P9C8+6J Pushkinsky District, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Along the road branching off from the Lam building to the Yelovaya direction toward Stolbovaya, there was a wooden pavilion with small towers and service buildings and sheds surrounding a quadrangular courtyard. This was the "Elephants." The "Elephants" building stands aside from the Yelovaya alley, almost at the very Stolbovaya road, not far from two stone guardhouses, from which the aforementioned Staro-Krasnoselskaya and Novo-Babolovskaya roads begin. These guardhouses stand symmetrically on either side of the iron gates, which form one of the many entrances to the part of Alexander Park enclosed by a white lattice fence. The guardhouses serve as housing for two park guards. The part of Alexander Park surrounded by the fence is accessible to visitors only when the Highest Court is absent from Tsarskoye Selo.
The Neo-Gothic Krasnoselskie gates consist of two brick guardhouses faced with Pudost limestone and decorated with battlements made of the same material. The triple windows, protruding as bay windows, are framed with delicate carving. The gates received their second name due to the nearby "Pavilion for Elephants" in the park, built in 1828 by the same architect. However, the pavilion has not survived to this day, and the Elephant Gates became a reminder of it — one of the entrances to the remote part of Alexander Park. The gates consist of two symmetrically located brick guardhouses, faced with Pudost limestone and topped with battlements of the same material. The buildings are decorated with triple windows protruding as bay windows. Light entered the mezzanine floor through round windows, and the interior walls were plastered; window and door fillings were made of oak; there were stoves, and wooden stairs led upstairs. The cast-iron gates connecting these two small buildings and decorated with ornamentation in the form of pointed arches consisted of four pylons. These were topped with spheres, had a tall central leaf section, and wickets in the side spans. In 1846, after the annexation of Babolovsky Park to Alexander Park, the metal part of the Elephant Gates was moved to the Staro-Krasnoselskaya road. Despite the Gothic motifs, there is something powerful, elephantine in the architecture of the gates. The gates at the border of Alexander and Babolovsky parks served as a guard post. Retired military personnel, who patrolled the borders of the sovereign's estates by two-wheeled carriage, mainly served there. They also lived there — in a room on the second tier of the gates. Memories of them were left by the son of one of the servants who lived in the guardhouses:
Between the guardhouses, cast-iron gates with ornamentation in the form of pointed arches were installed, consisting of four pylons topped with spheres, with a tall central leaf section and wickets in the side spans.
As for the history of keeping elephants in Tsarskoye Selo, according to Vilchkovsky, the very first of them "apparently soon died."
In 1828, architect Menelas built a special pavilion for keeping elephants, called the "Elephants." This pavilion was wooden, in the "Indian" style, with intricate small towers, utility annexes, and a spacious "yard" enclosed by a metal fence. In 1832, an elephant arrived at the menagerie with two Afghan attendants. Another elephant was gifted to the tsar by the Emir of Bukhara and delivered to Tsarskoye Selo in 1839. Perhaps the most famous resident of Tsarskoye Selo was an elephant, without visiting which practically no day of the grand dukes passed. The elephant, along with two camels, was gifted to the emperor by the Khan of Bukhara. It walked on foot to St. Petersburg accompanied by two Bukharans for almost a year and arrived in Tsarskoye Selo on October 6, 1839. A special pavilion was built for it here, where it was kept chained to the center of the room. In winter, the warm-loving resident was covered with thick felt blankets.
According to contemporaries, 18,000 rubles were allocated annually for its maintenance. Litke wrote in his diary in November 1839: "We made a farewell visit to the elephant... A clever and kind animal. He was born from a tame pair in Bukhara — as far as I know, the first example — and was sent as a gift to the sovereign from the Khan. The keeper, on whose hands he remains, said that yesterday he was frolicking, roaring, spinning... He eats 2 poods of flatbreads daily, baked for him with butter and sugar, and 6 poods of hay, and drinks 2 buckets of water."
