend, the architect restored the underground communications that led to the Neva. In addition, the ensemble of the house included greenhouses where flowering plants, fruit trees, tobacco and vegetables were grown.

Polyustrovo and its new owner

In 1782, G.N. Teplov died, and his son sold Polyustrovo to the Russian Chancellor A.A. Bezborodko. A year later, he invited the famous architect D. Quarenghi to reconstruct the estate, which, in a rebuilt form, has survived to this day and is known as the Kushelev-Bezborodko mansion. But this statement is controversial today, since there is evidence that allows us to say that the rebuilding of the estate may have been led by the famous architect Lvov. One thing is certain, that the famous fence with lions was made by a Russian architect.

It is known that Quarenghi did not destroy the existing building of the estate, but only reconstructed it, giving it a completely different look. The architect took part in the construction of many country houses, but some of them have survived to this day, including this one.

A.A. Bezborodko was childless, and after he died, the estate was inherited by his niece, brother's daughter, Princess K.I. combining the names of the father and mother.

What the reconstructed palace looked like

After the reconstruction, not a trace remained of the previous Gothic look. The mansion has become light and graceful. In the center of the building was the main building, from which semicircular and open galleries diverged to the sides. During the construction of the building of the estate, Quarenghi applied the technique used in Italy for the construction of country villas with open galleries in which hay was dried.

In the humid climate of the Northern capital, they could not be used for this purpose. Therefore, later they were reconstructed and became closed. Around the palace, according to the project of Quarenghi, a garden was laid in a fashionable English style, garden structures were built.

The decoration was an artificial ruin, in the creation of which genuine antique fragments were used. This building has not survived, but the main building of the estate ensemble, owned by Alexander G. Kushelev-Bezborodko after the death of his grandmother and father, has survived to this day.

The building faced the Neva with its facade. It was decorated with a portico with columns and a triangular pediment. The territory from the side of the Neva was framed by an unusual fence, which consisted of twenty-nine figures of stone lions holding chains in their teeth.

Count A.G. Kushelev-Bezborodko

Received an excellent education. After passing the exam at Moscow University, he received the title of Doctor of Ethical and Political Sciences, entered the service as a kolezh counselor. His father arranged for him to travel abroad, where his duty was to be with the Chancellor of Russia at the congress in Vienna. His service did not work out, and he stayed to travel around Europe.

A year later, he returned to Russia. Here he was interested in one thing. His maternal grandfather's brother, Chancellor of Russia A.A. This issue was dealt with by I.A. Alexander Grigorievich Kushelev-Bezborodko decided to finish it. In 1820 the gymnasium was established. Now it is Nizhyn University.

The last owner - Count G.A.Kushelev-Bezborodko

Grigory Alexandrovich was the heir to the enormous fortunes of his ancestors Kushelev and Bezborodko. He was educated and capable. But despite the fact that he was brought up by his father in severity and severity, from his youth he began to lead a riotous life in the circle of rich young offspring of famous families. This also affected his health, by the age of 25 he was hopelessly ill.

The story of Count Kushelev-Bezborodko, the last owner of the estate in Polyustrovo, was sad. Having a talent for literature and being known as a well-known philanthropist, philanthropist, he was weak and malleable in character. Count Kushelev-Bezborodko traveled extensively across Europe, which he would later write about in his traveller's notes. He was attracted to the society of writers and journalists, most of whom were, to put it mildly, failed personalities.

In recent years, his path to the high society, to which he belonged by birth, was closed. The dacha of the Kushelevs in Polyustrovo, according to the memoirs of the Russian writer D.V. Grigorovich, was a strange sight - not the building itself, but what was happening inside it.

Countless little-known people, distant relatives and other Russian and foreign rabble, consisting of insignificant journalists, gamblers, all sorts of rogues, often with their wives, children, replacing each other, lived here, ate, drank, and used the count's carriages. The house looked like a caravanserai. Each did whatever he pleased, taking advantage of the owner's weakness and soreness. This continued until his last days.

