House on the palace embankment. House of Saltykovs (F
The development of the Palace Embankment began to take shape as one of the first in St. Petersburg. From Admiralteysky Meadow, the bank of the Neva was gradually built up with residential buildings. In 1705, at a distance of 200 fathoms from the Admiralty, according to the design of Domenico Trezzini, the house of Admiral General Fyodor Matveevich Apraksin was built. In 1707, Admiralty Advisor A. Kikin settled nearby. In 1712, Apraksin's house was rebuilt in stone, in 1716 the building was redone again, and after the arrival of the architect Leblon, it was rebuilt again.
In the first quarter of the 18th century, the need arose to strengthen the Neva bank. Since 1716, it began to be strengthened with wooden walls, and piers were built. Thus, more than 80 meters were “recaptured” from the Neva. By 1720, a canal was dug along the Winter Palace of Peter I, called the Winter Canal. A wooden drawbridge, the Winter Palace Bridge, was built across it at the embankment alignment by engineer Herman van Boles.
In 1718, after Kikin’s execution, the Naval Academy was located in his mansion. In 1725, newlyweds temporarily settled in the Apraksin mansion: the Duke of Holstein and the daughter of Peter I Anna.
In 1727, on the site of house No. 8, a palace was built for Prince Cantemir. In 1728, according to his will, Apraksin’s house was passed to Peter II. The young emperor never settled here; he moved with the government to Moscow, where he died of cholera. Apraksin's house was empty all this time, but in 1731 it began to be rebuilt as the residence of Anna Ioannovna. Domenico Trezzini began this work and continued it at the request of Empress F.B. Rastrelli. To accommodate new premises, a neighboring plot belonging to the Maritime Academy was purchased. By 1735, the new Winter House of Anna Ioannovna was built here, with the main façade facing the Admiralty.
In the 1740-1790s the embankment was called Millionnaya. Since 1762, it has been covered in stone; it was then that semicircular slopes to the Neva were built. These works were supervised by Ignazio Rossi. However, the work was not done well. Since 1772, the embankment was rebuilt according to the design of Yuri Matveevich Felten. Tarred oak piles were driven into the ground, and granite blocks tied with iron brackets were placed between them. This entire structure was filled with lead. Thus, the bank was carried into the river bed another 20 meters. When the roadway of the embankment appeared, it was decided to separate the Summer Garden from it. It was then that the famous fence designed by Felten appeared. In the 18th century, the embankment was called the Postal Embankment, since the Postal Yard was located in the place where the Marble Palace is now located.
In 1763-1766, a stone Hermitage Bridge was built across the Winter Canal instead of a wooden one. The Palace Embankment and Kutuzov Embankment are connected by the Verkhne-Lebyazhy Bridge, which arose here in 1767-1768. On the granite slopes to the Neva you can see the dates of their creation.
In 1762-1769 the building of the Small Hermitage (house No. 36) was built. In 1775-1783 Felten built the Great Hermitage (house no. 34), in 1783-1785 he connected it with the Hermitage Theater with an arch. The Hermitage Theater (house No. 32) was built in 1783-1787. In 1762-1785, the Marble Palace was built between the embankment and Millionnaya Street. In 1784-1788, house No. 4 was built - the Saltykovs' house. The neighboring house No. 2 was also built in the 1780s and belonged to I. I. Betsky.
In 1799, two buildings on the site of the current house number 10 were combined into one according to the design of Giacomo Quarenghi. This was a gift from Emperor Paul I to his favorite Anna Petrovna Lopukhina for her wedding with Prince Gagarin.
In the early 1820s, the embankment area near the Winter Palace was a construction site. Here there were barns, sheds, piles of stone, heaps of sand and stacks of boards prepared for the construction of the General Staff building. Nicholas I decided to improve this area, and the work was entrusted to the architect Carlo Rossi. According to his design, a wide descent to the Neva was built here. Rossi planned to decorate it with sculptures of Dioscuri (young men holding back horses) and cast-iron lions, copies of those located at the St. Michael's Palace. The emperor forbade placing Dioscuri here; the architect replaced them with porphyry vases.
In 1827, in connection with the construction of the first floating Trinity Bridge, the fence and lanterns on the embankment were renewed. In 1857-1862, the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace (house No. 18) was built. In 1867-1872, house No. 26 was built - the palace of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich.
