At the entrance to Ekateringof Park stands a six-meter column made of red granite—a work by Auguste Montferrand. On the territory of the current 19th-century St. Petersburg park "Ekateringof," the only preserved monument is a 6-meter monument—the Molvinskaya Column—located on the right bank of the Tarakanovka River near the Molvinsky Bridge. The monument appeared in Ekateringof Park in the summer or early autumn, but no later than November 1824.

There are no mysteries regarding the name of the column. On the left bank of the Tarakanovka River, roughly from the late 1790s until 1835, there was a summer estate belonging to Commerce Counselor Ya.N. Molvo (1766–1826) and his son N.Ya. Molvo (1808–1870). During Yakov Nikolaevich’s lifetime, the estate housed four factories of the company "Molvo and Son," known not only in Petersburg: a vodka, sugar, pottery, and vitriol factory. There is a theory that advertising boards for the Molvo factories were displayed near the column. On the other hand, the column stood at the very end of a street abolished in 1964, which from August 9, 1882, and for seventy years was officially called Molvinskaya Street. It is also possible that the monument got its name from the street or from the bridge, which in documents from the mid-1820s was already called Molvinsky (or Molvovsky). The mystery of the monument begins with the question of authorship. On Auguste Montferrand’s "General Plan of Ekateringof with New Explanations," which formed the basis for the reconstruction of Ekateringof in 1823–1824, the monument is not shown. However, both in monographs and newspaper publications, authorship is attributed to Montferrand (either directly or with reservations). Moreover, a commemorative plaque recently installed near the monument states that the column "served as the prototype for the Alexander Column."

The purpose of the monument remained a mystery. Almost all publications list "legends" associated with the column (or "pillar"). Some say it was erected on the burial site of Peter I’s favorite horse Lisetta, who died in one of the Ekateringof stables; others claim it marks the site of a wooden church where Peter I married Catherine Skavronskaya; still others say it marks the place where the capital’s residents met Peter III’s wife during the palace coup.

The purpose of the Molvinskaya Column was clarified by documents from the Committee on the Arrangement of Ekateringof, dated 1826. They twice unequivocally state the monument’s purpose as a "granite pillar marking the city boundary." The Committee’s activities are detailed in my monograph. The installation of entrance pillars in Russian cities became widespread from the second half of the 18th century. Such a pillar was required at the entrance "to every settlement" according to a decree by Alexander I.

Also, one of the Committee’s documents states that the late head of the Committee, military Governor-General Count Miloradovich, ordered "to make a sphere according to Architect Montferrand’s drawing and place [it] on the Granite Pillar."

The fact that parts of the Molvinskaya Column monument were already used (and thus manufactured) in other structures before 1824 is confirmed by a visual inspection of the column shaft (shaft diameter 55 cm).

A rectangular notch (24×9.5 cm) remains at the bottom of the shaft, and a second rectangular notch on the opposite side was recently filled. Such notches were made to fasten the column shaft. This is likely how the half-embedded columns framing the windows of the facades of St. Isaac’s Cathedral by Auguste Montferrand are fixed. The column shafts are visually similar to the Molvinskaya Column shaft.

Marble "pieces," as Borushnikevich noted, were stored on the canal bank opposite the Manege. Brick "from Isaakiy" was delivered to Ekateringof by waterway.

Furniture and books were purchased at auctions for the reconstructed Ekateringof. Based on the above facts, the following emerges: parts of the monument for Ekateringof were manufactured during the construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral by A. Rinaldi, were part of the cathedral sections dismantled in 1821, and were delivered to Ekateringof by water. If via the Admiralty Canal, the loaded boat could turn onto Pryazhka and continue past the house of stonemason Sukhanov, where the official Palashkovsky lived. At the same time, it could have taken the pedestal stolen by Sukhanov from the state foundry. According to Saker’s report, during the November 1824 flood, "the foundation under the column near Molvinsky Bridge" was damaged. Sukhanov was paid for the foundation work. This is not only a matter of work quality. The site where the Molvinskaya Column now stands is paved with granite slabs. The pedestal rests on three rows of slabs. Samson Sukhanov supervised the work on "cladding" the canal banks with "wild stone." Who, according to archival documents, was Samson Sukhanov before and during the rearrangement of Ekateringof? A merchant-contractor. In the documents of the Commission for the final reconstruction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Sukhanov was officially called the Commission’s commissioner.

Sources:

https://www.citywalls.ru/house30248.html

VLADIMIR IVANOVICH KHODANOVICH: THE MYSTERY OF THE MOLVINSKAYA COLUMN