Patron, benefactor and writer

GA Kushelev-Bezborodko remained in the memory of history as a philanthropist, benefactor, publisher, and writer. With his participation, the poems of A. N. Maikov were published, he published the first collected works of the great Russian playwright A. N. Ostrovsky and others. After his London acquaintance with A. I. Herzen, he made a significant financial contribution to the fund created to help young emigrants and called the "General Fund".

Grigory Aleksandrovich wrote stories, essays and travel notes, which were subsequently published in a two-volume collected works. He was published under the pseudonym Gritsko Grigorenko in various magazines.

Even during his father's life, in 1850, G.A.Kushelev-Bezborodko lived at his dacha in Polyustrovo all summer. A.K.Tolstoy, D.V. Grigorovich, A.V. Pisemsky were staying with him. Literary evenings were held. At his invitation in 1858 A. Dumas visited his country house, with whom he became friends in Paris.

The last offspring of the richest family, Count Kushelev-Bezborodko Grigory Alexandrovich, died at the age of 38. This happened in 1870.

Polyustrovo resort

At the beginning of the 19th century, the swampy areas of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate were drained, new wells of mineral water were drilled on the site of the springs, and a small resort with a hydropathic establishment was organized. A part of the manor park was given over to its territory. It existed for about fifty years.

In 1868, two years before the death of the last count, a large fire on the territory of the resort completely destroyed it and part of the park. They did not restore it. The user of the springs was a company of a mining engineer who organized the extraction, bottling, carbonation and sale of mineral water called "Water of the Polestrovski springs".

The further fate of the estate

The territory of Polyustrovo gradually turned into a workers' outskirts of St. Petersburg. The dacha, owned by Kushelev-Bezborodko, was given to the Elizabethan community of sisters of mercy, which was founded by the empress's sister, Princess Elizaveta Fedorovna. New hospital buildings and the church of the healer Panteleimon were built here.

After the revolution, a children's infectious diseases hospital was housed in the church, and an anti-tuberculosis dispensary was located in the dacha building. At present, the construction of a new building for the dispensary is nearing completion. The building of the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate was transferred to investors for restoration and use as a cultural and business center.

Continuing the previous commentary - an excerpt from the memoirs of the artist A.N. Benois: Alexander Benois. My memories. M., "Science", 1980, p. 311-318. (This book is easy to find on the Internet. I downloaded it to an e-book and am reading it right now.)

A.N. Benois (1870 - 1960) in his childhood saw this park, still almost destroyed. The text is long, but interesting to me.

"It must have been a desire to be closer to your eldest daughter[Camille, sister of A.N.Benois - S.P.] expecting the birth of her second child, as well as a need for dad[architect N.L. Benois - S.P.] often visit the construction of the bell tower at the church at the Catholic cemetery (on the Vyborg side) prompted my parents in the summer of 1877 to settle on Kushelevka. Sister Kamishenka lived here for the second year already with her Mat[Matthew (Matvey Yakovlevich) Edwards - entrepreneur, husband of Camilla - S.P.] and with the firstborn Jommi. Kushelevka was the name of the dacha near St. Petersburg of the counts Kushelev-Bezborodko, located not reaching Okhta, along the embankment of the Neva.<…>.

In the 50s of the XÍX century. The magnificent and extravagant Count Kushelev could still, without risking losing his face, give in the palace his ancestor - the famous Chancellor, refuge "to Alexander Dumas, the father himself," and during these years a luxurious life full of lordly whims proceeded on Kushelevka. But since then, an English paper mill has grown up on the side of the park on Okhta, and one of its red buildings, with a chimney throwing out puffs of black smoke, and with its incessant noise, has completely changed the character of the entire neighborhood. In addition, the awakened passion for profit through the sale of land pushed the heir of the Kushelev counts, Count Musin-Pushkin, to part with some of his estate, and just in 1875 it was built on one of such plots (two steps from the palace) another, no less grandiose than the paper mill, building - the Slavic Brewery, also with a chimney, with smoke and with its own peculiar noises.

