Arkhangelskoye Estate

Arkhangelskoye was developed from the 1780s by the Golitsyn family and then transformed after 1810 by Nikolai Yusupov, one of the richest men in Russia and a serious collector who had been director of the Hermitage and of the imperial porcelain works. He moved his collection here: several hundred paintings including Tiepolo, Van Dyck, Boucher and Robert, sculpture, porcelain, and a library of tens of thousands of volumes, hung and arranged in a palace built to display them, above terraced gardens dropping in stages to the Moskva with balustrades, statuary and clipped planting in the Italian manner. There is a serf theatre with Gonzaga stage sets, one of very few such survivals anywhere, and a Yusupov mausoleum built just before the family lost everything. Pushkin visited twice. The estate survived as a museum from 1919 and restoration has run for decades.

History

The Golitsyns owned the estate from 1703 to 1810, when Prince Nikolai Yusupov bought it, and it stayed with the Yusupovs until 1917; today it is a state museum. Jacob Guerne built it in a neoclassical style, with the palace facing the Moskva above a terraced park of antique statues, and its theatre was designed by the Italian stage designer Pietro Gonzaga (Wikipedia, Arkhangelskoye Palace).

Highlights

• The Yusupov collection - paintings, sculpture and porcelain in a palace built to hold them.
• The terraced gardens - Italianate levels with balustrades and statuary above the Moskva.
• The serf theatre - a rare survival with painted Gonzaga stage sets.
• The mausoleum - built for the family shortly before they lost the estate.

When to go

May to September for the gardens. Two to four hours. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays; the palace has separate opening from the park.

Before you go

Parts of the estate have been under restoration for years and sections are closed. The palace and park are separate tickets. Getting there needs a car or a bus from the metro. Busy at summer weekends.

Nearby

Krasnogorsk is east; Zvenigorod and the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery are west.

Key facts