It sits high on a hillside above the Gulf of Finland, probably the least known of all former Imperial estates that dot this shoreline like a string of jewels on a glittering necklace. Mikhailovskaya was never home to a sovereign, and it could never rival the magnificence of nearby Znamenka or Strelna. But it provided a comfortable country summer retreat for the family of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich, a welcome refuge from the social responsibilities that defined life in their magnificent palace overlooking the Neva River.
The estate originally came into existence during the reign of Peter the Great and consisted of several distinct properties. One was given to Tsar's cook Johann Velten; another to a Russian shipbuilder named Tikhon Lukin; a third, christened with the name “Favorit,” belonged to Peter's friend and confidant Prince Alexander Menshikov; and a fourth to Senator Count Ivan Musin-Pushkin.1
These estates changed hands frequently throughout the Eighteenth Century.2 Kirill Razumovsky, President of the Academy of Sciences and Hetman of Little Russia, received one of the estates in the reign of Empress Elizabeth: he named the dacha Hetman's Grange. His brother Alexei, who almost certainly had secretly married the Empress, received an adjoining dacha. But in the first decade of the Nineteenth Century, after further owners came and went, the other estates were all purchased by Princess Vera Shakhovskaya, who christened the new property “Mon Calme.”3
In May of 1834, the Imperial Department of Appanges under Nicholas I purchased Hetman's Grange and Mon Calme as a future estate for the Emperor's fourth son, the two-year-old Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich. One of the existing dachas was demolished, and a small village was moved closer to the St. Petersburg Highway. The estate was replanted with hundreds of pine, birch, fir, and oak trees; swamps were drained; new bridges were built over the streams; and a new system of roadways and paths was laid out.4
In 1850, Nicholas I asked architect Andrei Stackenschneider to draw up plans for a summer residence at Mikhailovskaya, as the estate had come to be called, suitable for his fourth son and any future wife and children. None of the existing structures would be adequate to the needs of a Grand Duke, his family, and his court, and it was decided that a new residence was needed.5 Although Stackenschneider designed and built a greenhouse and gardener's house, construction of the new residence was continually postponed, and the plans were abandoned altogether when the Crimean War broke out.6
In 1857 Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich married Princess Cecilia of Baden and plans for a summer residence at Mikhailovskaya were revived. For unknown reasons, Stackenschneider was removed from the project; perhaps he as simply frustrated at the lack of progress, as he remained in charge of designing the Grand Duke's massive palace in St. Petersburg. The commission thus went to architect Iosif Charlemagne. He conceived a large and rambling structure that in some respects resembled Queen Victoria’s summer residence Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Both were Italianate in style; asymmetrical in composition; and consisted of large, separate blocks linked by arcaded galleries and small wings. This was the design which was built at Mikhailovskaya, although not without even more controversy. For unknown reasons, both the Grand Duke and the Minister of the Imperial Court Count Vladimir Adlerberg decided that Charlemagne should be removed from the project shortly after the site was cleared and the foundation laid in 1858. The commission was given to architect Harold Bosse; he took Charlemagne’s general concept as a guide but altered some of the details to save money. The St. Petersburg palace was a financial black hole, and apparently Michael Nikolaievich decided to cut back on his summer estate. Work went on for three years, with the residence finally being completed in 1862.7
The St. Petersburg Highway stretched west of the Imperial capital along the hillsides overlooking the Gulf of Finland. A small stone lodge and massive stone piers flanked the wrought iron gates opening to Mikhailovskaya’s drive. The estate comprised a little over a hundred acres. Much of this was left in a deliberately wild state and was modeled on English landscape ideas, with thick forest glades and meadows strewn with wildflowers. Small streams, crossed by delicately arched bridges, tumbled over rustic cascades that fed tranquil ponds overlooked by artificial mounds.8
A string of service and auxiliary buildings ringed the main residence. There was a greenhouse and a gardener’s cottage; a large, Italianate-style block to provide accommodation for the Grand Ducal court and servants; a massive stable building; a kennel; and a separate kitchen block. There was also a tennis court and a skittle alley for recreation, as well as the small Chapel of St. Olga, built in 1861 to the west of the main residence.9
At the end of the park, along the top of the hillside overlooking the Gulf of Finland, the landscape gave way to formal gardens. Graveled paths were fringed with parterres laid out with roses, and long axial walks between 200-year-old oaks led to small pavilions and seats giving scenic vistas over the distant waters of the Gulf.10 The residence was set on the bluff and flanked by a series of terraces inlaid with decorative tiles. Pedestals topped with ornamental vases flanked staircases leading to splashing fountains; classical colonnades and pergolas set with open metal lattice work were shaded by ivy, roses, honeysuckle and wild grapes, which were trained to climb over the framework to picturesque effect.11 Princess Marie of Greece, who in 1900 married Michael Nikolaievich’s son Grand Duke George, later wrote: “The view from our windows on the garden was very pleasant: there were masses of different kinds of trees and a lot of lilac bushes – which are particularly lovely in Russia – and beautiful flowers everywhere all around the house….We had a wonderful fruit garden there, too, and every morning the gardener sent us small round baskets containing every imaginable luscious fruit. We ate fruit all day.”12