My uncle Cesar Kavos also took advantage of Count Musin-Pushkin's inclination to "sell" his lands.[architect Ts.A. Kavos (junior) - uncle of AN Benois - S.P.] - a man and an enterprising in himself, and now he fell under the influence of a new member of our family, the husband of my sister Camilla M.Ya. Edwards, who persuaded my uncle to invest some capital in a rope factory. For this enterprise, my uncle acquired another significant piece of the park, and in 1876 the first building of the plant was laid there, which then grew over several years into a whole factory settlement.

Both factories, brewing and paper-spinning, located on the banks of the Neva, crowded from two sides the estate created for the leisure of Catherine's nobleman, nevertheless in 1877 both the palace built by Quarenghi and the granite pier, descending with monumental staircases to the Neva itself, and and many of the buildings scattered throughout the park were still intact. Several rooms in the palace were rented in the early days after marriage by the Edwards, and I remember that empty, sleek marble hall, in which, under a huge chandelier, their small round dining table sat in complete disproportion. The entrance to my sister was from the garden, but not through a door, but through a window, to which one had to climb a cast-iron staircase attached to the façade, while there was no way from the hallway of the palace to their apartment cut out of the main apartment. The Edwards lived there for only a little over a year, and then moved to a house located nearby in the park and finally settled in a purpose-built house already in the immediate vicinity of the cable plant.

<…>

We lived on Kushelevka in 1877, 1878. and then back in 1882, and these three summers gave me a lot. Of course, at that time I could not fully realize what I was witnessing, namely, that before my very eyes the decomposition of the remnants of the glorious past was taking place; but when daddy scolded the commercialism of Count Musin-Pushkin, when he bitterly recalled what Kushelevka was like in his youth, when the Ludwigs told me about those festivities that they themselves "quite recently" witnessed, when other old-timers reported details about , what statues and vases stood in the park and how clean the channels along which the gilded gondolas glided, then all this caused a vague sadness in me, and what lived out its days in the same places awakened in me a kind of alarming foreboding, as if all this did not perish. It died, but much later.

A year before we settled on Kushelevka, and just when the Slavic plant was being built (the builder of which was my cousin Jules Benoit[architect YU Benois, cousin of AN Benois; elsewhere in his memoirs, he was given an unflattering characterization - in spite of his profession - as a business man, completely devoid of a sense of beauty; I personally still doubt its fairness - S.P.] ), I visited Kushelevka for the first time, and on this first visit I was most impressed by the Ruin. It was one of those undertakings in which, in anticipation of romantic trends, already in the 18th century, the dream of the Middle Ages was expressed. This ruin, built in the days of Catherine by the famous Quarenghi (her image is in the uvrage dedicated to his creation), was supposed to represent the ruins of a castle, with a "surviving" round tower. At that time I had no idea about Quarenghi, about the Middle Ages - very vague and rather "fabulous", but I, like many children, was easily aroused by everyone that simply bore the imprint of mystery. If Dad did not take me then by the hand, I would never have dared to pass by these grandiose columns and cornices that had been thrown to the ground and climb up the moldy roll steps of an endless, as it seemed to me, spiral staircase. But with my dad, the fear disappeared, and I really liked the view from the upper platform of the Ruin. On the other side of the Neva, reflected in it, shone the heads of the Smolny Monastery, in the foreground towered the imposing building of the Bezborodkinskiy Palace, on the other side, a park merged with the distant forests, in which pavilions and statues gleamed white. In the same place where the construction of the brewery was being prepared, the soil was all dug for the foundation, there were heaps of rubbish, beams, boards, bricks. Naturally, when we settled on Kushelevka in 1877, my first duty was to ask for the Ruin, but it turned out that the Ruins no longer exist; it "had to be demolished" under some sort of sheds for beer barrels, and it seems to me that it was then that I first understood (without knowing the word itself) the horror of artistic vandalism. I even hated my cousin Jules, on whose orders this monstrous act was performed, which ruined the very thing that remained in my memory like a wonderful dream.

