Priyutino — former estate of the first director of the Public Library

Priyutino is the former estate of the first director of the Public Library, president of the Academy of Arts Olenin, one of the few estates from the first half of the 19th century near St. Petersburg that have survived to this day. The estate is located near the Bernhardovka platform on the Irinovskoye line of the October Railway, at the 6th kilometer of the Road of Life. It houses the literary and art museum "Priyutino." 766 dessiatins of unused land for the future estate were purchased by Olenin as a dowry for his wife in 1795 from Baron Gustav Fridrix (Frederiks) for 3,000 rubles in assignations.

Priyutino represents a rare example of an estate complex built from red unplastered brick. A number of the estate buildings show the influence of the great family friend of the Olenins, Nikolai Alexandrovich Lvov — an architect, engineer, artist, and builder. No direct evidence of his participation has been found, but the very principle of the estate’s formation, especially in its park area with the combination of utilitarian and artistic functions of the buildings, reveals features of his handwriting, his style.

For the estate, a flat area near Ryabovsky Highway was cleared. By 1805, the "Priyutino manor, between the Lubya river and a small stream by a newly created dam," was built. "The manor is wooden, and there is a brick factory by it." In 1806, the first large theatrical reception was held in honor of the mistress’s birthday, which was then celebrated annually on September 5.

Due to insufficient funds, the construction of the estate lasted for two decades but followed a single, well-thought-out plan. The brick factory, located beyond the Lubya river, supplied all the buildings, and gradually the wooden structures were replaced by stone ones made of unplastered brick. By the 1820s, two manor houses, two greenhouses, and 26 utility and service buildings had been built. The landscape park laid out on the pond’s shore was finally formed and expanded. The compositional center of the park was a wide dam arranged on the Smolny stream. Trees and shrubs framing the winding shoreline were grouped so that as one moved along the shore, magnificent landscape "pictures" opened up to the eye, sometimes quite unexpected. Much of the emotional effect was enhanced by the mirror reflection in the water of various buildings and decorative bushes and trees of different silhouettes and color schemes.

The parents, together with their children, planted young trees. The oak planted by young Kolya Olenin withered immediately after his death on the Borodino field. Then a monument—a truncated pyramid—was erected at that spot. Today, three old oaks can be seen, one of which is broken. In the elegy "Priyutino," Gnedich wrote:

Here once our son returned the young oak:

He lived, and the tree grew.

He fell on the fields of Borodino for the fatherland,

And the tree withered!

But the days of our life will not wither here to the end

This dodder bush, planted on a stone;

And with every spring it will rise, watered

By the tears of the mother and the sad father.

Olenin obtained permission to arrange a house Trinity church in one wing of the wing building: consecrated in 1830, abolished in 1841. The gilded copper cross with relics was transferred to the Ilyinskaya Church (at Porokhovye), and a year earlier, the parish was gifted a copy of Bruni’s "Prayer on the Cup."

Over the years, poets Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Griboedov, Zhukovsky, Mickiewicz, Rubtsov, artists Borovikovsky, Karl and Alexander Bryullov, Venetsianov, Gagarin, Kiprensky, Martos, Solntsev, Tolstoy, composers and musicians Alyabyev, Verstovsky, Matvey and Mikhail Vielgorsky, Glinka, Lvov, Decembrists Volkonsky, brothers Sergey and Matvey Muravyov-Apostol, Muravyov, Trubetskoy, writer Turgenev visited here. Amateur performances on the home theater stage featured actors Katerina Semyonova, Ivan Sosnitsky, Vasily and Alexandra Karatygin. Once, the Olenins were visited by the famous German natural scientist Humboldt.

There is a dacha beyond the Neva,

Twenty versts from the capital,

Near the Vyborg border,

Close to steep Pargola…

But we will forget the noise

And the hustle of the capital,

We will unyoke the carriages,

Strike the horses,

And rush like an arrow

To Priyutino with you.

Agreed? — Shake on it!