Ostensibly the house was designed and carried out in a sort of neo-Italianate style, but it lacked the cohesion to be found at Queen Victoria’s Osborne House. The residence completely dwarfed its surroundings. It is difficult to know how to assess the ultimate blame for its final, unfortunate appearance. Bosse saw the structure through to its completion, but for the most part he apparently followed Charlemagne’s plans as the foundations had already been laid when he took over the project. The finished dacha was comprised, as was Osborne, of two separate buildings linked by galleries and arcades, resembling a sprawled-out letter W. But both pavilions were so large that they seemed to exist not as separate entities but rather as a long, rambling complex that lacked any central focal point. This design flaw, at least, was Charlemagne’s fault: Bosse merely followed his plans, although these were amended as time went on. Perhaps strained finances played some role in adversely affecting the outcome. Charlemagne was a talented if often fussy architect, who favored eclecticism and ornate detail piled on ornate detail, while Bosse was more restrained in his work, most often echoing severe neoclassical models.
Unfortunately, Mikhailovskaya embodied the worst tendencies and tastes of both men, offering up an incongruous and confusingly designed structure that lacked any sense of architectural unity. Part of the problem may have stemmed from the decision to make the house as “picturesque” as possible through deliberately asymmetrical facades, none of which bore more than a passing resemblance to the others, and then only because they offered up repetitious details: pilasters supported by Hermes carved by sculptor David Jensen; open arcades fringed with columns; rooftop peristyles; and windows crowned with arched or rounded hoods. Wings and porticoes projected and retreated, faced with colonnades that rambled across the complex in a sprawling mixture of varying heights and dotted with bay windows topped with open balconies fringed with more metal lattice work. The southern, main façade, viewed from the upper garden, presented a building that seemed absurdly vast, flung out around courtyards and along terraces. The northern side, overlooking the Gulf of Finland, continued this confusion, with the addition of a tall octagonal tower at the northeastern corner topped by belvedere.13
The building could have used a few more towers. As it was, the focus was horizontal. The decision to essentially erect two separate residences, one large and one small, linked together by colonnades containing corridors, only further emphasized the low, flung-out nature of the design. The massing was Victorian rather than Italianate: it resembled not so much a residence as it did a large sanatorium. One contemporary struggled to make sense of the finished structure: “The new palace, surrounded by terraces, intricate porticoes and verandas, is remarkable for the peculiarities of its varied architecture. With its considerable size, it most closely resembles a spacious pavilion.”14
A slightly projecting wing, barely discernable against the mass from which it sprouted, marked the main entrance on the south side. Here, wide steps flanked by two carved marble lions led to oak and glass doors. A vestibule with vaulted ceiling opened to the main staircase on the eastern side, and directly ahead to the Marble Hall. This rose two stories and was ringed by columns. Because it was at the center of the dacha, it lacked any exterior windows; to solve this problem, Bosse introduced an immense leaded glass skylight in the ceiling to flood the room with light. Rooms spread out from the Marble Hall. To the western side were the reception rooms, the ballroom, and the dining room. In contrast to the rather disparate elements of the exterior, these public rooms were nearly uniform in decoration. Bosse had originally conceived these rooms as grand evocations of Imperial power: he wanted columns and gilded cornices, but the Grand Ducal couple vetoed these ideas. They wanted a home, not a palace, though a home fully in keeping with their social positions. And so Bosse created an almost monochromatic color scheme, deploying white, soft pink, cream, and light greys to emphasize the dacha’s use as a summer residence. He used elements of rococo and neoclassicism, with delicate stucco reliefs and finely carved pilasters. Jensen added unique touches, carving caryatids to flank arched doorways as well as rocailles and foliate designs to adorn the ceiling. Immense mirrors, framed by carved rococo floral reliefs, helped to visually enlarge the spaces. Inlaid parquet floors, marble fireplaces, and crystal and ormolu chandeliers added to the luxurious effect, but the décor – especially when compared to the magnificent palace being built for the couple on the banks of the Neva – was almost severe in its restraint.15