Our generation, which still found a lot of remnants of beautiful antiquity and at the same time witnessed the beginning of the systematic death of this antiquity under the onslaught of new living conditions (and theories), could not help but cultivate in me some special bitterness at the sight of a process that was taking place in connection with more and more crumbling of life. Everything in the world is subject to the law of death and change. Everything old, obsolete and even the most beautiful must at some point give way to a new one, caused by vital needs and at least ugly. But to see how such gangrene spreads and especially to be present at the moment when gangrene has just touched something, when the doomed body as a whole seems still healthy and beautiful - to see this delivers incomparable grief. These feelings of something infinitely sad and pitiful, experienced by me as a child, have left a deep imprint on my whole life. They undoubtedly predetermined my historical sentimentalism, and indirectly, my "Kushelev sentiments" played a role in the formation of that cult of the past, which at the beginning of the XX century. I was led by a significant group of artistic figures who set themselves the goal of preserving historical and artistic values.<…>.

Kushelevsky Park, also called Bezborodkinskaya Dacha, occupied an irregular quadrangle that stretched along the Neva on one side and went into the depth, perhaps a whole mile. Almost in the middle of the embankment stood<…>summer palace of the chancellor prince Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko<…>

The Bezborodkinsky Palace opened onto the garden with a terrace with wrought iron railings. A wide linden avenue, which approached the garden façade itself, was lined on both sides with marble busts of Roman emperors; it reached the bridge, again decorated with lions, and the end of this alley rested (since 1877) against a wooden fence that separated the site of the Neva plant from the rest of the park. To the left of the palace, in the garden under the trees, there was a graceful gazebo, the so-called "Coffee House", similar to the Turkish pavilion in Tsarskoe Selo. Inside, this house was painted on a yellow background with birds and arabesques, but already in 1877 it served as a warehouse for all junk and, looking through a crack in a locked door, one could distinguish inside a pile of broken sculptures interspersed with benches, tables, parts of trellises and garden tools. Even further to the left of the palace stood until 1878, in a fairly open place, the commemorated Ruin, the purpose of which was to serve as a "belvedere", and next to it was the house of the manager built in the English Gothic style<…>... A simple triumphal arch towered near the Gothic house, through which, as the legend said, Mother Catherine the Great herself more than once entered the holidays given by Count Bezborodko. To the right of the palace, the park was closed from the side of the embankment by a blank board fence with stone pillars. The gate closest to Okhta was in it and led to the dacha village in which we lived. Almost at the very gate, next to a small two-story yellow dacha, a granite pedestal has been preserved, on which once stood a vase, the stone lid of which was still lying there in the grass; another beautiful vase of polished granite survived not far from my son-in-law's plant. A cubic house with a domed cover (typical for Quarenghi), next to our dacha, served as a dwelling for the half-deaf janitor Sysoy and his grumpy old woman; but once this hut was a bath-bath, and Alexander Dumas himself steamed in it.

A neglected path led from the gate into the depths of the park, teeming with trees of all kinds. Centennial oaks, birches, lindens, spruces stood either in close-knit groves or formed the center of small meadows. The path led to a wooden "Chinese" bridge, of which only pitiful fragments remained of the Chinese attire. Once the fragile railing of this bridge, on which one of our guests inadvertently leaned, broke, and he almost broke his neck, falling into the shallow waters of the canal. Since then, the dilapidated patterned railings have been replaced by new, simple, but durable ones, and the entire bridge has been altered in a simple manner.

Behind the bridge there was a "slide", which is obligatory in every park, it was all overgrown with bushes of wolf berries<...>A few more steps behind the bend of the canal, a view of the main curiosity of Kushelevsky park opened up - the Kvarengievskaya rotunda, perhaps too colossal in its place, but which was an exemplary monument of classical architecture. The rotunda consisted of a low granite base and eight stately columns with lush Corinthian capitals supporting a flat dome, richly decorated with stucco caissons inside. The columns were white, the roof was green. Back in the 60s, this monumental pavilion served as a canopy for the monument to Catherine II in the image of Cybele, but in my time the statue was no longer there, and it was said that Count Kushelev presented it to the sovereign. Is this not the statue that stood in the Tsarskoye Selo "Grotto"? The very same Quarenghi rotunda stood, despite the absence of any repairs, completely intact until the 90s, and only then it was sold for scrap for a penny sum by my cousin Sonya Cavos, who inherited this part of the park from her father.[Note by A.N. Benois: “I recently learned that at the time of the sale for scrapping, the rotunda was a ruin. A monstrous storm that swept over Petersburg tore off the roof and knocked down one of the columns.”]

