Mezhozyornaya St., 9, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 194362
The Levashov-Vyazemsky Estate is a ruined monument of manor architecture located in the settlement of Osinovaya Roshcha (now the Vyborgsky District of Saint Petersburg), at the junction of the Vyborg and Priozersk highways, 4 km from the settlement of Pesochny. It is one of the numerous Petersburg sites placed under UNESCO protection in 1990.
In the 1770s, a miniature villa of Prince Potemkin stood on the Osinovaya Roshcha manor, where Empress Catherine stayed in May 1778. Impressed by the location of the manor, she wrote to Baron Grimm: “Petersburg and the sea are at your feet; before your eyes are all the dachas on the Peterhof road and then lakes, hills, forests, fields, rocks, and huts. An English gardener and architect are in our retinue, and we wandered all day yesterday and, God knows, planted and arranged a lot. Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina, and even Tsaritsyno are rubbish in comparison to Osinovaya Roshcha in terms of location. Now the whole court lives in a house with ten rooms, but what a view from every window! By God, it is wonderful.”
The estate, with a wooden manor house and service buildings, was formed in the era of Russian classicism at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The manor house was built by order of Princess Lopukhina by architecture professor Beretti in 1828–1830. The manor house of the Zinovievs on the Bogoslovskaya manor was built according to the same project.
The house was built according to a tripartite scheme. The central building (completely destroyed) was topped with a belvedere and decorated with a six-column portico of the grand order. Wide entrance steps, bounded by piers, served as a pedestal for sculptures of sphinxes with the face and chest of a woman and the body of a lion (lost). The portico and belvedere formed a vertical axis balanced by a horizontal one — low, recessed passages (one passage partially preserved) and adjoining service wings (survived as ruins). A semi-rotunda surrounded by an Ionic colonnade bearing the balcony balustrade gave softness to the park facade. The large dining room was located in the middle of the house, its windows and doors facing north. On the sides of the dining room, to the left were the study and library, to the right — the living rooms. On the second floor were living rooms, private chambers of family members, and above the dining room — a ballroom with access to the balcony.
The composition of the Corinthian capitals of the columns in the ballroom includes a female head with the portrait features of Ekaterina Nikolaevna Lopukhina, the founder of the estate.
In 1847, Lopukhin sold Osinovaya Roshcha to Count Levashov. Countess Olga Levashova often hosted supporters of continuing the liberal reforms initiated by Alexander II. Her daughters Ekaterina and Maria Vladimirovna (wife of Prince Vyazemsky) began selling off the estate lands for development in the early 20th century. The last private owner of Osinovaya Roshcha was Maria’s son, Prince Vyazemsky.
During the Soviet era, the manor house was used to accommodate a military unit, then adapted as a rest home. In 1918, by decision of the Petrograd district zemstvo board, a state farm was established on the estate, and an agricultural technical school in the manor. Two years later, the palace and park were handed over to a sanatorium; valuable items were taken to Petrograd, and some property was looted by residents of Levashovo. In 1927, the palace again housed an agricultural school. During the Great Patriotic War, the estate served as a rest home for high-ranking officials; after the war, it housed a military unit. In the 1970s, the estate was leased by the "Electron" institute, which commissioned a restoration project.
On April 4, 1991, the main part of the palace burned down; the right and left wings survived, but over the last 20 years they have also turned into ruins. The palace cellars survived, but every spring some part of the cellar collapses.
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