The private apartments of the Grand Duke and his wife occupied the northwestern portion of the main block. Aside from the rather eclectic Gothic decoration used in the family dining room and in Michael Nikolaievich’s billiard room and study, these were executed rather simply, relying on cornices and wainscoting for their principal adornment. Many of these rooms opened directly to the terrace overlooking the Gulf of Finland and were deliberately finished in light chintzes and soft pastel colors. Grand Duchess George called the rooms “charming, though a bit old fashioned.”16 The second floor of the main block was given over to rooms for guests and for the couple’s children. Rooms for personal servants flanked corridors leading to the smaller, southern block, which contained additional suites for guests.17
Mikhailovskaya was completed a year after the Grand Duke’s palace in St. Petersburg. By this time, though, Alexander II had appointed his brother Michael Nikolaievich as Viceroy of the Caucasus, and the family moved to Tiflis. They returned to the capital only intermittently over the next eighteen years; when they did, they divided their time – according to the season – between their residence in St. Petersburg and their dacha at Mikhailovskaya. Only after Alexander II’s assassination in 1881 – and Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich’s appointment by Alexander III as Chairman of the State Council – did these two buildings come fully into their own as permanent residences.
After Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich’s death in 1909, the estate was inherited by his eldest son Nicholas Mikhailovich. He, along with his brothers George and Sergei Mikhailovich, regularly spent summers here, enjoying the cooling breezes that swept in from the Gulf of Finland. They last visited the estate in the summer of 1917, shortly before the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government that had replaced the Romanov Dynasty after the February Revolution.
Mikhailovskaya, like all former Romanov properties, was nationalized by the Soviet Government in 1918. A year later, authorities turned the former estate into the Krasnoye Zori Labor School. Apparently, little was done to maintain the property. The Chapel of St. Olga fell into disrepair and its dome collapsed. After the school was transferred to another site, the dacha was occupied by a branch of the Leningrad Geographical Museum.18
The dacha suffered immense damage during World War II. Artillery exchanged between the Soviet and German Armies repeatedly struck the building. The kitchen building was destroyed, several bridges were blown up, and other structures suffered significant deterioration. Windows in the dacha were blown out, and isolated fires destroyed much of the interior decoration. Unfortunately, no efforts were made to preserve the dacha and rain and snow filtered in through the gaping holes where windows had stood. Wooden floors warped, ceilings collapsed, and rot played havoc with the delicate plaster ornamentation as it cracked and crumbled into piles of dust.19
In the immediate aftermath of the war, no thought was apparently given to saving the structure. It was, after all, a rather unimportant secondary residence of a minor branch of the former Imperial Family; it lacked any real historical or architectural significance. The local government established a poultry farm in several of the surviving outbuildings. These, too, had suffered various degrees of damage and the necessary repairs were made using bits and pieces of the dacha, either stonework that had been blasted away or fallen off or interior fittings like doors and railings. This, in effect, left the house a cavernous ruin, still open to the elements and slowly deteriorating in the harsh northern winters.20
In 1952 the government transferred the dacha to the Naval Ministry for use as a maritime training facility. As a result, the residence underwent extensive repairs to make it sound; broken windows were replaced; walls were painted in gloomy industrial shades; and floors and ceilings were reinforced. Rubble was swept away, including the moldings and stucco reliefs which had once adorned the walls. No efforts were made to restore the once elaborate interiors, although the ruins of several outbuildings were rebuilt to accommodate offices.21
Leningrad authorities eventually moved the offices of the maritime training facility and in 1967 gave the former estate to the Kirov Industrial Works as a rest home and recreational center for its workers. The former ceremonial halls and private apartments housed tables for dining and tables for games, while workers were lodged in the old outbuildings which had been converted to residential rooms. In the 1970s some restoration work was carried out in the dacha to strengthen the structure. While the efforts did not extend to recreating the original ornate decoration, they at least ensured that the dacha was sound and that what had survived to that point was saved from oblivion.22
In 2006 the Russian Government took control of the property. The estate was given to the St. Petersburg State University for use as a campus for the Graduate School of Management; this included a fifteen-year lease on the dacha, but possession was conditional. The university had to promise that, in exchange for being allowed to build the necessary new classroom blocks and student accommodation on the site, it would properly restore the house to its 1917 condition and appearance.23
An extensive building program began. Portions of the garden and park were cleared of trees and leveled, and new modern buildings to house classrooms, administration, and residential dormitories were erected. The former stable was restored and nearby a massive dining hall for a thousand was built. The focus was on new construction; despite the terms of the lease, the former dacha was essentially ignored. Windows were boarded over and the entire building was ringed by a tall fence to prevent vandalism.