Fifteen years later, she dealt the last blow to Kushelevka, selling her land on the plots on which the most ordinary houses and small houses soon grew. Only here and there the surviving trees and half-dried ponds among them continued to remind that one of the most magnificent manor estates was once located here.

To the left of the rotunda was located the once famous, but gradually completely neglected orchard, from which only a few bushes of wild raspberries and gooseberries survived; further, behind the main alley near the bridge with lions, there was a view of the first large pond, in the waters of which two pavilions connected by one common marble staircase were reflected. These buildings, already on the territory that belonged to the Slavyansky plant, resembled the Peterhof Ozerki.

The first pond was connected by a strait with the second, which was in the full possession of my son-in-law[Edwards - S.P.] and famous for its white and pink water lilies. Here in some places on the banks one could discern the remains of granite piers with terracotta sculptures, and here there was a "farm" - a large building painted in red with a round tower, similar to a farm in Tsarskoe Selo. Beside her, rusty water flowed down a straight canal from the iron spring of the village of Polyustrovo over broken marble bowls and over porous stone ledges. This village stretched "inland" for about a mile on both sides of the mentioned canal, the waters of which became redder and redder as they approached their source. At the very source, the canal expanded in the form of a "bucket", on the banks of which a long, dark-red building of the "Mineral Waters Establishment" stretched out. miserable existence. In the neglected garden of this "Establishment" only one kiosk for music and some crooked barracks for benches remained from the former splendor, but nowadays music has never played here, and the benches were boarded up, from which it was evident that the belief in healing " iron water "was shaken. Accordingly, the dachas in Polyustrovo, once inhabited by rather wealthy people, were now rented exclusively by small people. Right behind the village of Polyustrovo, a forest began, a real forest where we went to pick blueberries and mushrooms, and in which, they said, wolves and foxes were found. On the other side of Polyustrov, a distant expanse of fields and vegetable gardens opened up, and in the distance, at the very line of the horizon, the domes of the church at the Powder Factories barely shone. "

All this was housed in different departments of the vast, once lordly house, lived, ate, drank, played cards, took walks in the Count's carriages, not in the least embarrassed by the owner, who, due to the endless weakness of character and part of the pain, was not at all intervened, giving everyone the freedom to do whatever ”Grigory Aleksandrovich went down in history as a publisher, philanthropist and novelist. At his expense, books of poems by A.N. Maikov, the first collected works of A.N. Ostrovsky, the works of L.A. Mey and other publications were published. In 1861 he visited AI Herzen in London, and in 1863 made a significant contribution to the "General Fund", created to help needy young emigrants. The works of G.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko himself were published both in magazines and in separate editions. In 1857 in St. Petersburg, under the pseudonym Gritsko Grigorenko, his "sketches and stories" were published, in 1868, also in the capital, "Essays, stories and travel notes" were published in two volumes. In the 1850s, he spent the whole summer at Kusheleva Dacha. The estate was visited by many writers - A.F. Pisemsky, A.K. Tolstoy, D.V. Grigorovich and others. Literary evenings and concerts were held here.
In 1858, G.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko invited Alexander Dumas, his father, to travel across Russia and received him at his dacha in Polyustrovo. He met the French writer in Paris during his stay abroad. Dumas had long had an interest in Russia, but he came here only after the death of Nicholas I. The Emperor could not forgive Dumas of the novel "Notes of a Fencing Teacher", the heroes of which under assumed names were the Decembrist I.A. Annenkov and the Frenchwoman P. Geble, who followed him in exile to Siberia. G.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, the last representative of the richest family, died in 1870 at the age of 38. By the end of the 19th century, the landscape park surrounding the Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha was gradually decreasing, as various industrial enterprises were built on its territory. In 1896, the Elizabethan Community of Sisters of Mercy of the Red Cross was housed at Kusheleva Dacha, for which the building was rebuilt, typical hospital buildings appeared here.
In 1960-1962, the building was restored; during the construction of the Sverdlovskaya embankment, the underground passage to the Neva was destroyed. The embankment opposite the dacha is still a pier-terrace, decorated with figures of four sphinxes. All the sculptural decoration is made of gray granite. Above the entrance to the grotto, a lion's head is carved in the castle stone. At the end of the 19th century, the sphinxes disappeared and were restored only in 1957-1958. The model was the sphinxes standing in the courtyard of the Stroganov Palace (17 Nevsky Prospect). The famous fence, which includes figures of twenty-nine seated lions, was restored in 1999.
From Soviet times to the present day, the Kushelev-Bezborodko estate houses a tuberculosis dispensary. In the Krasnogvardeisky district, a new building is already underway for him, the relocation of the TB dispensary to which is scheduled for 2011. The architectural monument was handed over to investors who plan to use the premises of the estate as a cultural and business center.

