Regional department of the noble nest

Sometimes, in order to protect themselves from marauders, historical monuments in the Russian outback acquire very unexpected owners.

With a raised paw, as if alive, Guard lions stood ... (Alexander Pushkin. "The Bronze Horseman") On the map of Russia, with its silhouette, the Pskov region resembles a bear cub. He stood on his hind legs, reaches out to drink Lake Peipsi, and Pskovskoe - flows down from ...

With a raised paw, as if alive, Guard lions stood ... ( Alexander Pushkin. "The Bronze Horseman" )

On the map of Russia, the silhouette of the Pskov region resembles a bear cub. He stood up on his hind legs, reaches out to drink Lake Peipsi, and Pskovskoye - flows down from his lower lip. Where his heart is, is the city of Porkhov. In the heart of Porkhov is an ancient Russian watch fortress of the 14th century. Today, forty years have passed since the time when I began to spend my holidays in this green county town, overflowing with interesting people and historical relics. Here is the story of just one of them. Almost detective or, in any case, related to the protection of public order and ... cultural values.

In Porkhov, at the entrance to a fairly standard brick building of the police department, there are magnificent guard winged lions - griffins. True, without raised paws. But still, it is no match for those cheap crafts that “guard” the portals of banks and villas of the new Russian “masters of life”. Here - a true creation of high classical art, worthy of pairing with Pushkin's lines, and with other griffins, those that keep the Bank Bridge in St. Petersburg aloft. Where did they come from, in the provincial hinterland of Russia? The story will have to start from afar.

Everyone knows the pearl statue of Rastrelli, the Stroganov Palace at the crossroads of Nevsky Prospekt and the Moika, now transferred to the possession of the Russian Museum. It is less known that he has a doppelgänger. As in ancient times in Rus', the double sound of warm (winter) and cold (summer) temples was customary, so later, already in the 18th and 19th centuries, the most noble families had their own winter and summer palaces. At the Stroganovs, of course, the same one, Rastrelli's, was winter. But it was also summer. In the Pskov region. In Volyshev, Porkhov district. Erected in the 18th century, in 1857-1862 it was thoroughly reconstructed, actually rebuilt. Naturally, for this purpose, the Stroganovs chose architects among the best architects in the capital and turned first of all to Montferan, the author of St. Isaac's Cathedral, but received advice from him to entrust the design and construction to the young promising architect M.A. Makarov.

This is the apocrypha. In fact, most likely, we are talking about the also famous architect - Stackenschneider, because Makarov was his favorite student, participated in the construction of the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace in St. Petersburg according to his project. Perhaps the Count grimaced at such a forwarding. But then he was not disappointed. For this project, Makarov, still a very young man, received the title of academician, became a professor at the Academy of Arts and immediately found himself among the architectural celebrities of Russia in the 19th century. And to do this was oh so difficult, if you remember the names of Rossi, Zakharov, Voronikhin (the latter, by the way, was a serf of Count Stroganov).

Unfortunately, Makarov died quite early, at the age of 46. And how many unfulfilled plans went with him into oblivion. But Volyshevo has come true! His palace, surrounding buildings, horse breeding complex, park, irrigation systems were recognized as one of the best architectural ensembles.

Why was it that contemporaries were so struck by this, perhaps, the pinnacle creation of a young architect? After all, they had something to be amazed at, because the ensembles of Tsarskoye Selo and Gatchina, Arkhangelskoye and Kuskov already existed on Russian soil. The fact is that the customer asked the architect an almost insoluble task: to build a country house comfortable for life, according to the latest scientific and technical word of the second half of the 19th century and according to its architectural fashion laws. But at the same time, the “spirit” of the 18th century, in which the buildings that already existed here, were sustained, should not be violated. A family committed to antiquity "of the times of Ochakov and the conquest of the Crimea" would not accept sharp stylistic innovations. In a word, it was necessary to marry the 18th century with the 19th, but in such a way that it would not turn out to be an eclectic okroshka. Makarov solved this problem.

And at the same time, the latest novelties for those times were used in the construction of the manor palace: central heating according to the Amosov system, terracotta in the decor of buildings, etc. case were considered branded: a marble staircase from Italy, drainage from the Baltic states. Numerous Stroganov art schools were also considered branded. The palace, along with the creations of famous European and domestic masters, was also decorated with the works of pupils of these schools.

I remember one of my previous visits to Volyshevo. We then sat at our desks in the classroom of the local school, and the mathematics teacher Antonina Ivanovna Antonova gave us a history lesson. She leafed through the pages of a huge album with photographs from the beginning of the last century, the paramedic of the Stroganov estate, Vasily Grigoryevich Proskuryakov. His daughter and granddaughter, Galina Vasilievna Proskuryakova and Natalya Nikolaevna Maslennikova, did a lot to preserve the "Volyshev antiquity". So, by the way, are the names of Proskuryakova’s memoirs, published by the Pskov Pedagogical University and preceded by these words: “History without her help will remain unwritten and mysterious.”