Right behind the Marble Palace, in 1711, the Red Canal was dug, which connected the Neva and Moika. During the construction of the palace, it was filled up. In 1780-1788, a service building (house No. 6) was built next to the palace; the building acquired its current appearance in 1844-1847. In 1915, the pier with the lions was moved to the Admiralty Embankment.
On September 9, 1941, during an air raid, one of the bombs fell in front of house No. 14, destroying its facade and the facades of neighboring houses No. 12 and 16. After the war, the facades of these buildings were united.
Initially it was transferred to the Secretary of State of Catherine II P. A. Soimonov. But he refused it. The actual first owner of the site was the wealthy merchant F. I. Groten. In 1784-1788, a mansion was built here for him according to the design of D. Quarenghi. The merchant never managed to move into the new building. In 1790, he sold the plot to the eminent St. Petersburg citizen T. T. Sievers. Three years later, the house was sold to Princess Ekaterina Petrovna Baryatinskaya, and three years later an advertisement appeared in the St. Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper about apartments for rent here.
There were no clients for a long time, as a rumor spread throughout St. Petersburg about the ghost of Peter the Great, who allegedly wandered around the house with a young lady and at the same time scolded her with all sorts of words.
On February 3, 1796, Catherine II purchased the mansion and presented it to Field Marshal Nikolai Ivanovich Saltykov. The new owner of the site was a holder of most Russian orders, held senior government positions, was president of the Military College, and was involved in the education of Paul I and his sons Alexander and Constantine.
Initially, the mansion had three floors on the Neva side and two on the Champs de Mars side. A garden was laid out from the western side to the service building of the Marble Palace. The garden was separated from the Tsaritsyno meadow and the banks of the Neva by a fence. The western façade of the house had no windows. They appeared here only in 1818, when K. Rossi created the neighboring Suvorov Square. At the same time, the garden and fence were destroyed.
Until 1802, N.I. Saltykov was president of the Military Collegium. A.V. Suvorov visited him several times as a guest and on official business. In 1812-1816, Saltykov was chairman of the State Council and the Committee of Ministers. Therefore, it was in his office in the summer of 1812, on the orders of Alexander I, that a committee was assembled to select the commander-in-chief of the Russian army. After much debate, M.I. Kutuzov was chosen.
Since the end of the 18th century, Saltykov also owned another house (Bolshaya Morskaya Street 33), in which, after the death of the field marshal in 1816, his coffin stood. In 1818-1823, the main staircase and vestibule were rebuilt in the mansion, a house church was created, and courtyard wings were built on.
There is confusion in local history literature about the next owner of the palace. According to local historian V. Izmozik, relying on a reference book from 1816, after Saltykov’s death, the house on the Field of Mars became the property of his son Alexander. Historian G. Zuev claims that the building came into the possession not of Alexander, but of Sergei Nikolaevich, Saltykov’s youngest son. Sergei Nikolaevich Saltykov died in 1828. The house on the banks of the Neva went to his nephew, the widow moved to a building nearby.
There is also some nonsense in the books about St. Petersburg about the beginning of the stay of the Austrian ambassador’s family in the Saltykov house. Local historian T. A. Sokolova writes in her book “Palace Embankment” that the embassy headed by Count Charles Louis Fikelmont rented the palace in September 1829. Local historian V. Izmozik in his book “Walking along Millionnaya” indicates that the house was rented out from August 1828, while Count Fikelmon headed the Austrian embassy in 1829-1840. According to G. Zuev (book “The Moika River Flows”), the Austrian embassy moved into the premises in 1826, when it was already headed by Count Karl-Ludwig Fikelmon. Moreover, Charles Louis and Karl Ludwig mean the same person, since everyone unanimously calls his wife Daria Fedorovna Fikelmon, the granddaughter of M.I. Kutuzov.
The northern part of the building was reserved for the embassy's ceremonial residence. The ambassador's wife Dolly (Daria Fedorovna) lived in the rooms on the south side. Her favorite room in the Saltykovs’ house was the Raspberry Study. This is how she wrote about him:
“Since the 12th, we have settled in Saltykov’s house - it is beautiful, spacious, pleasant to live in. I have a lovely crimson office, so comfortable that I would not want to leave it. My rooms face south, there are flowers - finally, everything that I love. I started by being sick for three days, but all this is nothing, I have a good feeling, and I think that I will love my home" [Quoted. from: 1, p. 153].