The author of the article: Parshina Elena Aleksandrovna References used: Bunatyan G.G., Charnaya M.G. Walking along the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg. Guidebook. Parity., St. Petersburg 2007; Lisovsky V.G. Architecture of St. Petersburg, Three centuries of history . Slavia., SPb., 2004; Pylyaev M.I. Forgotten past of the environs of Petersburg. Parity., St. Petersburg. 2007; Sindalovsky N.A. From house to house ... From legend to legend. Travel guide. Norint., St. Petersburg. 2008.

© E. A. Parshina, 2009

The former dacha of Count N.A. Kushelev-Bezborodko - Elizabethan Community of Sisters of Mercy - Interdistrict TB Dispensary No. 5 (Kalininsky and Krasnogvardeisky districts).

In 1770, the plot was granted to the privy councilor Grigory Nikolaevich Teplov. In 1777, a three-storey house with turrets was built on the banks of the Neva, designed by an unknown architect, some sources suggest the authorship of V.I.Bazhenov. In 1779, after Teplov's death, his heirs sold the house to Catherine's grandee Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko.
Under him, the manor house was expanded and rebuilt, architects G. Quarenghi and N. A. Lvov took part in the alteration. The manor house in the classical style had a traditional look for that time: the main building was placed in the depths of the site, and curved galleries connect it with symmetrical wings located on the sides. The three-storey middle part is flanked by round towers with belvedere towers.
The garden in front of the house was separated from the road by a fence with 29 sculptures of seated lions supporting chains.
Count Bezborodko, who shortly before his death received the title of prince, died in 1799, asking to use his fortune for godly deeds, his ownership passed to his brother Ilya Andreevich.
IA Bezborodko died in 1815, not having time to fulfill his will. The fortune passed to his daughters, one of whom was married to Count Kushelev. In view of the termination of the male line of Bezborodko, the surname, by decree of Alexander I, passed to the eldest in the Kushelev family, Alexander Grigorievich, who began to be called Kushelev-Bezborodko.

During the years of his tenure, the estate flourished as a dacha and resort place. To study the water, the count invited well-known doctors, pharmacists, who at various times gave positive reviews. The pharmacist Fischer opened baths with rooms for residents on one of the plots leased by the count.
In 1855, A. G. Kushelev-Bezborodko died, and the dacha was inherited by G. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, a Lyceum graduate, publisher of the Russian Word magazine, an honorary member of many European chess clubs. The Count was visited by L. May, A. Grigoriev, A. F. Pisemsky, V. V. Krestovsky. Alexander Dumas, the father, visited the count's dacha.
GA Kushelev-Bezborodko was a major benefactor, a member of the Imperial Philanthropic Society, maintained the House of Charity for Elderly Women on Okhta, and helped other institutions.

In 1868, a fire destroyed a significant part of the resort, which was no longer being restored. Soon after the fire, in 1870, the count also died, and he veiled the springs for his peasants. After the death of the count, the estate was inherited by his sister L.A. Musina-Pushkina, who rented out the dacha.
In 1873 the estate was divided into plots, some of them were bought, including for the construction of factories.
In 1896, the building and part of the park with an area of ​​over 9 hectares became the property of the Red Cross Society, and the Elizabethan Community of Sisters of Mercy was located here. Stone hospital barracks were built on the territory of the park, and a pharmacy, an outpatient clinic and apartments for employees were located in the main building. The church of St. Panteleimon.
Currently, the building houses an interdistrict tuberculosis dispensary.
www.citywalls.ru/house8366.html

The fact that tuberculosis dispensary No. 5 is planned to be transferred became known in early 2010. In November of the same year, the government of St. Petersburg issued a decree on "adapting the building to modern use."