This story goes back to the 15th century and deeper. First, the village was recorded for Zakhar Bespyatnykh, then for the landowners Khlustov. Then it was owned by the Sheep and, finally, the princes Vasilchikov. Three Vasilchikov brothers and two Stroganov brothers took part in the Patriotic War of 1812. One of them, a 19-year-old boy, was killed in the first battle, which gave rise to a family legend-speculation: was he the prototype of Petya Rostov from War and Peace? Then both families intermarried. One of the brothers, D.V. Vasilchikov (his portrait hangs in the Hermitage gallery in 1812), married his daughter Tatiana to Count A.S. Stroganov and gave them Volyshevo as a dowry. Their son is S.A. Stroganov, the last owner of Volyshev, married in 1875. And again on Vasilchikova - E. A. (albeit from another branch of the family).

This person was most curious. Already in close to us, but still Soviet times, the newspaper "Vecherny Leningrad" called a note about him "Architect, Count and Jacobin." He became famous as a prominent zemstvo figure, who generously gave money for the construction of schools, hospitals, roads. He was the first sailor of his kind. He rose to the rank, if according to modern analogues, to the rank of captain. He made a round-the-world trip on a yacht, where he was served by the Volishev household. A gambling man, he loved - just like Gogol! - fast driving and on a troika from his stables in half an hour flew from Volyshev to Porkhov, which even today not every foreign car can do.

On the other hand, this "Jacobin" beat the peasants. There is such evidence. He will strike, throw money at his feet - they say, compensation for pain, humiliation - and leave. How is Denis Davydov?

“And you look: our Mirabeau of Old Gavrilo For a crumpled frill Whips in his mustache and in his snout.”

Early, just five years after the wedding, the death of his wife shocked the count. He lived for a year as a hermit on a secluded wooded island. And then forever, until his death in 1923, he left Russia. But near Paris, in memory of his wife, he built an exact copy of Volyshev.

In this version, the only truth is that he experienced the death of his wife very hard and that the count never returned to Russia. But in Paris, he soon became interested in a twenty-year-old beautiful actress and built not a second Volyshevo, but a villa near Nice as a gift to a new lover. The real, the only Volyshevo lived its own life without him for almost half a century, but everything was kept here - for his money! - in such perfect condition, as if the master would arrive tomorrow morning.

In the century before last, the palace, the park adjacent to it and the first-class horse breeding complex flourished. In the Soviet years, they lost their former luster. But still, there was order here, as long as it was supported by successive new owners - from the agricultural institute and technical school to the stud farm. But at the change of millennia, hard times came for the palace. He was falling apart before his eyes, falling apart, pulled apart.

I have been to Volyshevo many times, and lately I have been able to observe with my own eyes the slow sliding of a beautiful architectural ensemble into oblivion. I especially remember one visit. In a delightful deciduous time. The birches, maples, lindens of the park glowed with the gold of melancholy falling leaves. The trees were so tall that it seemed like you were standing in a temple with a dome of gold on the inside. From the ascension of the gaze to this dome, it became parting in the soul: the sadness of this park, departing into winter non-existence, of sadness, also departing into non-existence, but not into seasonal, temporary, but forever, was in tune - the Volishev Palace. And a detail stuck in my memory like an ominous symbol: a fragment of the facade with magnificent stucco decorations hung, barely holding on to some piece of wire. In a month, in a day, or maybe in a moment, it will break off and crumble to dust. And such an "autumn leaf" is irreplaceable, non-reproducible, as it happens with annual intervals in park trees in nature. This is the end. All. Forever.

If the burning of autumn colors in the park evokes thoughts, albeit about sad, but about beauty (“my sadness is bright”), then the slow agony of man-made beauty turning into ruins instills in the soul a void of hopelessness, especially emphasized by the traces of former social activity: “Our impact work is fields and farms!”, “The flag of labor glory is raised in honor of…” And next to it are traces of the current, antisocial activity: “Lyuda + Seryozha = love. Ha ha ha. Bean! Shurik!

The ruins of beautiful manor buildings and pavilions are covered with clumsily scrawled names, the way wild animals mark the boundaries of their habitat with their claws and in other, less aesthetic ways. And all this next to the coat of arms of the Counts Stroganovs collapsing on the palace pediment, with their family motto soaring invisibly in the autumn air: “I have obtained wealth for the Motherland, and a glorious name for myself.”