The royal children fed the elephant apples and sugar and walked him around the yard together with the keeper. "In the afternoon, we went to the elephant, to whom the grand duke gave sugar and greatly enjoyed his running around the yard and the skill of plucking grass with his trunk," recorded Konstantin Lutkovsky, assistant to the tutor of Grand Duke Konstantin. In 1842, the Russian language and literature teacher of the grand dukes Nikolai and Mikhail Nikolaevich, Obodovsky, gifted his pupils little bear cubs, which were settled near the gymnastic ground. In 1842, a leopard, sent by the Brazilian emperor as a gift to Nicholas I, joined the elephant’s company, and in 1845 — also a yak, quite comically described by Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich: "I went to see the elephant, which has a bull, said to be brought from China; it is smaller than ours, with a broad head, horns sticking out sideways, and a very bushy tail." Besides this, tame bison, camels, and monkeys lived in Tsarskoye Selo. "We saw camels; they are very nasty. One of the keepers wanted to show us how to ride them. The camel started jumping in the most foolish way and threw him off. At first, we were all scared, then we laughed"; "I was at the menagerie, where there are wonderful animals, including a 26-day-old monkey born in a cage, she is adorable," the children wrote to their father, the emperor. Later, in 1860, the elephants were transferred to Kreitzberg’s menagerie in St. Petersburg.
From 1870 to 1872, another elephant lived in Tsarskoye Selo, gifted by the emir. It was transferred to the Zoological Garden of Gebhart in St. Petersburg. According to Vilchkovsky (1911), elephants lived in Tsarskoye Selo even at the beginning of the twentieth century: "In July 1891, a young elephant was delivered to Tsarskoye from Odessa, brought by His Imperial Majesty, then the Heir Tsesarevich, from a circumnavigation voyage, and in August 1896, another elephant was delivered here as a gift to His Majesty from Abyssinia. One of these elephants (Siamese) died in 1902; the other still lives and is under the care of a Tatar, who willingly shows him to visitors. The elephant is good-natured and very obedient to his leader; in summer, he walks freely, bathing daily in the nearby pond of Alexander Park."
Alexander Park had a menagerie since the times of Elizabeth Petrovna, when hunts were arranged. It gradually diminished and lost its significance. In our time, there remained llamas, pheasants, and hares. An elephant also lived there. The last one was Indian, who arrived as a gift to the Russian tsar directly from India. I remember how my father, coming from the Palace Administration, told us that soon an elephant would arrive and that a place had to be prepared for him again. How happy we children were when father took us with him, and we went to Alexander Park, where the elephant was to live. It was summer.
At the end of the park from the Alexander gates side, a shed was arranged in front of the playground. A Tatar, always in a red fez with a black tassel, looked after the elephant. Seeing S. A., the Tatar bowed low to him and hurried to lead out the elephant with long, sprawling ears, always moving, and small eyes. The Tatar said something to him in a language incomprehensible to us — the elephant obeyed. There were chopped stumps in the yard; on command, the elephant stepped on them one by one, approaching the largest, and stood on it with all four legs. Then he raised his trunk, making a loud sound as if greeting us. After each performance, the Tatar gave the elephant sugar, which the elephant put into his mouth. The last act was this: the Tatar brought out a large basket of French buns and offered us to give them to the elephant. Taking one by one with his trunk, the elephant put them into his mouth. On a good, hot day, the Tatar went with the elephant to the far part of the park to the pond, where the elephant was offered to bathe. The elephant joyfully plunged into the water, scooping water with his trunk, splashing himself; I have a photograph taken by my father at such a moment. The pond was called the "Elephant Pond."
The last elephant in Tsarskoye Selo was shot in 1917 by revolutionary sailors. This episode marks the end of the history of court menageries in Russia.
During the Patriotic War of 1941-1944, both pavilions were severely damaged; roofs, ceilings, stoves, window and door fillings, and internal wooden stairs were lost. The walls were pierced, and the brickwork and facing suffered serious damage. The surface of the original cast-iron gates installed at the border of Babolovsky Park was heavily corroded. Kuchumov described the elephant pavilion after the war in a letter to Zelenova: nothing remained of the Elephant Pavilion except the chimney stacks — everything else burned down.
By the beginning of restoration in December 2005, the object was in an emergency state, having lost battlements on the left part of the gates, significant fragments of limestone facing, and its triple windows. Interior plaster covered only 5% of the walls; window and door fillings were not preserved. Both guardhouses lacked stairs and stoves; chimneys were blocked. Ceilings and floors were absent. The ground level had risen 0.5 m above the original level.
During 2.5 years of work, both guardhouses were restored with stove heating, and necessary engineering networks were laid. The restored cast-iron gates from Babolovsky Park returned to their original place. The Krasnoselskie gates at the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Reserve were solemnly opened after restoration on May 26, 2008. The restoration of the 19th-century monument lasted 2.5 years. The guardhouses regained their historical purpose: foresters and park workers were accommodated here in comfortable living conditions.
Sources:
http://www.wzd.cz/zoo/EU/RU/SZ/++tsarskoye_selo_menagerie/++ru_sz_pushkin_text03_rus.htm
