Vyazoymy estate

Here lived Princess Golitsina - the prototype of Pushkin's Queen of spades

In the XVI century, Vyazyomy was the last station on the Great Smolensk road before Moscow. At that time the king Fedor gave Big Vyazyomy to Boris Godunov, and he was started here a big construction. By 1598 in the estate was built:

• the five-domed four-columned church in the name of the Transfiguration,
• wooden boyar house,
• The Church of St. Nicholas,
• Fair house,
• Monastery of St. John The Evangelist
• Wooden wall with five towers surrounded the entire complex, creating a powerful fortress

Currently there are only the building of the Cathedral and the belfry, but they are gorgeous.

In the era of the time of troubles Vyazyomy became the seat of the false Dmitry, in the spring of 1606, stayed here his future wife Marina Mnishek and his retinue. In those days, there were fires that destroyed over half the village, including the wooden Palace of Boris Godunov.

In 1694 the king Peter the Great granted the estate to Prince Boris Golitsyn:

"For saving during the Streltsy rebellion."

Golitsyn has restored the church, built near the main house, the parish house and all was enclosed by a stone wall. Manor house-palace in Vyazyomy, which we can see today was built in 1784 by the great grandson of Prince Boris Golitsyn, a retired Colonel Nikolay Golitsyn. The construction of the two wings ended even earlier - in the early 1770-ies, at the same time a regular park. In one of the wings now hosts exhibitions, in another placed the administration of the museum complex.

In the times of Boris Godunov a dam was built at the river Vasenka which formed a picturesque lake, on which now, in summer, you can take a boat trip. In 1820 through the dam there was built a stone bridge.

In 1812, after the battle of Borodino, on the way to Moscow in Vyazyomy stayed the Chief of the Russian army Mikhail Kutuzov, and then Napoleon. In honor of the stop the two armies of the Patriotic war of 1812, in the territory of the reserve there is a memorial sign.

In 1882 the estate passed to the new owner Dmitry Golitsyn. The estate was returned to the organization after a period of neglect, its former owner lived in France. In 1908 Dmitry gave part of the land beyond the railway line under construction of the holiday village, this place has gradually grown the town of Golitsyno.

Three kilometers from the estate of the Golitsyn's Big Vyazemy is Zakharovo manor house - the former estate of the grandmother of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin - Maria Hannibal. In this grandmother's estate near Moscow has passed the early childhood of the poet. Pushkin often came to Big Vyazemy from grandmother's estate. At the wall of the Spaso-Preobrazhenskiy church on the territory of the estate, buried his younger brother Nicholas, who died suddenly at the age of 6 years.

In this estate, one of the balls given by Prince Golitsyn, Pushkin first saw Natalya Goncharova. It is considered that in the novel "Eugene Onegin" Zakharovo is the prototype of the Larins' estate, and Big Vyazemy – estate of Onegin. Princess Natalya Golitsyna, the mother of the owner of the estate B. Golitsyn, became the prototype of the heroine of Pushkin's "Queen of spades", because of what the Palace of Golitsyns sometimes called "the House of Queen of spades".