In the 1930s, churches were blown up in our country. Film shots preserved in the blink of an eye the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, settling into clouds of dust, into dust, now revived in the form of a remake product. We are rebuilding churches. But at the same time, something terrible, unthinkable happens - the explosion of the entire temple of national culture. Only the explosion is slow, lasting for months and years. Without dynamite charges and clouds of smoke, dust and debris. But with relentless agony at the end. This is how they blow up Volyshevo. With complete silence both local (the Porkhov district administration recently liquidated the last miserable rate of the "caretaker" of the collapsing palace), and the supreme, all-Russian authorities.

This year, a list of historical and cultural monuments of the Pskov region has been compiled, in the restoration of which the state will invest its own funds. Porkhovskaya fortress got there, thank God. But there are no such precious cultural nests in this list, not only on a regional, but truly on an all-Russian scale, as Volyshevo, Kholomki, Belskoe mouth.

In Kholomki and the Belsky mouth, for example, in the early 20s of the twentieth century there was a summer colony, where the inhabitants of the famous "Crazy Ship" - the Petrograd House of Arts - M. Dobuzhinsky, E. Zamyatin, M. Zoshchenko, M. Lozinsky were saved from hunger , L. Lunts, O. Mandelstam, V. Milashevsky, B. Popov, N. Radlov, V. Khodasevich, K. Chukovsky and others. What left a mark in their poems, essays, memoirs, canvases and engravings. Khodasevich described these regions in his “Belsk Estuary” in the following way:

“Here the distance is visible in a spacious frame: Behind the river there is a meadow, behind the meadow there is a forest. Here showers of black columns Pass along the edges of the sky.

Here a rainbow with a high vault Covers the church cross, And every holiday in the parishes Fairs of brides are celebrated.

Here are storks, swamps, snakes, A steep sandy slope, Simple rural undertakings, We talk about the harvest ... "

And the manor house in Dobuzhinsky's wonderful illustrations for "Eugene Onegin" is Kholomki.

Cultural nests, by the way, are not a figurative expression. A scientific term introduced into research use by our outstanding scientist Piksanov, thanks to which domestic local history has acquired the rank of a serious science.

Yes, the Porkhov fortress was lucky. Kholomka and Belsky mouth too. Petersburg Polytechnic University has now taken them under its wing. Its first rector, Prince A.G., lived and is buried here. Gagarin. He was recommended for this post by the initiator of the creation of the Polytechnic University in the imperial capital of Witte. Then Gagarin, who, by the way, was not only a talented organizer and administrator, but a real scientist, fell into disgrace for taking the side of the students during student unrest. In the first years after October 1917, a safe-conduct issued by Lenin saved his estate from looting. During these years, he traveled to neighboring Volyshevo to give lectures on mathematics to students of the Agricultural Institute, which had settled in the Stroganov Palace.

In a word, the former possessions of Prince Gagarin were lucky both then and today. But the palace in Volyshev, if some miracle does not happen, is approaching a fatal outcome.

For some reason, those who want to add the Stroganov Palace to the most expensive yachts in the world, Faberge eggs, luxurious villas somewhere in Nice are not among the freshly baked oligarchs. It is painfully far not only from the Mediterranean beaches, but even from the capital Rublyovka. In fairness, attempts to revive the breeding horse breeding that Volyshevo was famous for in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet years, supplying horses of “high blood” for hippodromes, military parades, and sports competitions, are made from time to time.

Now, if such tidbits of real estate, such as, for example, the Porkhov Fortress (together with the Moscow Kremlin, by the way), are in private ownership, or at least in perpetuity, there are those who wish. In the newspaper "Pskovskaya Pravda - Veche" for August 25, 2010 I read about the phantasmagoric meeting of the Moscow Arbitration Court (author of the publication Olga Grigorieva). On it "the representative of fund" Princely "has declared that the head of fund Valery Kubarev is the descendant of Rurikovich. The title of Grand Duke is confirmed by a patent issued by the Imperial House of Rurik under the Spanish crown. Consequently, the Princely Fund has the right to use the Moscow Kremlin indefinitely. <…>

In turn, representatives of the Federal Property Management Agency said that the lawsuit filed was unfounded. According to the defendant's lawyer, the Princely Fund's right to the Moscow Kremlin follows only from its charter. Since 1991, the Kremlin has been the property of the Russian Federation. True, at the moment it (the right of ownership. - Approx. Aut.) Is not registered. There is only a presidential decree stating that this is his residence. To which Valeriy Kubarev noticed that he could write another decree.”

The appetites of the Rurikovichs are not limited to the Moscow Kremlin. “In total, the list of property they claim includes 89 objects in Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Among them are 11 stone-wood and 41 wooden Kremlins, 18 pits and fortresses. As well as stone kremlins: Tula, Tobolsk, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod, Vologda, Astrakhan. And also Pskovskiy, Porkhovskiy, Izborskiy and Gdovskiy».