There were more than a hundred rooms in the Saltykovs' house. Since mid-1831, separate apartments were occupied by the owner’s mother, the beloved daughter of Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, Elizaveta Mikhailovna Khitrovo, with her eldest daughter Ekaterina. In 1833, Catherine became the Empress's maid of honor and took up residence in the Winter Palace.
Daria Fedorovna and Elizaveta Mikhailovna had their own salons. Sometimes Elizaveta Mikhailovna received guests in her daughter’s rooms. Sometimes musical evenings were held here. Frequent guests in this house were P. A. Vyazemsky, A. I. Turgenev, V. A. Sologub, V. A. Zhukovsky and A. S. Pushkin. The poet sympathized with the young mistress, which her mother did not like. The arrangement of the rooms of the house is reminiscent of the rooms of the old countess in The Queen of Spades. This similarity was noticed by researcher N.A. Raevsky [Ibid]. The last time Pushkin was here was on January 7, 1837, shortly before his duel with Dantes. P. A. Vyazemsky recalled:
“There was no need to read newspapers, like the Athenians, who also did not need newspapers, but lived, studied, thought and mentally enjoyed. In these two salons one could stock up on information about all the issues of the day, starting from a political pamphlet and a parliamentary speech of French or English speaker and ending with a novel or dramatic work of one of the favorites of that literary era. There were also reviews of current events; there was Premier Petersburg with its judgments, and sometimes condemnations, there was also a light feuilleton, moral and picturesque. And what’s best is the world , an oral conversational newspaper, published under the direction and under the editorship of two amiable and lovely women. You will not find such publications soon" [Cit. from: 3, p. 243].
The state rooms of the Austrian ambassador were on the third floor. The central room of the second floor is the White Hall. Its decoration has survived to this day. Next to it were the formal dining room and the “evening hall.” On the other side of the White Hall there was a large living room, a small room and a corner room (the same crimson office).
Elizaveta Mikhailovna died in the Saltykovs' house on May 3, 1839. In 1843-1844, the reconstruction of the premises in the Saltykov house was carried out by the architect G. E. Bosse.
The Fikelmons lived in the Saltykovs’ house for nine years. Then they were recalled to Austria, but until 1855 the premises remained with the Austrian, then with the Austro-Hungarian embassy. During this time, the architect N.I. Bayer remodeled the façade from the Champ de Mars side and built a transverse wing along the courtyard.
In 1855, the Danish embassy began renting the building. The Danish ambassador, Baron Otto Plessen, lived in 34 rooms on the third and fourth floors. Two years later, the architect V. E Stukkey again redesigned the southern façade and created a gallery inside the courtyard. The Danes were unable to pay expensive rent for a long time. In 1863, the British Embassy moved here. In 1881, the architect K. I. Lorenzen expanded the building along Millionnaya Street.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the British ambassador in St. Petersburg was the famous diplomat and diarist J. Buchannan. He and his wife occupied approximately the same rooms where the Fikelmons lived before them. Writers Herbert Wells, Chesterton, and Walpole worked for British intelligence. They lived in the Saltykovs’ house or were here on important errands. S. Maugham wrote that he received a huge amount of money from the embassy. He had to help the Mensheviks buy weapons and bribe the press in order to keep Russia in the war.
Before 1917, the owners of the house were Prince Ivan Nikolaevich Saltykov, Princess Anna Nikolaevna Lvova, Princess Serafima Anatolyevna Lieven and Princess Elizaveta Nikolaevna Obolenskaya. They themselves did not live here; they continued to rent out the mansion to foreign embassies.
Foreign missions left the Saltykov house in the spring of 1918, moving to Vologda. Consuls and other embassy employees remained here. In mid-March 1918, by agreement with Anna Sergeevna Saltykova, the Swedish mission organized a shelter for German prisoners of war in a third-floor apartment on the side of the Champs de Mars.
On August 31 of the same year, a shootout took place in the mansion between ten Cheka officers who arrived here and embassy workers. The search of the British Embassy was provoked by the murder of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka. As a result, the English naval attache Francis Cromie and one of the security officers were killed. In total, about 40 people were detained in the building.
