Abramtsevo Estate

Sergei Aksakov owned the estate first and wrote here; Gogol and Turgenev visited. In 1870 the railway builder Savva Mamontov bought it, and over the next twenty years it became the base of a working artists' colony - Repin, Vasnetsov, Serov, Vrubel, Polenov, Nesterov and others came, stayed, and made things together. Serov painted Girl with Peaches here, of Mamontov's daughter, in the dining room. Vasnetsov designed a small church in 1882 in a deliberately old Russian manner that everyone in the circle helped build, and a hut on chicken legs from the fairy tales stands in the park. Workshops on the estate revived woodcarving and produced ceramics, with Vrubel making tiles and a stove; the aim was to build a modern Russian style out of peasant craft, and much of what became the national style in the 1890s came out of this house. The park runs down to the Vorya.

History

The writer Sergei Aksakov owned the estate first, and his guests, Gogol among them, talked of reviving a purely national style in Russian art. Savva Mamontov bought it in 1870, eleven years after Aksakov's death, and in the 1870s and 1880s it hosted a colony of artists with workshops for furniture, ceramic tiles and silks; Polenov and Vasnetsov designed its church, with an iconostasis by Repin and Nesterov, and it became a state museum-reserve on 12 August 1977 (Wikipedia, Abramtsevo Colony).

Highlights

• The 1882 church - a small church designed by Vasnetsov and built by the whole circle.
• The dining room - where Serov painted Girl with Peaches.
• The hut on chicken legs - a fairy-tale structure built in the park.
• The Vrubel ceramics - tiles and a stove from the estate workshops.

When to go

May to September for the park. Half a day. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Before you go

Buildings are ticketed individually and some open only on certain days. The main house is entered on timed guided visits. It is a walk of over a kilometre from the station. The park is muddy after rain.

Nearby

Khotkovo is the nearest town; Sergiev Posad is a short train ride north.

Key facts