Stroganovsky Park, Ushakovskaya Embankment, 15 building 2, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 197342
The first owner of this area, “measuring 120 sazhen on both sides and 97 sazhen across,” was a diplomat from the Petrine era, Savva Lukich Vladislavich-Raguzinsky. Then the country house with outbuildings and a garden passed by inheritance to his nephew, the Illyrian Count M. I. Vladislavich, from whom this territory opposite Kamenniy Island was acquired in 1743 by Baron Sergey Grigorievich Stroganov.
Rinaldi’s Pavilion from the side of Bolshaya Nevka (artist J. B. de la Travers, 1790)
In 1754, Antonio Rinaldi built a pavilion in the park (sometimes, like the later building on this site, called the “Stroganov Dacha”), which in its outlines and composition resembled the Sliding Hill pavilion — Rinaldi’s most famous structure in Oranienbaum, but it was built a decade earlier than the imperial residence. Probably at the same time, in the 1750s, Rinaldi carried out landscaping works: he arranged a pond with a marble sculpture of Neptune standing on sea horses (hippocampi). It is believed that this sculptural group was created by an Italian master at the end of the 17th century. Currently, the statue of Neptune (without the horses), reminiscent of the original project by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, for whom a similar sculpture was made in 1737 for Peterhof, is located in the courtyard of the Stroganov Palace on the Moika River, where it was moved in the early 20th century. After the death of S. G. Stroganov, the estate passed to his son Alexander Sergeevich Stroganov. In 1772, he expanded the estate by purchasing from Count Y. A. Bryus a house near the mouth of the Chyornaya River and the neighboring “Mandarov’s myza,” which belonged to Lunin. In 1793, Johann Georgi wrote: The summer house of Count Stroganov on the Nevka… is distinguished by the fact that from the roof of the lower building rises a second high floor in a quadrangle, on which stands a third hexagonal one. The local forest has been turned into a beautiful garden.
No other records of the first buildings from this time have survived. It is only known that all three garden pavilions — the grotto, the hut on the island, and Rinaldi’s pavilion on the shore of Bolshaya Nevka, as well as the statue of Neptune standing in the center of the pond — were aligned on one axis. In summer, a floating wooden bridge was laid across Bolshaya Nevka between Rinaldi’s pavilion and the cape of Kamenniy Island. In other parts of the river, local residents and disabled people from the Invalid Home on Kamenniy Island arranged ferry crossings.
New buildings and changes in the park layout date to the mid-1790s, when the son of A. S. Stroganov, Pavel Alexandrovich, returned from abroad and married S. V. Golitsyna — daughter of Natalya Petrovna Chernysheva (Golitsyna), who served as the model for the Queen of Spades for A. S. Pushkin.
In 1794, two bridges were built in the garden. One of them resembled an ancient structure ruined by time. The other, on the contrary, was an example of modern construction, imitating the iron bridge over the Severn River (Coalbrookdale, 1779), which was extremely popular at the time. The bridges led to an island, which was the center of the garden scenario. For advice on redesigning his park, Stroganov probably turned to his friend, the painter Hubert Robert. Following the call of Rousseau to “return to nature,” Robert tried to erase the boundary between the garden and the surrounding nature, creating winding paths, water bodies of whimsical shapes, arranging cascades, bridges, ruins, and grottos.
In 1795, A. S. Stroganov built for his son Pavel and his wife on the shore of Bolshaya Nevka an ensemble of three pavilions: two small one-story houses and, in the center, a two-story residential house with a semicircular balcony topped with a small dome. It was at this time that a structure appeared on the site of Rinaldi’s pavilion — the one usually called the “Stroganov Dacha.” The original project was developed by F. I. Demertsev in the Palladian style, and he also began construction, but then Count Stroganov preferred the project of the young and still unknown A. N. Voronikhin. The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg has a watercolor from the Stroganov family album. On it, the French artist Jean-Balthazar de la Travers, who was friends with the Stroganov family, captured the Palladian-type building. From 1796, the new project was developed simultaneously by Demertsev and Voronikhin. Count Stroganov probably chose Voronikhin’s project. In the Academy of Arts Museum, a drawing by Rinaldi with Voronikhin’s corrections was found. Therefore, the Stroganov Dacha can be considered a joint creation of the Italian Rinaldi and the young Russian architects[1].
The Stroganov Dacha was destroyed in 1908, but its appearance was captured by Voronikhin himself in an oil painting. For this painting, the Academy of Arts Council awarded Voronikhin the title of academician of perspective and miniature painting in 1797. In the appearance of the Stroganov Dacha, especially in the widely spaced columns of the bel étage, not only antique and Renaissance Italian sources are evident, but also the influence of the unusual architecture of the Cameron Gallery in Tsarskoye Selo, built by Charles Cameron in 1784–1787.
View of the Stroganov Dacha from Kamenniy Island (B. Paterson, 1804)
The facade of the dacha faced Bolshaya Nevka and was decorated with a colonnade. A granite staircase leading from the dacha to the river was adorned with sculptures of lions and centaurs. The walls of the first stone floor were pierced on both sides by three tall arched openings. The second floor was wooden, and its central part housed a hall oriented parallel to the embankment, intended for balls and gatherings. Instead of walls, the hall was surrounded entirely by glazed Palladian window-doors separated by columns. On the left side were the musicians’ choir lofts. On both sides of the hall were open galleries with Ionic order colonnades. The building was topped with four pediments, above which was a shallow dome with a belvedere. To give the building lightness, in 1796 Voronikhin replaced the pediments and the supporting box proposed by Demertsev with rings that absorbed the horizontal pressure of the dome, allowing it to be placed directly on the vault of the hall and to make an opening in the center, thus forming a double dome. One of the galleries faced the garden, the other the embankment of Bolshaya Nevka. Through the central hall of the lower floor, serving as the base of the colonnade, whose prototype for Demertsev was probably the Cameron Gallery in Tsarskoye Selo, one could enter the luxuriously decorated park with ponds and canals. The park existed with the dacha since the time of Raguzinsky, but the Stroganovs, as the new owners of the myza, replanned it in the then-fashionable regular style.
