‘Remarkable strength and beauty. ’ Exploring the history of Yusupov Palace

The V. L.Pushkin House-Museum has opened an exhibition called ‘Yusupov Palace in Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Pereulok, ’ a joint project of the Pushkin State Museum and the Arkhangelskoye Museum Reserve. Most of the exhibits, including tile fragments dating from the late 17 th-first third of the 18 th century are on display for the first time. Konstantin Bolenko, Head of the Research Department of the Arkhangelskoye Museum Reserve, told about the history of one of the oldest civil buildings in Moscow.

Notable owners and famous residents

The history of the house begins with the family of merchants Chiryevs, who carried on a trade important for the state. After dividing a large area north of Khomutovka Street (that was the name of Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Pereulok), Maxim Chiryev, who got its eastern part, built stone houses not far from those belonged to his brothers. For a long time, the building’s history was associated with the eastern houses.

In 1707, Chiryev’s widow sold the house to Vice-Chancellor Pyotr Shafirov. Under Shafirov, a large cubic volume was added to the former houses, where there was a hall with vaults called the Great Dining Room on the second floor. Shafirov fell into disgrace in 1723, and the house passed to other Peter’s nobles: first to Peter Tolstoy, then to Alexander Menshikov’s secretary Alexei Volkov, who, however, also quickly fell into disfavor.

The petition for the transfer of the house was submitted by another major nobleman, Prince Grigory Yusupov (at that time his surname was written as Yusupov-Knyazhevo). Initially, he was one of the members of the toy army of Peter the Great, had a brilliant career and became the ‘first member’ of the Military Collegium. From 1730, for almost 190 years, the house belonged to the Yusupovs and became a Moscow family seat under Irina Mikhailovna, the wife of one of the sons of Grigory Dmitrievich, who moved to Moscow in the 1770 s. She also bought a plot to the west of Yusupov plot with the former Chiryev houses located on it. They got the name ‘middle yellow house’ (‘middle yellow wing’).

In 1801, the ‘middle yellow wing’ was rented by collegiate assessor Sergei Pushkin, where he lived with his family until 1803. In his childhood memories, Alexander Pushkin mentioned the Yusupov Garden, a garden arranged on the other side of Khomutovka Street, almost opposite the eastern houses, by order of Nikolai Yusupov. The portrait of the poet as a child presented at the exhibition refers to these years.

Yusupov art collections

After the death of his mother Irina Mikhailovna in 1788, Nikolai Yusupov focused on economic affairs. While still in the service, he started transforming the Moscow space of the estate. Why space? By this time, the Yusupovs already owned several plots on both sides of Khomutovka. There is not only a house, but also an architectural and economic complex of a farmstead with cellars, glaciers, carriage sheds and other buildings.

Being on a long vacation in 1802 with the subsequent resignation, Nikolai Borisovich transported his art collections to Moscow.

“It seemed impossible to house the collections in the buildings dating from the late 17 th and early 18 th centuries, how to show Tiepolo’s works or large canvases by Hubert Robert there? In the northern part of the plot, a large two-story gallery, a small library and a greenhouse are being built: in total, the area of new buildings almost exceeds the area of the eastern part of the palace,” says Konstantin Bolenko.

But Nikolai Borisovich quickly became disillusioned with this idea, and in 1810, after much effort, he bought the Arkhangelskoye Estate to house the collections. Perhaps they would have been divided between the two houses, if not for the Patriotic War of 1812. At that time, the buildings to the north of the palace burned down, owners decided not to restore them, and the Arkhangelskoye Estate became the main area for storing and presenting the Yusupov collections to the public.

‘Remarkable strength and beauty’

After the war, Nikolai Borisovich moved to a new mansion built opposite and repaired the house that had survived the fire. The Yusupovs have extensive possessions, later they were even said to be richer than the Romanovs. The Yusupovs were surely not richer than the Romanovs, but they were among the ten most influential aristocratic families in Russia, and its possessions had to be managed. The Moscow building used to house offices in charge of the affairs of several provinces.

The ‘sleeping’ state of the house lasted until the 1850 s: the son of Nikolai Borisovich, Boris Nikolayevich, lived mainly in St. Petersburg, he did not like to visit Moscow and Arkhangelsk, and the offices located there suited him perfectly. The Moscow local historian Ivan Snegirev was interested in the Yusupov house. He mentioned the house twice in his diaries, including the phrase ‘remarkable strength and beauty. ’ In an essay published in “Russian Antiquity in the Monuments of Church and Civil Architecture,” he also highlighted the safety of the house, minimally rebuilt in comparison with other houses of the 17 th-early 18 th centuries.

Transformations began in the mid-1850 s under Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, Jr. Presenting the Yusupov family as one of the most ancient families both in Russia and Europe, he opened a special room with portraits of princes, starting with Biy Yusuf, who gave the family a surname. Nikolai saw the value of the house from a representational point of view: he and his wife lived in an outbuilding, but he planned to make changes to the decor of the building that would enhance the archaic old Russian look, as well as to connect the western and eastern parts with a passage, which would give the house a larger volume and a palatial character and make it possible to single out the western residential part and the eastern front.