By 2020, nothing had been done to restore the dacha. With the estate now open, both students and visitors soon made their ways past the fence and into the former residence. Windows were broken and graffiti spray painted across walls. Given that the university had failed to honor the terms of its lease, the St. Petersburg Regional Government declared that the dacha had reverted to the state. It now sat abandoned and forlorn, surrounded by concrete and glass structures completely out of character with the original architecture.
Mikhailovskaya had existed – and continues to exist – in an unfortunate netherworld. It had never been an important Imperial residence; it lacked the sort of connection to Nicholas II that drove restoration of the Alexander Palace or the ongoing efforts to reconstruct the Lower Palace at Alexandria, Peterhof. The fact that it was so clearly an architectural nonentity worked against the building’s preservation. It would never attract the kind of attention given to other nearby estates.
Recognizing this, in September 2023 the government announced that the dacha and its immediate garden were to be leased. Once again, the lease was contingent on restoration. An auction was held for the lease, but curiously there was only one bidder, a newly formed limited liability company called the Mikhailovskaya Dacha Palace and Park Ensemble. And so, without competition, the mysterious company became possessor of the former house for a mere 1 ruble. Given the relative obscurity of the estate as well as Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the transaction received little press attention, and no one seems to have questioned how this unlikely situation had come about.
According to the terms of the lease, the Mikhailovskaya Dacha Palace and Park Company has seven years to completely restore the building. It remains to be seen if, this time, the terms of the lease will be fulfilled and if the former residence will be saved from ruin.
Source Notes
1.https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf;http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; Citywalls.ru; Gorbatenko, 219; Andreeva, 126-27.
2. https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On.
3.https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf;Citywalls.ru; Gorbatenko, 220; Andreeva, 127-28.
4.https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf;http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; Gorbatenko, Andreeva, 128-29.
5.https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf.
6. http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; Andreeva, 129.
7.https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf;http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; Andreeva, 130-31.
8.https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf; Gorbatenko, 223-24.
9.https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf;http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; Andreeva, 133-34.
10.https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm;https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf.
11.https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/;https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29 _11_dacha_less.pdf; Citywalls.ru; Gorbatenko, 224; Andreeva, 134-35.
12. Marie Georgievna, 77.
13. http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm; Andreeva, 134-36.
14. https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On.
15.https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/ 29_11_dacha_less.pdf; Citywalls.ru; Andreeva, 136-39.
16. Marie Georgievna, 77.
17.https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf; Andreeva, 138-40.
18.http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm;https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/.
19.https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; Citywalls.ru; Gorbatenko, 225-26; Andreeva, 140.
20.https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf; Andreeva, 140.
21. https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; Andreeva, 140-41.
22.https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm;https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/; Andreeva, 141-42.
23.(https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On;https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf; https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/.
Bibliography
Andreeva, V. I. Dvortsovo-parkovyy ansambl' Mikhaylovskoy dachi. St. Petersburg: Orbis, 2000.
Gorbatenko, S. B. Peterhofskaya doroga. St. Petersburg: Glagol, 2002.
Marie Georgievna, Grand Duchess. A Romanov Diary. New York: Atlantic International, 1989.
Citywalls.ru
https://dzen.ru/a/YkdcotwnZA9f0On
http://www.adresaspb.ru/arch/adresa_08/08_020/08_20.htm
https://gsom.spbu.ru/files/upload/gsom/about/29_11_dacha_less.pdf
https://vsevolozhski.ru/zabroshennaya-usadba-mihajlovka-mihajlovskaya-dacha/