The British embassy finally left the mansion after the transfer of the Russian capital to Moscow. The mansion was nationalized. The Institute of Extracurricular Education and various other institutions worked here. In 1925, the Communist Political and Educational Institute named after N.K. Krupskaya (later the Leningrad Library Institute) opened in the Saltykovs’ house. In 1999, the institute was transformed into the St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Art. It is connected to the neighboring Betsky House, which has also belonged to the university since the 1960s, by internal passages.
When I first entered this house, it could not have occurred to me how interesting its history was, how much was connected with it. I didn’t even know that Pushkin, Vyazemsky had been here... That in this house Alexander Sergeevich and Dantes brought their relationship to the inevitability of a duel. Then, in 1970, I simply sent documents for admission to the Krupskaya Institute of Culture and came in the summer to take exams. I wanted to become a librarian. This is funny to me today. With my restless nature, did I really want to spend my whole life in a library? Don't think. It’s just that back then I was a frequent visitor to our Gusev Library, participated in all its events, helped them in the bibliographic department organize and list new literature by department. And, of course, I read a lot. But, come on, I knew little more about Pushkin than the school curriculum.
Having received a C on the first exam, I already knew that I would not get anywhere. But I really wanted to see Leningrad. And I, despite zero chances of becoming a student, continued to take exams. Therefore, I could live in a hostel and watch Leningrad for my pleasure, go to museums and theaters. And naturally, every day in the morning the girls and I went to this house No. 4 on Palace Embankment to listen to lectures and prepare for the next exams. We, applicants, were then even taken to the Russian Museum on an excursion. I don’t remember very well what these auditoriums and the library hall where I spent more than one hour looked like. All you can see are staircases and halls. And then they are interspersed with interiors seen in other buildings much later. I just remember the library, or rather the reading room, and our regular audience.
The next time, now not in Leningrad, but in St. Petersburg, I came in May 2007. 37 years have passed!!! We were in the city for only five days. For St. Petersburg this is so little! It so happened that I found myself near this house on the last day of my stay in this city. We walked from the Peter and Paul Fortress along the Trinity Bridge to the Summer Garden. Coming out to the Palace Embankment, we crossed it and ended up on Suvorov Square. We didn’t stop near the monument, since we were there on the eve of City Day, then we didn’t get into the summer garden because it was closed - everything was being prepared for the holiday.
We turned towards the summer garden and I involuntarily stopped near two beautiful buildings connected to each other. Why? Don't know. After all, the day before we also passed by these buildings, but my gaze only glanced at them. Apparently because there are so many beautiful palaces in St. Petersburg that these two houses did not seem worth our attention. And now I approached a sign that said that this was the University of Culture and my heart began to beat fast. How could I forget these buildings? After all, I spent many hours here, took exams, was worried, made new friends, with some of whom I later corresponded. But even now I had no time left for memories. Ahead was the Summer Garden, the Pushkin apartment museum on the Moika, a celebration on the embankment near the Admiralty and departure home.
I photographed my failed “alma mater,” but apparently later, when I removed something to photograph something else, I erased these photographs too. And it so happened that house No. 4 on Palace Embankment was not in any book (and I bought several of them) or on postcards. And it was he who subsequently aroused such interest in me. Thanks to the Internet and especially spherical panoramas, I was able not only to look at it more carefully, but also to “walk around” and correlate what I saw with what I had read by that time.
For a long time, a very long time, Pushkin was simply “our everything” for me, a genius, the pride of Russia, but not a person close to me at all. I always gave preference to Lermontov, accepting everything he wrote unconditionally. Moreover, everything written by this boy delighted me precisely because he was a brilliant boy. And I had several books at home about Pushkin, published back in Soviet times. The most interesting is S. Abramovich’s “Pushkin in 1836.” In the house on the Moika I bought “Pushkin’s Don Juan List”. This is, of course, reading material, but it gives an idea of Pushkin’s surroundings.