Batyushkov. "Message to Turgenev"

For thirty years (since 1806), Krylov often visited Priyutino, lived for a long time with the Olenins, and wrote many of his fables here. Poet Gnedich worked at Priyutino on his translation of Homer’s "Iliad." Young Pushkin often visited the Olenin house. The first edition of the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was designed by A. N. Olenin. Love for the Olenins’ youngest daughter Anna inspired Pushkin to create a cycle of lyrical poems. In Anna Olenina’s album, Pushkin inscribed the famous "I loved you…". After Anna Olenina’s death, the estate was sold by Olenin in 1841 for 40,000 silver rubles to court councilor, staff doctor Ferdinand Matveyevich Adams, a homeopath and great admirer of agricultural innovations. Under him, the former "muse’s refuge" turned into a dairy farm, and the estate’s size was almost halved. On the sold lands, the manors Sofievka, Khristinovka, Maryino, and Vasilievka were established. In addition, in 1844, 98 dessiatins were purchased from him by German colonists from Novo-Saratovka and Srednyaya Rogatka to establish the daughter colony Priyutino.

In 1853, he sold the estate to Major General Alexander Christianovich Daler. Then the owners of Priyutino changed several more times. In 1861, Lieutenant General Daler died, and the manor passed into the hands of his heirs for ten years.

The next owner was titular counselor Pyotr Fyodorovich Serapin (1838–1893). In 1871, he married Luiza Daler, receiving part of the manor as a dowry, and bought the remaining parts for 30,000 rubles from other heirs, immediately beginning to sell the estate in parts, selling 101 dessiatins over 11 years. In 1882, the Priyutino manor, with an area of 331 dessiatins and 1712 square sazhen, was purchased for 35,625 rubles by State Secretary, Privy Councillor, and member of the State Council Yegor Abramovich Peretz.

For almost 30 years, starting from 1853, Priyutino was used by its owners as a country dacha, but Yegor Abramovich Peretz decided to restore the estate’s economic significance: fields were sown again, and dairy cattle were reintroduced. According to 1889 data, Peretz’s estate had 15 horses, 46 cows, and three bulls of the Kholmogory, Yaroslavl, and Ayrshire breeds, respectively. The farm was managed by a steward with two assistants for 1,320 rubles a year. There was a non-working water mill on the estate. A two-story dacha with seven rooms and a kitchen was rented out for 200 rubles a year. Under the last owner, Martyn Alexandrovich Krause, owner of a dairy warehouse in Petersburg and hereditary honorary citizen, who bought the estate in December 1896 for 55,000 rubles, all estate buildings were preserved, and exemplary farming was conducted. Significant reclamation work was carried out under him: fields were drained with pottery pipes, there was a brick factory which he leased out, but this place was never again called, as under the Olenins, "the estate of Russian poets."

The last owner of the manor, Krause, sold the production facilities of the Priyutino estate in 1911 to the agricultural partnership of Baltic noble estates "Pomeshchik." In 1916, he emigrated to Germany via Finland.

By the 1960s, Priyutino had become a shabby place: the park lost its beauty, and all surviving buildings were divided into ordinary communal apartments. In 1960, the Priyutino estate was included among cultural monuments of republican significance; from 1971, its resettlement and preparation of the first museum exhibition began. On December 17, 1974, the first exhibition dedicated to the Olenin house was opened in two halls of the main manor house. A restoration project for the main manor house and the rotunda above the dairy cellar was also commissioned. Direct descendants of Olenin were identified, and with their help, the museum acquired materials—portraits, personal belongings of the Olenin family. At the same time, the park was put in order: paths were made, trees were improved. Over the years, "Priyutino" became a full-fledged museum with rich collections, a vivid interior exhibition, and wonderful landscapes around.

There is a supposition that near the estate (the forest area of the Rzhev artillery range adjacent to Priyutino) the poet Gumilyov was executed in 1921.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Приютино_(усадьба)