MX4P+HH Ananino, Leningrad Oblast, Russia
Kummolovo or the Kummolovo Manor is an old estate that belonged at different times to Russian noble families — the Gersdorfs, von Weimarns, and Blumentrosts. It is located in the Lomonosovsky District of the Leningrad Region, in the village of Kummolovo of the same name, now uninhabited.
The village is first mentioned in the Vodskaya Pyatina Cadastral Book of 1500. On the Ingermanland map by Bergengheim, compiled from Swedish materials in 1676, the manor and the Swedish village Kumolowa are mentioned. On the Swedish “General Map of the Province of Ingermanland” of 1704, only the manor Cumelovahof is marked. The estate was granted by Peter I to Ivan Lavrentyevich Blumentrost, “His Imperial Majesty’s archiater and president of the medical chancery and the entire medical faculty,” that is, the manager of all medical affairs of the Russian Empire. For his estate, he chose an elevated place by the road leading to Koporye. The manor was typical for that time and was predominantly utilitarian, as evidenced by the distillery set up on the bank of the Nameless stream and the dug ponds where trout were bred. The surroundings of the estate abounded with rivers and streams.
In 1756, after Blumentrost’s death, the estate was inherited by his daughter Maria Ivanovna. Her husband was Friedrich-Johann von Gersdorf, a nobleman from Livonia. After Friedrich-Johann’s death, the estate passed to his son Fyodor Gersdorf, a brigadier and a knight of the Maltese Order. He was married to Anna Karlovna Kridiner. In 1807, the estate passed to a relative of Anna Karlovna, Major Pavel Andreevich Kridiner, by mortgage, but in 1812 it returned to the previous owners.
In the 1820s, the manor was rebuilt under the guidance of architect Vikenty Beretti. The new manor house became the central core of the estate. Along with the barn and stables, it formed the ceremonial courtyard. In front of the house, the solemn main facade was complemented by a garden and flower bed. The facade was enhanced by a six-column covered gallery spanning two floors and topped with a triangular roof. The facade walls on the first floor were pierced by wide triple windows separated by small columns, and semicircular windows on the second floor.
According to the 10th revision of 1856, the manor was owned by Arist Fyodorovich Gersdorf. According to the materials on the statistics of the national economy of the Peterhof district in 1887, the manor already belonged to Privy Councillor Schmidt. He bought it before 1868 after the death of the heiress daughter of Arist Fyodorovich. The new owner leased the distillery along with the manor. According to the “Memorial Book of the Saint Petersburg Province” for 1905, the estate belonged to Court Councillor Konstantin Konstantinovich von Weimarn, director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs chancery. Already under the new owner, the estate was mortgaged at a bank. There is a preserved description of Kummolovo stating that all the manor buildings were fully intact. Among them: the lord’s two-story stone house, stone stables with a carriage house, a wooden shed, stone Riga-style buildings, a barn, cattle yard, three residential one-story stone houses, a bathhouse, a pantry and icehouse, a water mill, and a distillery. The total area of the estate was about 8 hectares.
In early 1918, former World War I front-line soldiers and farmhands organized the first agricultural communes on the Kummolovo estate. In the 1930s, the former manor fell into the zone of construction of coastal defense facilities of the Izhora fortified area. The manor buildings were used by military aviation units stationed at the neighboring Kummolovo airfield. The airfield itself was a base point for heavy aviation.
From August 1, 1941, to December 31, 1943, Kummolovo was under occupation. After the war ended, an aviation regiment continued to be based in Kummolovo. Over time, four two-story apartment buildings were built almost adjacent to the manor house for its needs. After the regiment was relocated, in 1983 these buildings were transferred to the State Optical Institute for use as a recreation base. In 1991, the SOI base was transferred to the balance of FSUE NPP “Signal.” Later, the former manor was abandoned. From Soviet times, slogans scratched into the plaster on the walls of the manor buildings have survived: “Under the banner and leadership of Lenin — forward to the victory of communism!” and “The order of the commander is the law for the subordinate.”
Today, from the former magnificent manor, the access road and well remain, the former wine cellar, ruins of the utility building to the left of the main house, remains of the cavalry building behind the manor house, inside of which stands a massive stove. Something else can still be saved and turned into a museum complex, but no one is in a hurry to take this up, and in a few years we may finally lose Kummolovo.
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