After some time, I came across another book: “Pushkin and Dolly Fikelmon” by Nikolai Raevsky. And in 2010, on the memorable date of Alexander Sergeevich’s duel, I was given a book published in 1987 - author V. Fridkin “The Lost Diary of Pushkin.” I borrowed several interesting books from the library. In general, I became thoroughly hooked on Pushkin. I read about him, and him, and letters to him and from him, memoirs of contemporaries and critical articles. I read both books and publications on the Internet. And wherever something is written about Pushkin, there is house number 4 on Palace Embankment. Why didn't I pay attention to this before? After all, even in my youth I read both Blagoy and Maimin about Pushkin. They probably wrote something about him too. Apparently I read superficially. I should re-read it. But, perhaps, Raevsky wrote more fully about this house. After all, it was in this house that Dolly Fikelmon, the wife of the Austrian ambassador, a good friend, or rather even a friend of Alexander Sergeevich, lived. And he was there often, judging by his letters to his wife, the diary of Dolly herself, letters and memoirs of Vyazemsky. I already bothered to read this myself, although those who wrote about Pushkin had links to them. And here’s what’s interesting: Dolly paid a lot of attention to Pushkin in her diary. Almost every day she wrote something about him. And suddenly there was silence. The diary was written as usual, all social news was described in it, all acquaintances were mentioned, but not Pushkin. The last entry about Pushkin before a long silence was made on November 21, 1832. And then only after Pushkin’s death she honored the poet with her attention. This entry is from January 29, 1837. And not just an entry, but a whole essay. What's happened? What cat ran between them?
Now let's remember Pushkin's story “The Queen of Spades”. There was a lot of talk around her; Who is the prototype of the old woman, in what house did all this happen? A lot has been said about prototypes. Who hasn't been included as the Queen of Spades? Even Countess E.I. Yusupova, who lived in a house on Liteiny, built only in the fifties of the 19th century. And she herself was younger than Pushkin. But basically, Princess N.P. Golitsina is considered the prototype of the old countess.
The house described in “The Queen of Spades” from the outside fit the description of more than one palace, which is why contemporaries (and others) argued. And there are signs of Golitsina’s mansion in it too. But the interior chambers fully corresponded to the house in which the family of the Austrian ambassador lived. But how then did Alexander Sergeevich know the location of Dolly’s bedroom, the secret door, etc. So he was there? How? When? Assumptions were made during Pushkin’s lifetime. I read about this in the memoirs of contemporaries about the poet. And this is what I discovered there.
(Nashchokin’s story to Bartenev)
“The next story refers to a completely different era of Pushkin’s life. Pushkin conveyed it as a secret to Nashchokin and did not even want to say the name of the character for the first time, he promised to reveal it later. Already during the current reign, in St. Petersburg, there was one lady at court, a friend of the empress, who stood at a high level of court and secular importance. Her husband was much older than her, and, despite this, her young years were not disgraced by rumor; she was impeccable in the general opinion of the gossip-loving and intrigue-loving world. Pushkin told Nashchokin his relationship with her on the occasion of their conversation about willpower. Pushkin assured that, if necessary, one can resist fainting and exhaustion and postpone them until another time. This brilliant, impeccable lady finally succumbed to the poet’s charms and made an appointment with him in her house.
In the evening, Pushkin managed to get into her magnificent palace; According to the agreement, he lay down under the sofa in the living room and had to wait for her to arrive home. He lay there for a long time, losing patience, but it was no longer possible to leave the matter, and to turn back was dangerous. Finally, after a long wait, he hears: a carriage has arrived. There was a fuss in the house. Two footmen brought in candelabra and illuminated the living room. The hostess entered, accompanied by some lady-in-waiting: they were returning from the theater or from the palace. After a few minutes of conversation, the maid of honor left in the same carriage. The hostess was left alone. “Etes-vous l;?”, and Pushkin was in front of her. They went into the bedroom. The door was locked; The thick, luxurious curtains are drawn. The delights of voluptuousness began. They played and had fun. A lush cavity of bear fur was spread in front of the fireplace. They stripped naked, poured all the perfume that was in the room on themselves, laid them on the fur...
Time passed quickly in pleasure. Finally, Pushkin somehow accidentally walked up to the window, pulled back the curtain and saw with horror that it was already completely dawn, it was already broad daylight. What should I do? He hurriedly dressed, somehow, in a hurry to get out. The embarrassed hostess leads him to the glass exit doors, but people have already gotten up. At the very door they meet the butler, an Italian. This meeting struck the hostess so much that she felt sick; She was ready to faint, but Pushkin, squeezing her hand tightly, begged her to postpone the fainting until another time, and now let it go, both for him and for herself. The woman overcame herself. In their critical situation, they decided to resort to a third party.