The Porkhov Fortress was in good company. But where is Volyshev before her! The Stroganovs are still not Rurikovichs. And, of course, the state will not invest in saving their family estate such funds as in maintaining the same Moscow Kremlin in proper condition. Otherwise, the enterprising Kubarevs would certainly have received some kind of patent for it, issued by the Imperial House of Rurikovich under the Spanish crown. It's good that there was no Kubarev among the descendants of the Romanovs. Here the appetites could be much greater - from the Winter Palace in general to half of Russia.

Dreams, dreams... But in reality, something is not visible among those who want to cure the dying Volyshevo, neither among the Abramovichs and Vekselbergs, nor among the descendants of Rurik and Mikhail Romanov. And there is no hope that foreign countries will help us either. The foreign descendants of the Stroganovs, perhaps even dreaming about it, simply do not have that kind of money. The last owner of Volyshev, when at the end of 1916 far-sighted well-wishers recommended that he transfer his capital abroad, although he himself had lived for many years in Paris, refused to do so. For purely patriotic reasons. But also purely practical - thanks to such a demonstrative gesture, the economy of the palace, the stables, the park were maintained in exemplary condition until 1923 ..

You see, in what a rich, but also dramatic cultural and historical context, these same winged lions are inscribed, which now adorn the entrance to the Porkhov district police station. And once they stood in front of the entrance to the Volishevsky Palace. Who the author is is unknown. However, one can feel the handwriting of a great master, "not a miserable copyist, but an artist." According to one version, they came to Volyshevo from an estate in Mikhalev, the same Porkhov district, owned by Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharov, a very unique person too. Together with Denis Davydov, he was considered the guardian of hussar traditions. Lermontov served in the same regiment with him, dedicating several poems to him. One of them starts:

"We are waiting for you, hurry, Bukharov, Throw away the Tsarskoye Selo nightingales, In the circle of comrade hussars, Your usual cup is ready."

And ends with the line: "Feasts and battles citizen."

Pushkin was also familiar with Bukharov. Ever since high school. And when he was exiled to Mikhailovskoye, Alexander Sergeevich began to visit Mikhalevo. Pushkin-Kamen, a bench carved from the rock, is still preserved here, on which, according to local legend (oh, Porkhov district is literally crammed with legends, apocrypha, legends!), The poet liked to rest. And Lukomorye, where there is a green oak and a golden chain with a learned cat, according to local legend, here, on the shore of Lake Lokno, which was sometimes called Loknomorye here. The mighty oak on the shore really grew. Then they cut him down. An impressive stump remained next to Pushkin-Stone. Legend? It is well known that the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was written in 1820. But no! The prologue to it (“Green oak by the seashore ...”) was created later, already during the time of Mikhailov’s exile and Pushkin’s visits to Mikhalevo.

Although at the end of his life Bukharov sold Mikhalevo and moved to Nestrino near Porkhov, the version of the transfer of "watchdogs" from his estate to the Stroganov estate is very doubtful. There is no documentary evidence for this. But if you still imagine that there are some reasons that are still unknown to us under it, you can also imagine something else: these griffins, who now see police cars parked near the building, once saw Alexander Sergeyevich (and he, of course, saw them).

When, already today, the palace relics, details of the interiors and exteriors of Volyshev began to be plundered with increasing acceleration, the griffins were hidden under large iron boxes like banal shell garages. But one day the boxes disappeared. Along with the lions.

How indignant I was when I suddenly saw familiar griffins at the entrance to the Porkhov militia! They stole it. And who! And he even gloated masochistically when he discovered that one of the lions' tail had been torn off: they had stolen something, but they hadn't saved the local craftsmen who supplied the recycling office with stolen non-ferrous metals.

But later it turned out: in vain I am slandering our own militia for the time being. Lidia Timofeevna Vasilyeva, director of the Porkhov Museum of Local Lore in the recent past, and now chairman of the local branch of the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, told me how it was. The lion's tail was torn off (sawed off?) back in Volyshev. They made a hole in a metal box and ...

It was then that the museum workers agreed with the police that, until better times, they would take the Volishev griffins under close guard. This was done in an original way: the guard lions were transported to Porkhov and placed in front of the entrance to the police department.

Since then, they have become another of the many attractions of ancient Porkhov, founded in 1239 by Prince Alexander, the future Nevsky, during his honeymoon trip along the Shelon River.

The guard lions are alert From the Volishevsky palace.

With gray dews it comes Behind the police gardens, beyond the Bottom, As it has been done since ancient times, With the dawn of the dawn at the same time Its expanse. in the firmament

Bonfires are living constellations. In the thinning darkness in the morning, Coals are warm in the ashes, Dew is smoking on the ground, Where sentinel lions are sensitive

From old troubles and new foolishness Protect the county town And heal the comfort of dreams On the wings of fairy-tale bear Towards the morning azure.

And we - full of these dreams - We believe everything: the fairy tale is right, Where is the birthright of Christmas, Where is the first light of the constellation Leo Above the mirror of Sheloni.