VRXW+M6 Petrodvortsovy District, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Near the shore of the bay, between the palace meadow and the mouth of the Kristatelka River, in its steep bend, there is a picturesque glade where, among apple trees, stands a red brick ruin with a long chimney protruding upwards. This is all that remains of the palace water pumping station after the destruction of the Great Patriotic War. Although the Sergievka park was outside the occupied territory, within the Oranienbaum bridgehead, the ensemble was heavily damaged by shells.
Like all the park structures of Sergievka (except perhaps for the rectangular pond on the upper terrace left by previous owners and the famous boulder "Head" located in the river valley), the water pumping station was created in the mid-19th century according to a unified architectural design by architect Andrey Ivanovich Stakenschneider. The area at the mouth of the Kristatelka also received new landscaping. It should be noted that some kind of glade existed here earlier under previous owners of these seaside lands, as evidenced by an ancient oak tree that picturesquely frames its western perspective with its mighty branches. The oak, whose natural growth boundary passes further south through the Novgorod and Pskov regions, served as an introduced decorative park element in the Prinevye area during the Russian Empire from the Petrine era.
The water pumping station created on the glade had two large rooms (now only discernible by the texture of the foundation), a high roof, and a fairly high foundation. Now, with the roof gone, the chimney seems very tall, and its attic part, sheathed with seals, stretches to a length almost comparable to the total height of the one-story building. These are the construction features of private water pumping stations of that time. A similar structure with comparable construction features designed by the same architect can be seen in another residence of the Peterhof railway — Znamenka.
The water pumping station was deliberately located away from the palace, on the seaside lowland (as was the Znamenka station, also situated near the confluence of a local river into the bay). At that time, water had to be pumped by pumps and given the necessary momentum to regularly supply the estate. The fountain system of the Sergievka estate included 11 fountains and had unique features. It was a significant element of the architectural design of the palace, terraces, lawns, courtyards of the estate, and park landscapes. The estate owner, Duke Maximilian of Leuchtenberg, had the exclusive opportunity to use a steam locomotive installation built at his factory not for transportation but for utilitarian purposes — to power the fountain system (it should be recalled that Duke Leuchtenberg was at the origins of domestic steam locomotive construction). The waters of the Gulf of Finland, then still quite clean, supplied the Sergievka fountain system. The water pump, housed in a specially built building on the bay shore and connected to a steam engine (with a power of at least 20 horsepower), allowed water to be pumped to a height of 5–6 meters to operate the fountains near the palace.
As with the palace, the water pumping station was built in the neoclassical style, modeled after ancient Roman Pompeian villas. Pompeii was actively studied at that time, giving world architecture another impetus to return to Roman forms.
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