The mistress called her maid, an old, prim Frenchwoman, who had long been dressed and dexterous in such cases. They approached her with a request to take her out of the house. The Frenchwoman took it. She took Pushkin downstairs, straight to her husband's rooms. He was still sleeping. The sound of footsteps woke him up. His bed was behind the screens. From behind the screens he asked, “Who’s there?” “It’s me,” answered the clever confidante and led Pushkin into the hallway, from where he freely walked out: even if someone had met him here, then his appearance here could no longer be reprehensible. The next day, Pushkin offered the Italian butler 1000 rubles in gold to keep him silent, and although he refused the payment, Pushkin forced him to take it. Thus the whole matter remained a secret. But for four months the brilliant lady could not remember this incident without feeling faint.”
Pavel Nashchekin's story became known to Bartenev only in 1922. It was published by one of the Pushkinists, M.A. Tsyavlovsky. This caused great controversy. And no wonder. But Nashchekin was a friend of Pushkin. He loved and respected the poet and for a long time kept secret what he told him. Bartenev was the poet's biographer, but he did not use this story in his works. Records of conversations with the poet's friend P.V. Nashchokin in 1851 were discovered in one of his draft notebooks. God knows how much more is stored in the archives that were not burned during the revolution.
When I read this, I didn’t know whether to believe it or not? If you believe, then of course not everything. And if you don’t believe it at all... Then how can you explain the description of this situation with such similarity to what happened in “The Queen of Spades”, when German made his way into Lisa’s bedroom, how he expected her arrival and how he secretly left the house? Much has been written about this, entire studies have been conducted. And now, some time after reading Nashchekin’s story, I buy Raevsky’s book “Pushkin and Dolly Fikelmon.” You can imagine how happy I was with this purchase. One of the chapters of the book was devoted to this topic. Raevsky does not cite Nashchekinva’s story, although he refers to it. The book was written in Soviet times and there were considerations of the delicacy of the issue.
But I was not interested in the intimate side of this matter, but precisely in Pushkin’s secret visit to this house and the correspondence of the arrangement of rooms in Dolly’s house and the countess’s house in “The Queen of Spades.” Perhaps then, in 1970, I would have passed by such a fact, but now... Raevsky collected a lot of material, analyzed it, but this seemed not enough to him. He simply went to the place of his research, walked through the floors and classrooms. And then, in accordance with the work of A.S. Reisrer “Palace Embankment, 4,” he correlated the premises of this house from the time of Pushkin with what he saw in 1965. In addition, he walked the path that Herman (and Pushkin) walked through the house. Of course, not everything (far from everything) has been preserved in that form - time has done its work.
But much has been preserved. It turns out that the reading room of the institute library, which I remember even after so many years, is located in the former dining room of the British Embassy. And in one of the library's subscriptions, there was once Countess Dolly's salon. In which? Was I there? May be. And Alexander Sergeevich was there. The salon windows overlooked the Champ de Mars. Perhaps I was looking out the same window that he was looking through... By the way, the windows of our classroom were also facing south. Only now, with the passage of time, I forgot what floor she was on. But I remember very well where the table where my friend and I sat was. Our memory is strangely selective. If I had known, I would have better remembered the hall - the white hall, or dance hall, where, according to the recollections of contemporaries, and in particular Count Sollogub, Pushkin’s exchange with Dantes took place at a reception with the Fikelmons on November 16, 1836. By definition, I simply could not pass this hall. But I don’t remember.
Pushkin loved to visit this house. He first arrived there on December 10, 1829. And in 1831 Natalya Nikolaevna appeared here. Dolly writes in her diary that this was her first appearance. Pushkin’s friend Pyotr Vyazemsky often visited there. Dolly carried on a large correspondence with him. In an age when there were no telephones, it was customary in high society to send notes even to the next street. When I read letters like this, two or three lines long, I get the feeling that these are text messages, but written in the language of the century before last.
