This is Belvedere - an empty palace in Peterhof

Restoration of the Belveder Palace, repair of the sleeping building and turning it into a hotel, creating a recreation area with golf polish in a meadow park.

The one -story building, which was sheathed with a tree, embarrasses, which is designated as a banquet hall in the “Yandex.Maters”. When exactly it was erected, it is unclear, but, as the “paper” was told in KKI, the Gosstroynadzor did not issue a building permit.

Committee on Property Control, Property Relations Committee, Rosstat.

In the Lugovoi Park of Peterhof, a palace of Belveder, an unusual building of the XIX century, similar to an ancient temple, stands in the distance from tourist attractions.

In social networks and reviews on Yandex.Marts, they often write that Belveder is an architectural monument of federal significance - is in private property. This is what people explain the advanced state of the building - the plaster is crumbling inside and outside.

"Paper" visited Belvedere and I found out: the building is the property of St. Petersburg, but a common misconception appeared by chance. We tell the story of the palace, which in the 1990s wanted to make partly a part of an elite golf club, but nothing came of it.

How the Palace of Belveder was built and why in the 1990s it turned out to be abandoned

Imagine: you arrived at the New Peterhof station, but instead of admiring the fountains, you went to the opposite side from them - to the Lugovaya Park. There is the Palace of Belveder - a magnificent building, similar to an ancient temple. Among tourists, the location is not so popular, but the locals often come here to walk.

Belvedere translated from Italian means "beautiful view." Usually the pavilion on the hill or the palace, located in a picturesque place, is called. Famous examples are complexes in Vienna and Warsaw .

From the steps of the Peterhof Belvedere, a magnificent view of the park and ponds really opens. Probably, from the gallery on the second floor, the area looks even better, but this cannot be checked - now the building is closed and sealed.

Belveder was built in the 19th century by order of Nicholas I. The emperor himself drew a sketch of the future palace and chose a place for him. The project was engaged in architect Andrei Staktenshneider. True, the construction went about 4 years and completely ended when Nicholas I had already died: the work dragged on due to problems with the supply of marble columns from Italy.

After the death of Emperor, Belveder was used as a house for hunting and picnics, the palace was also a secret meeting place of Alexander II and Ekaterina Dolgoruka.

After the revolution, the health resort of the Academy of Arts was here. As the poet and publicist Georgy Ivanov recalled , not everyone appreciated the luxury of the palace - some vacationers allegedly painted with pencils and put them in their mouths, but they could not find the photographs “paper” confirming them.

During the Great Patriotic War, the palace was badly damaged , and the layout of the garden, which surrounded it, was destroyed. Presumably, it was then that the sculptures of the authorship of Peter Klodt disappeared - there are still empty pedestals in front of the building.

In the 1950s, Belvedere was restored and opened again-already as a rest house. Nearby appeared another housing in the form of a semicircle. In the last years of the existence of the Soviet Union in the palace there was a dispensary of Lenles, and after the collapse of the USSR, the building was temporarily ownerless and for several years was abandoned.

How the surroundings of Belvedere wanted to turn into an elite golf club, but nothing came of it

In the mid-1990s, goodwill games were held in St. Petersburg-sports competitions that were conceived as an alternative to the Olympic Games. The event was so inspired by the mayor of Anatoly Sobchak that he decided to hold in the city and the summer Olympics.

Sobchak created a special committee, which was supposed to develop a plan for preparing St. Petersburg for the 2004 Olympic Games. Its composition, for example, included Vladimir Putin and Alexei Kudrin: the first was responsible for external ties, the second for finances.

It was planned that many objects to the Olympics - roads, sports arenas and hotels - will be built from scratch. Among such projects was a golf club in the vicinity of the Belveder Palace in Peterhof. Golf then did not enter the competition program, but the site could attract tourists.

Anatoly Karasev, who had previously worked in the Committee on External Relations of St. Petersburg, took up the golf club. He created Peter-Golf and in 1996 entered into an investment agreement with the city administration.

According to the document , Karasev was supposed to restore the Belveder Palace, restore the sleeping corps built in the 1950s and adapt it to the hotel, as well as create a recreation area with golf polishes. In return, he received the palace for 49 years, and the hotel building went into the ownership of Peter-Golf. It was planned to complete the work just by 2004.

In 1998, Karasev began problems with finances against the background of default, but he found an investor-entrepreneur Alexei Rybin, who was engaged in the computer business. Rybin agreed to allocate the money, but only on condition that he will become the owner of the controlling stake in Peter Golf.

The deal took place, work began in the meadow park, but already in 2002 the construction and restoration was stopped due to the conflict of partners. According to investigators , Rybin decided to remove the colleague from the post of general director, but Karasev falsified the protocol of the next meeting of Peter-Golf, returned his position and sold the almost ready-made hotel for 15 million rubles-independent experts evaluated the building several times more expensive.