The investment agreement was concluded with LLC "Monolit", the completion date was set at 25 months from the date of conclusion of the agreement. A "cultural and business center" is to be opened in the former estate.

A new six-story building is being built for the TB dispensary at 42 Bestuzhevskaya Street. Due to the bankruptcy of the East European Construction Company LLC contractor, in the fall of 2011, work at the facility stopped. At the end of 2012, the work is at the final stage.

The construction of a new building for the transfer of TB dispensary No. 5 is planned to be completed in 2013. Until the facility is completed, the dispensary is located at 40 Sverdlovskaya Embankment. The investor for the reconstruction of the Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha is still Monolit.

Dacha Bezborodko is an architectural monument of the 18th century. The place where the estate is located became known much earlier - people came here to be treated with the healing water of Polyustrovo. Dacha Bezborodko also became famous for its original fence, consisting of twenty-nine lions holding cast-iron chains in their teeth. In addition, the history of the estate is associated with the names of many famous literary and musical figures.

From the history

The territory where the dacha of Kushelev-Bezborodko is located was inhabited even before the founding of St. Petersburg. So, at the end of the 17th century, the estate of the commandant of the Swedish fortress Nyenskans was located here, and after the capture of the fortress during the Northern War, Peter the Great presented it to his wife Catherine.

There is a legend that Peter the Great himself discovered the local healing waters, admitting that they are not worse than the Belgian ones. The name of the water "Polyustrovskaya" comes from the Latin word "paluster", which means "swampy".

Construction of a summer residence Bezborodko

In 1770, the actual privy councilor Grigory Nikolaevich Teplov, who knew a lot about healing waters, in order to save money, did not go abroad for treatment, but decided to use Polyustrovskaya water.

Grigory Teplov asked the ruling Catherine II of the Polyustrovo estate for himself as a gift. In October 1770, the site was granted to him and in 1773-1777, according to the project of the architect Vasily Bazhenov, a house in the Gothic style was built here. Greenhouses were also built to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables. Moreover, during the construction of the house, the communications available here were used.

It is known that Teplov's health improved, however, he himself noted that the local water almost killed him.

Dacha Bezborodko - reconstruction by Giacomo Quarenghi

After the senator's death, his son Aleksey Teplov, who was in dire need of money, sold the estate for 22,500 rubles to Chancellor Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko.

A new mansion was built on the site of the old house designed by Giacomo Quarenghi. But the famous architect did not completely destroy the building of Vasily Bazhenov, preserving not only its elements, but, possibly, the remains of the Swedish estate.

Dacha Bezborodko - description

Dacha Bezborodko is one of the few surviving suburban buildings created by the great Italian architect.

The building is made in the style of classicism and has a traditional look for such buildings. The main building was located at the back of the site, and open galleries connected it to the symmetrically located wings.

In the houses of Italy, open galleries were usually used for drying hay, but in the humid climate of St. Petersburg these functions were not needed and therefore the galleries were later rebuilt into closed spaces.

Closer to the Neva there was a rotunda, surrounded by columns, in which there was a water source coming from a spring located a kilometer from the estate. The pier was built in the form of a two-tiered terrace with a grotto and slopes to the water, it was decorated with granite vases and statues of sphinxes.

During the Great Patriotic War, the pier-terrace was destroyed, its restoration was carried out in 1959-1960 according to the project of the architect Alexander Rotach and the technician GF Perlin.

Behind the house was an English-style garden with shrubs and winding paths, marble sculptures and gazebos, canals and islets. Among the garden structures, the Ruin Pavilion stood out, resembling the ruins of an ancient castle with a tower. The building, assembled from genuine antique fragments, has not survived to this day.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the famous fence, consisting of 29 lions, appeared in the estate. Its creator, presumably, is Nikolai Alexandrovich Lvov.