After reading everything related to Pushkin, Dolly, and their entourage, I became interested: what kind of house was this? And what was its original appearance? After all, there were no photographs then. And quite by accident, in the book “Palaces and Gardens of the Russian Museum,” which seemingly has nothing to do with my topic, I found a reproduction of the painting by I. V. G. Bart “View of the Neva at the Palace Embankment and the Summer Garden.” It was written in the 1810s. It best shows the two houses I need, No. 2 and No. 4 on Dvortsovaya Embankment. Yes, they look a little different now. But very recognizable. The façade of house No. 4, facing the Neva, has generally remained the same. But where Suvorov Square is located today, it turns out, there was a garden. And in the middle of house No. 2, at the level of the second and third floors, a garden is also visible - it is located right on the roof of the first floor with large windows. Apparently there was a large hall there. And it faces the Summer Garden.
Well, how can you not become interested in the history of these interesting buildings after this? Who built them? When? Who did they belong to before they became an institution of Culture, before the Great Pushkin appeared in one of them for the first time? First, I rummaged through the books and encyclopedias that I have in my house, then I turned to the help of the Internet. I had no idea that information of this kind could be found there. And here television also helped: on the Culture channel there is a series of programs “Beauty, City of Petrov”, which interestingly talks about the architecture of the city on the Neva. And in the end, this is the picture that emerged.
I’ll start with house No. 2, since its construction began earlier. It began to be built for I.I. Betsky in 1784-87, and was completed in 1830 by architects J.B. Wallen Delamon and V.P. Stasov. The style in which the house was built is classicism. But the history of this site does not begin with Betsky’s house. In the first half of the 18th century, there were regimental barracks, a swimming pool and guardhouses on this site. But in the 1750s, the architect Rastrelli built a wooden two-story opera house building here. It featured the first Russian opera written by Sumarokov.
I don’t know what happened to the theater, it seems it burned down, and the site was transferred to Betsky for construction. After his death in 1795, the house passed to his daughter Anastasia, who married Odessa builder O.M. de Ribas. (Later, while in Odessa, I became acquainted with the history of this family). In 1830, the house was bought by the treasury and handed over to Prince Peter Grigorievich of Oldenburg. (Everyone who has been to Gagra has already heard about this prince). The building was rebuilt, the hanging gardens (which were preserved in the painting by I.V.G. Bart) were removed and a floor was built in their place. And the house began to look the way it looks now. Thanks to the artist who helped us look into the distant past.
Musical evenings took place in this house and life was in full swing. And in 1917, the prince’s son Alexander Petrovich sold the house for one and a half million rubles to the provisional government, which transferred it to the Ministry of Education. But after the October Revolution, communal apartments were set up there. You can imagine what it looked like, remembering the film “Viper”, where the communal apartment of the 20s is shown in all its glory. But in 1962, the house was transferred to the Institute of Culture. Krupskaya. Now it is called the University of Culture.
There is an interesting point in the history of this house. In 1791-96 I.A. lived in this house. Krylov. He had a printing house where the magazines “Spectator” and “St. Petersburg” were published. Mercury". There are recollections of contemporaries that Krylov loved to walk around the rooms completely naked in the morning and play the violin. Its windows overlooked the Summer Garden and the Swan Canal. There were also hanging gardens there. Someone paid attention to this... Then people left a lot of interesting things in letters and diary entries.
And now about house number 4. The plot located next to Betsky’s house was allocated to P.A. Simonov, but it was not built. And the house was built by Merchant F.I. Groten. Or rather, it was done for him in 1787 by the architect D. Quarenghi. But for some reason Groten didn’t use the house and it passed to T.T. Sivers (who he was and how he “passed” I couldn’t find), and then in 1793 to Princess E.P. Baryatinskaya. And already in 1796, Ekateria 11 bought the house and gave it to Count (later His Serene Highness Prince) N.I. Saltykov, who was the educator of three great princes: son Paul and grandchildren Alexander and Konstantin. Saltykov was an important figure - president of the Military Collegium, and from 1812 to 1816 - chairman of the State Council and the Committee of Ministers.
