Three Estates of Eastern Vladimir Land

Description

A country-estate day east of Vladimir: three houses with very different fates but one theme — provincial aristocracy that built as well as the capitals and lost everything just as hopelessly. The roads come to about a hundred and fifty kilometres; the route is convenient from Moscow via Petushki or from Vladimir, as one long day or a weekend. It starts at Andreyevskoye on the left bank of the Peksha: the estate of the Vorontsovs-Dashkovs, a monument of federal significance. The late-eighteenth-century classicist palace stands in the eastern part of a park of about ninety thousand square metres, with a service wing, a stable yard, a smithy and the church of St. Andrew nearby. Museum and memoir records have Suvorov here in 1784–1785, Radishchev in 1797, Bagration in 1812 and Pushkin in 1833. Access varies — the object is on the regional balance sheet — but the park reads well even when the palace is closed. Next comes Zherekhovo, the ensemble of the Vsevolozhskys-Obolenskys, a rare blend of eighteenth-century baroque and early-nineteenth neo-Gothic. The main house with semicircular galleries and candle-shaped towers, the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh of 1731 and the ruins of the Bogolyubskaya church of 1869 form one complex, part of the “Suvoro places” itinerary. Some interior elements were taken to the Vladimir-Suzdal museum in the 1920s, so look for volumes and silhouettes here rather than museum furniture. The finale is the best-known name of the route: Muromtsevo, the neo-Gothic “castle” of Vladimir Khrapovitsky. It was built in 1884–1889 and completed by about 1906; the design is linked to architect Pyotr Boytsov. Towers, weathervanes and pinnacles still do their job on the skyline — the classic view opens from the approach from Sudogda. Since 2014 the estate has belonged to the Vladimir-Suzdal museum-reserve, its condition is poor, and entering the unsafe buildings on your own is forbidden: photograph from outside and plan a visit through the museum.