Count Bezborodko had a high artistic taste, he collected one of the richest collections of paintings and other works of art in Russia. Writers Alexander Radishchev and Denis Fonvizin visited Bezborodko's dacha, writer and architect Nikolai Alexandrovich Lvov lived here for some time.

In Soviet times, during the reconstruction of the Sverdlovskaya embankment, the underground passage to the bank of the Neva was filled up.

Dacha Bezborodko as a health resort

Alexander Bezborodko died in 1799, asking "to use his fortune for godly deeds." His brother Ilya did not have time to fulfill this request, having died in 1815.

After his death, the estate passed to his daughter, Princess Cleopatra Lobanova-Rostovskaya, who was raising her sister's son Alexander Grigorievich Kushelev.

In view of the loss of the male line in 1816, by order of Alexander I, the surname Bezborodko was added to the surname of Alexander Kushelev. He became the owner of the estate, which became known as the Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha.

During this period, the estate became a health resort. To investigate the source, doctors and pharmacists were invited, who made positive conclusions about the local water.

Apothecary Fischer built a resort town on one of the lots with wooden houses, a summer restaurant and baths, in which twenty baths were installed. A glass of Polyustrovskaya water cost one kopeck at that time, and for using the bathroom they took from 10 to 25 rubles a month.

The village of Polyustrovo has turned into a resort and dacha place; the composer Mikhail Glinka and the artist Karl Bryullov, the poet and playwright Nestor Kukolnik and other representatives of the Petersburg intelligentsia have been here.

In 1855, after the death of Alexander Kushelev, the estate passed to his son Grigory, a writer, publisher of the Russian Word magazine, an honorary member of many European chess clubs.

In 1858, at his invitation, the author of The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas Sr., visited the estate. Dumas wrote about the view from his balcony: “A wonderful view opened up before me - large granite stairs descend from the embankment to the river, over which they are erected six feet fifty high. A banner with the count's coat of arms flutters at the top of the pole. This is the count's pier, where the Great Catherine set foot, when she showed mercy to Bezborodko and took part in the holiday arranged in her honor. "

Among the guests of the estate were Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov, Apollo Maikov and Alexey Pisemsky.

Dacha Bezborodko after the fire

In 1868, a fire broke out and most of the resort burned down. Soon, Count Kushelev also died, the estate passed to his sister Lyubov Musina-Pushkina.

In 1873, the estate was divided into parts and several plots were sold, including for the construction of industrial enterprises. So, the brewery "New Bavaria" is located here, now it is CJSC "Sparkling Wines".

The former dacha area turned into a factory outskirts of St. Petersburg.

In 1887, a mineral water well was drilled, producing up to 20,000 buckets of water per day, and the old springs were gradually abandoned.

Elizabethan community

In 1896, the building of the estate and part of the park became the property of the Red Cross Society, and the Elizabethan community of sisters of mercy was located on the territory of Bezborodko's dacha.

New construction and restructuring were carried out under the direction of architects Pavel Suzor, Nikolai Nabokov and Alexander Kashchenko.

In the park, stone hospital buildings are being erected, and the central building of the estate is used to house apartments for employees, a pharmacy and an outpatient clinic, where workers from local factories were housed.

According to the project of Alexander Kashchenko, the church of the healer St. Panteleimon is being built, the main attraction of which is the marble iconostasis, created by the sculptor Mikhail Popov.

In Soviet times, there was an infectious diseases hospital here. In the near future, it is planned to create a cultural center in the Church of St. Panteleimon, similar to the one currently operating in the Smolny Cathedral.

In January 2014, according to activists of the Living City movement, one of the houses of the Elizabethan community complex, located behind the building of the mansion, was demolished.

From 1898 until the revolution, the mineral waters were owned by a large Russian businessman and industrialist Semyon Semenovich Abamelek-Lazarev. Since the 1930s, industrial production of water has been carried out at Polyustrovo. Its high quality has been recognized by numerous awards at specialized exhibitions and tastings.

Currently, the estate houses the St. Petersburg TB Dispensary No. 5. Dacha Bezborodko, being an architectural monument, is under state protection.