In 1818, the house was rebuilt by the architect K.I. Rossi in the style of classicism. Until the revolution of 1917, it belonged to the Saltykov family. The historical name “house of the Saltykovs” was assigned to it. By the way, that’s how I looked for him on the Internet. Until 1818 (when the house was rebuilt), it was adjacent to a garden and a fence right up to the marble palace. Once this site was allocated for construction to Count A.R. Vorontsov, but he refused the site, and a garden was laid out in its place. But in 1818-20, the garden was uprooted and Suvorov Square was made. The monument to the great commander was moved here from the depths of the Campus Martius. Then windows were broken through the blank wall that now overlooked the square. This is how it has been preserved to this day. The façade has remained the same since the beginning of construction of this house. But on the side of Millionnaya Street, a floor was built on, which did not decorate the house in any way. The windows on this side of the house overlook the Field of Mars. It was there that carriages with guests drove up when the Fikelmons held receptions.
But what’s interesting is that Saltykov’s descendants never lived in this house. It was rented out to foreign embassies. It was first rented by the Austrian Embassy from 1829 to 1855. And from 1829 to 1840, Count K.L. Fikelmon was the ambassador and lived in the house with his wife Daria (Dolly) Fedorovna Fikelmon née Tizenhausen.
Who is this Dolly? Her mother Elizaveta Mikhailovna, by her first husband, Tizengauzen, and by her second, Khitrovo, is the daughter of our great commander Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov and a close friend and admirer of the talent of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. A woman not without oddities, but very educated, she was a member of all the noble houses of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Sometimes she annoyed the poet with her admiration for him, which he complained about in letters to his friends. When I read these letters in my youth in the almanac “Prometheus,” I was very indignant: is it possible to do this about a woman, especially Kutuzov’s daughter! But now, when I became more familiar with the memoirs of Elizaveta Mikhailovna’s contemporaries, with the history of her life, when I read many letters from that time, my condemnations melted. Can I judge what happened so many years ago? And did the poet even think that all this would be read by anyone after so many years?
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Daria Fedorovna was smart and beautiful. Judging by her diary entries, she also had a high opinion of her intelligence, but did not consider herself a beauty. But he calls Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova very beautiful. And more than once. About her beauty, Dolly writes “her beauty is heavenly and incomparable,” “it is impossible to be more beautiful.” But he considers Pushkin’s wife’s mind to be mediocre. And he writes completely differently about Pushkin himself. Here is the first entry in the diary concerning Alexander Sergeevich: “December 10, 1829. Pushkin, a writer, conducts a conversation in a charming way, without pretensions, with passion and fire, it is impossible to be more ugly - this is a mixture of the appearance of a monkey and a tiger...” And after about a year and a half, she writes that when Pushkin speaks, you don’t notice that he is ugly because his conversation sparkles with intelligence.
This is the attitude this woman had towards Pushkin and his wife. Given such passions, what Pavel Nashchekin told Bartenev may well be true. Even if everything didn’t happen the way Bartenev wrote it down (or Pushkin told Nashchekin), it did happen. And I again took up the story “The Queen of Spades” and read it with passion and straining my memory in order to remember the little that I had seen during my stay in this beautiful house. Or maybe the imagination was already working. And then once again, using a spherical panorama, I walked around these houses along the Embankment, along Millionnaya Street, admired the Swan Canal and the Summer Garden, and, of course, did not pass Suvorov Square. After all, it was in the wall facing the square that there was a door through which German (and possibly Pushkin) sneakily left this house. In any case, this is what Raevsky claims, and he has walked this path and believes that it simply cannot be otherwise.
I don’t know if I will be able to visit St. Petersburg again, but first of all I will come here. It pains me that I didn’t recognize this place back then in 2007. And then I’ll go to Pushkin’s Moika again. After all, now I don’t have a single poem of his left unread, not even a single unfinished work. Yes, I’ve read a lot of letters to him and from him, and memories about him. I think now I will look at his final resting place a little differently than before.
Why did I write all this? I asked myself this question more than once, but I couldn’t answer it definitively. Maybe, so as not to forget in the future, age is an insidious thing, maybe my granddaughters will be interested in this when they grow up. And I’m posting it here in the hope that it will interest someone else, and then the person won’t have to dig through letters, memories, and documents. Or maybe, on the contrary, my notes will push someone to a more professional approach to this topic.
Yes, in 1922 the communist, political and educational institute named after Krupskaya was located in this building. Since 1941, it has been a library institute, then the Krupskaya Institute of Culture, the Academy of Culture, and finally the University of Culture.