A few years later, the fish managed to return the property through the court, and the former official Anatoly Karasev received five years conditionally for fraud. While the trial was going on, the control of the palace Belveder moved from one department to another - at first it was given an aupic (Ministry of Culture), then he was returned to the property of St. Petersburg.

Meanwhile, the 2004 summer Olympics was held in Athens. It is not known exactly whether there is a connection between these events, but Rybin eventually refused the construction of a golf club and decided to launch only a hotel called Belvedere in the meadow park-in 2010 it really opened in the building of the sleeping building. Eyewitnesses wrote that at the same time a banquet hall worked in the Belvedere - they held weddings and presentations there.

The next stage is the courts of Peter Golf with St. Petersburg, which began in 2011 and continued until 2020. The authorities decided to break the investment agreement, since the company did not fulfill the obligations in time, as well as evict it from the rented premises. “Peter-Golf”, in turn, demanded 70 million rubles from the city-such an amount, according to Rybin, he spent Belvedere on the restoration of the Palace. The entrepreneur’s lawsuit was not satisfied.

It did not end peacefully - the company Rybina continued to occupy the Palace of Belveder, but it is already illegal, as the media wrote . In 2018, the employees of the property control committee held a raid and carried out two dozen beds from the building. “Apparently, it was something like a hotel, it is possible that with escort services,” the department said then. According to another version, in the premises of the palace they simply stored furniture from the sleeping building, which Alexei Rybin was then rented by the Chinese company Hua Shen.

After the incident in 2018, as the “paper” was told in the property control committee, the Belveder Palace was no longer used. The hotel in the sleeping building, judging by the reviews, worked until 2019, but now it is also empty. Presumably, this may be due to the fact that the tenant Hua Sheng did not pay for the rental of premises and he was evicted.

What is happening with the Belveder Palace now and what are the plans for him

Now the Belvedere Palace is empty again, as once in the 1990s, and slowly falls into the decline. At the building there is an ad “passage is prohibited! Perhaps the fall of the structural elements ”, but this does not stop visitors - people climb the steps and walk among pieces of collapsed stucco molding and broken drainage pipes. In early October, “Paper” visited the palace and saw in the windows that the floor inside was also filled with plaster and paint.

Locals and tourists are concerned about the state of Belvedere. “It is in desolation”, “looks very bruised and neglected”, “The sad sight of its former beauty,” users write in the reviews of the palace on Yandex.Marts. As several visitors noted in the correspondence with the Paper , the situation was aggravated in 2021.

Some believe that Belveder is destroyed, since he was transferred to private hands. As the “paper” found out, this is not true - according to the extract from Rosreestr, the palace is still owned by St. Petersburg.

Probably, the misconception about the owner appeared for several reasons. So, one of the aisles in the Lugovaya Park, which is located from the Babigonsky highway, is fenced - presumably the owners of the hotel in the sleeping building at Belvedere. How legal installation of the fence is not clear. As the “paper” was reported to the KGIOP, the Lugovaya Park is included in the list of green spaces of public, so its territory is available for relaxation to a wide range of people. But now people are forced to get there through a hole in Rabitsa.

Plus, the hotel next to the Belvedr has signs with information that this is a private territory. Visitors mistakenly may think that the ads also relate to the palace itself, but it belongs to the city.

The authorities are responsible for the safety of Belvedere, namely the housing agency of the Petrodvortsovy district. A form hangs on the door of the building, according to which it was precisely this department that sealed the entrance to the palace. A sticker is also attached to the glass, which states that video surveillance is conducted at the object. Paper found that the agency planned to spend about 1.2 million rubles on the protection of the building in 2021.

Belvedere is not rented out and is not used in any way, they told the “paper” in several departments at once. But the Committee of Property Relations says that they think how to "involve the building in economic circulation."

Visitors want Belvedere to become a museum - many dream of getting inside to listen to an excursion about the palace, admire marble columns and mosaic on the floor. This could be realized in two ways - on budget or on private funds, but it is not very clear how attractive Belvedere is for investors.

A security obligation has been approved in relation to the palace - this means that his user must repair the building by coordinating his actions with the KGIOP. Part of the work must be performed by 2024.

Often developers perceive this as an additional problem and do not take up projects. One of the examples is the stable department in St. Petersburg, whose fate has not been able to decide for ten years. They wanted to turn a federal monument into an apart-hotel, but the investor abandoned the project. According to the latest data, the building can be given to Moscow entrepreneurs under the Ruble per meter program.

What will happen to the Belvedere further is unclear. Among local residents and guides there are rumors that the building can be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Peterhof GMZ or the RSPU named after Herzen, but there is no official confirmation of this.

In recent months, news feeds have been filled with messages about plaster falling from the walls, cut balconies and fires at historical facilities. Read our detailed material about why the center of St. Petersburg is destroyed.

They worked on the material

The author of the text is Anastasia Rozhkova, editor - Tatyana Ivanova, literary editor - Vladislav Petrova, photographer - Nikolai Nikitin, visual producer - Maria Slepkova.

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