Large-scale reconstruction: how the house became a palace

Shortly before his death in 1891, Nikolai Borisovich handed over the affairs of his daughter Zinaida Nikolaevna and son-in-law Felix Feliksovich (after petitioning, they received the complex title of the Yusupov princes, Counts Sumarokov-Elston), who would implement the planned changes. They came up with a happy idea to take care of not only the house, but the whole farmstead. To do this, they hired a young architect Viktor Pomerantsev, who connects the two houses (there is a winter garden on the second floor of the passage). Then Nikolai Sultanov, who had a reputation as one of the best Russian style architects and worked with Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, was engaged.

Sultanov was developing a project to reconstruct the house and farmstead as a single ensemble. The architect moved the front entrance from the southeastern part to the north, made a porch, where he installed the front staircase with the Yusupov coat of arms featuring a princely crown. After some time, the crown was replaced by the coat of arms of the Yusupovs and Sumarokovs-Elstons. A large courtyard was arranged on the north side, visitors had time to look at the palace, it opened gradually from the gate, this is also part of the Sultanov’s plan.

“Under Sultanov, the palace was not red. On the one hand, the turquoise color solution with a special color scheme of the architraves, contradicts the current image of the building, on the other hand, it emphasizes its exclusivity, because the turquoise color is quite rare for facades,” says Konstantin Bolenko.

Almost all the interiors of the eastern part were created in the Russian style. Only the Chinese Room stood out, which existed under Nikolai Borisovich, the elder. It should both allude to the eastern origin of the Yusupovs, and preserve the continuity of the old palace. The room is decorated with Chinese porcelain plates set into the ceiling, one of which can be seen at the exhibition. Nikolai Borisovich, the elder, probably adopted this design idea during the grand tour, an educational trip abroad in the mid-1870 s: in Portugal, he saw a room with a ceiling decorated, however, with a much larger number of plates.

The gem of the eastern part is the Great Dining Room, the heart of the house entered from the Chinese room. The Armorial Room features elements of the Yusupov coat of arms: a bow with an arrow, a lion, a crescent with six-pointed stars. Sultanov also installed stoves: new ones and those preserved in the palace. Stylized to resemble the 17 th-18 th century stoves, they were made largely of tiles from antiquarians that Sultanov found. But it was impossible to buy tiles for a whole stove-the missing ones were commissioned from factories and workshops. In 2020, the palace was transferred to the Arkhangelskoye Museum Reserve, and during the pre-restoration work, fragments of original tiles dating from the late 17 th-first third of the 18 th centuries were discovered. They allow us to find out what stoves were in the palace, perhaps long before the Sultanov’s reconstruction.

A special subject of the paintings is Ivan the Terrible. A portrait of the tsar hung in the living room on the first floor, next to it was the so-called Falcon Room. Why is Ivan the Terrible associated with the palace? In their desire to make the Yusupov house look older, they went far: rumors spread that the Falconer Palace of Ivan the Terrible could have stood on this site, and the princes began to elaborate on this legend. Even a large article called ‘Moscow’s Falconer Palace of Ivan the Terrible’ was published in the magazine ‘Capital and Estate. ’ However, the legend was not confirmed.

After revolution: museum, treasure and agricultural academy

During the February Revolution, Felix Yusupov, Jr., was in exile after the murder of Rasputin, but already had the opportunity to leave, several times he visits Moscow and Petrograd.

“We should pay tribute to his foresight: he understood how everything could turn out, and rented the Petrograd palace to the Swedish consulate, and the Moscow palace to the British consulate. As a result, during the turbulent pre-October, October and post-October events, the palaces were neither captured nor plundered. This was especially true in Moscow, where many mansions were occupied by the then popular anarchists. But the anarchists would not come into conflict with the British consulate, because the young Soviet government at that moment did not want to sour relations with Britain for no particular reason,” notes Konstantin Bolenko.

Nevertheless, in 1918, after the revelation of the conspiracy of ambassadors (the Lockhart case), relations deteriorated, the palace was taken away from the British consulate, it fell under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat for Education, which also included the museum subdepartment. The palace housed the Military History Museum from 1919 to 1927. Thanks to the enthusiasts’ efforts, the relics of many regimental museums that existed before the revolution survived.

The story about treasure of the Yusupovs found in the palace also dates back to that time. Several thousand objects, mostly made of silver, were found in a cache under the stairs, probably created by Prince Felix. He wrote that he had hidden treasures, mentioning the servant of Grigory Buzhinsky, but in fact, the house manager, Mikhail Perov, helped him to hide the treasure. After the revolution, he first worked as a house manager, then as a custodian, and only the treasure story changed the calm course of his life. His reputation was endangered, he was dismissed from his post and in 1930, already at an advanced age, went into exile, nothing further is known about his fate. The exhibition features two documents signed by Mikhail Perov.

After 1927, the house was transferred to the agricultural department, first to the Institute of Agricultural Economics under the leadership of Alexander Chayanov, then to the State Farm Institute, and since 1936-to the Presidium of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL). According to Konstantin Bolenko, specialists underestimated the role of Alexander Nikonov, one of the managers of the Academy, in the preservation of the palace. Under VASKhNIL, some restoration works were carried out, specialists tried to save the house and attracted best restoration organizations.

The V. L.Pushkin House-Museum will run the exhibition ‘Yusupov Palace in Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Pereulok’ until October 1.