View of the Round Pond with the statue of Neptune and the Stone Bridge in the Stroganov Garden (E. I. Esakov, 1812)
It was at this dacha that the famous “Stroganov festivities” known to all contemporaries took place. A description of one of them was given by the French artist Vigee-Lebrun, who lived in St. Petersburg in the 1790s: Many barges arrived from all sides… Around three o’clock we ascended to the terrace surrounded by columns, where the day surrounded us on all sides. On one side, one could enjoy the view of the park, on the other the Neva, crowded with thousands of boats, each more elegant than the other… We dined on this terrace. The dinner was magnificent… As soon as we sat at the table, music was heard. The overture to Iphigenia was performed in a charming manner… After dinner, we took an unforgettable walk in the garden; in the evening, we again ascended to the terrace, from where we watched a beautiful fireworks display prepared by the count as soon as it got dark. The lights reflected in the waters of the Neva produced a magical effect.
View of the Egyptian Gates in the Stroganov Garden (E. I. Esakov, 1812)
There is a more or less complete idea only of the central part of the Stroganov Garden. Opposite the dacha was a pond symbolizing the sea — the realm of Neptune. On the island in the pond — in the “sea” — lived the nymph Calypso, who held Odysseus captive. The pavilions in the garden — the Muslim, the Obelisk, the Egyptian Gates — embodied the wanderings of the main hero after the shipwreck caused by Neptune. The “Homeric” garden pavilions are reproduced in drawings by the Stroganov family artist E. I. Esakov.
M. I. Pylyaev, describing later the sights of the Stroganov Dacha, wrote: “In Stroganov’s garden were kept remarkable works of art: two large statues of Hercules and Flora Farnese, standing on either side of the house terrace, and an ancient figure of a grinder, though disfigured by time. At the entrance to the dacha lay two sphinxes, and on the sides of the steps — two large centaurs, then several vases, and on the pond — a figure of Neptune with a trident.”
“The Tomb of Achilles” in the Stroganov Garden (A. Martynov, 1812)
Facade of the Stroganov Dacha in the early 20th century
The dacha of the younger generation of Stroganovs was separated from the plot belonging to Count A. S. Stroganov by a canal running almost exactly north to south, connecting the waters of the Chyornaya River and Bolshaya Nevka. Not far from this dacha, on the shore of the round pond, was the sarcophagus acquired by the elder Stroganov, known as the “Tomb of Achilles” or “Tomb of Homer.” This sarcophagus is now in the Jupiter Hall of the State Hermitage Museum (a Roman sarcophagus with a bas-relief “Achilles on Skyros,” 2nd–3rd century AD). Explaining one of these names, the count-father wrote:
During the first Turkish war, when Russian arms triumphed at sea, Domashnev, a Russian officer commanding the landing force, found a sarcophagus on one of the Archipelago islands, brought it to Russia, and gave it to me. Upon seeing this monument, I could not help exclaiming: is this not the monument of Homer? Since then, everyone concluded that I own Homer’s tomb.
A library was arranged in the Stroganov garden, which lasted only one year because many took books home and did not return them.
In 1811, when P. A. Stroganov became the owner of the dacha, Voronikhin slightly altered the descent to the river by adding a staircase and removing the pier.
In 1827, due to the relocation of the Stroganov Bridge and the creation of a road leading from it (now Akademika Krylova Street), the Stroganov park was divided into two parts. The western part of the garden — the former “Mandarov myza” — became the property of S. V. Stroganova’s daughters — Elizaveta and Aglaida (married Saltykova and Golitsyna). There was a mansion now known as the Saltykova Dacha, belonging to the first daughter. The second owned a wooden house located closer to Bolshaya Nevka, which has not survived to this day. The western end of the Stroganov garden with Saltykova’s dacha was bounded until the mid-20th century by the semicircular Ferzin Lane (now part of Savushkina Street), whose name is probably connected with the surname of the third daughter — Olga, who married in 1829 Captain of the Cavalry Guard Regiment Pavel Karlovich Ferzen.
In 1898, the dacha was converted into a revenue house. In 1908, distant heirs of Stroganov considered the dacha, garden, and everything in it unnecessary for themselves. Subsequently, the dacha was dismantled.
V. Ya. Kurbatov wrote in 1913: “The round pond on the territory of the Stroganov Dacha in the early 21st century. On Stroganov Embankment — remains of the Voronikhin dacha, rebuilt into a residential house. The dacha garden is heavily damaged, ponds have almost disappeared. On the shore of the still existing round pond — a boarded-up sarcophagus. On the remains of another pond, the statue of Neptune, boarded up like a doghouse. In the eastern part of the park, groves have been preserved, and between them an obelisk made of a slab, according to legend, a monument to the dog of Count A. S. Stroganov.”
In the early 20th century, several enterprises appeared in the eastern part of the garden. The largest of them was a branch of the Russo-Baltic Wagon Factory, which produced aircraft by Sikorsky.
Between 1938 and 1941, a monumental building of the Naval Academy was erected in the southwestern part of the Stroganov Garden. To the east of the building, remnants of the garden with a small pond have been preserved. Further east are several residential buildings, and near the mouth of the Chyornaya River (Ushakovskaya Embankment 65) was formerly located the Research Institute of Technology, and now an elite residential complex “Riverside” has been built.
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