Alupka- a resort town as part of Big Yalta, located at the foot of Mount Ai-Petri, 17 km south-west of the city of Yalta in Crimea.
Vorontsov Palace and its park complex - "Zest" Alupka landscape and
the main attraction of the seaside town.
Holidays on the Black Sea in Alupka attracts tourists with a mild climate without sharp seasonal fluctuations, healing sea and pine air, in which you can breathe easily and freely, as well as a picturesque view of the surroundings of a Russian seaside town on South Bank Crimea.
A particularly mesmerizing view opens up to Alupka from the sea: in the center of the panorama, on a hill, the magnificent Alupka Palace (Vorontsovsky) flaunts; The buildings of coastal sanatoriums stretch along the sea in a chain and are buried in the greenery of parks, and above them the battlements of the majestic Ai-Petri mountain dominate.
Ai-Petrinsky mountain range - one of the highest in Crimea. Like a shield, it closes Alupka from the northern cold winds, and the largest number of sunny days per year (in comparison with the Black Sea resorts of the Caucasus) make this town on the Black Sea coast an excellent resort - the second after Yalta on South coast Crimea.
Vorontsov Palace in Alupka.
Vorontsov Palace(Alupka) is the former summer Crimean residence Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Territory Count Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov.
Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov
Portrait of Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov by Lawrence, 1823.
Count, since 1845 - prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov(May 18 or 19, 1782 - November 6 or 7, 1856) - Russian statesman from the Vorontsov family, Field Marshal General (1856), Adjutant General (1815), hero of the 1812 war. In 1815-1818 he was the commander of the Russian occupation corps in France. In 1823-1854 he was the Novorossiysk and Bessarabian Governor-General; in this position he contributed a lot to the economic development of the region, the construction of Odessa and other cities.
The customer and the first owner of the Alupka Palace. In 1844-1854 he was the governor in the Caucasus.
HISTORY OF THE VORONTSOV PALACE
The estate was conceived as the summer residence of the Governor-General Mikhail Vorontsov, who had many estates in different regions of the country and was considered the richest landowner in Russia. In 1824, the possessions of the Revelioti family, who owned for the most part the southern coast of Taurida. Vorontsov invites the German botanist Karl Kebach, who took up the first plantings, from which the Vorontsov Park appeared.
In 1824, they begin to erect and Vorontsov Palace... The architects were Thomas Harrison (Vorontsov spent all his childhood and youth in England, so he decided to trust an experienced British architect) and Francesco Boffo (he created Vorontsov's palace in Odessa). The palace was conceived in the neoclassical style. Four years later, the foundation was laid, but Harrison died suddenly in 1829.
Mikhail Vorontsov himself in 1831 decides to suspend construction and decides to change the style of the palace. He went to England to Edward Blore and he only based on the presented drawings of the area created his own project based on English Gothic. Blore himself never appeared in Alupka - Vorontsov Palace in Crimea It was erected by his student William Gunt, who was recommended by the architect himself.
Gunt made a number of changes to the project. Thus, Alupka's Vorontsov Palace is designed in the Tudor style, which was so popular in England in the 16th century. But given that Turkish influence was still felt in Crimea, then south gate in contrast to the northern ones, they are made in the eastern Indo-Moorish style. The composition was complemented by marble lions by the sculptor Giovanni Bonnani. The palace was under construction until 1848. The park was finished 3 years later. The palace has 150 rooms, divided between 5 buildings.
The peculiarity of the architecture of the palace is clearly visible from the sea side - it is in harmony with the Ai-Petri massif. This is not surprising, since the walls were supposed to be an extension of the mountains hanging over it.
For the manufacture of the palace, a local stone was used - diabase (a greenish-gray stone of volcanic origin), which was located in abundance in the district. It was blown up with dynamite and turned into blocks. In the park, you can still see many fragments of rocks from diabase.
Foreign masters who worked in the garden and serfs of Count Vorontsov took part in the work. Particularly successful was the sculptor Roman Furtunov, who was the only serf who received a salary equal to that of foreign masters.
After the death of Count Mikhail, the Vorontsov Palace of Crimea was inherited by children. First along the male line, then along the female. During the years of Soviet power, it was nationalized. It housed the dacha of the NKVD, and since 1952 a sanatorium. At this time, part of the furnishings of the palace was lost, in particular, the billiard table was lost, which after the collapse of the USSR was replaced by another one found in warehouses in Yalta.
The Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve fits perfectly into the amazing landscape with a mountain range, evergreen vegetation and several narrow streets of the town that rise uphill from the sea coast.
It is built from diabase- a material that is twice as strong as granite and is mined on the Crimean peninsula. The gray-green color of the stone creates a single architectural composition of the Vorontsov Palace with nature.
The palace was designed by an English architect Edward Blore. Construction was carried out from 1828 to 1848. The decoration lasted until 1852. The architecture of the palace is unique. It consists in a combination of different styles:
- The North Facade is late English Gothic;
- The West Facade is European medieval castle, fortress of 8-12 centuries;
- South - elements of India and the East. Huge dome of the South facade with Arabic inscriptions, open towards the Black Sea, has a romantic look. The "Lion's Terrace" with gradually alert "kings" of animals adorns the magnificent staircase leading to the entrance to the castle from the side of the park. Three pairs of lions from Carrara white marble made in the studio of the Florentine sculptor Bonnani, but the most famous (lower) - "The Sleeping Lion"
Shuvalovsky passage.
The palace ensemble consists of 5 buildings, open and closed courtyards, terraces. Vorontsov Palace looks both austere and graceful, stable and romantic.
The western part of the palace (the so-called Shuvalovsky passage) appears to tourists in the form of a stone-paved street medieval town with old fortress walls with powerful towers and narrow windows-loopholes. The daughter of Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov, having married, became Countess Shuvalova, and her apartments were located in the right building.
North facade
In front of the palace there are two parterres with marble fountains in the center of each. In a shady pergola of blooming wisteria he took refuge
Fountain "Selsibil" - a copy of the "Fountain of Tears" from the Khan's palaces in Bakhchisarai, praised by Pushkin.
Nearby, at the left wing of the palace - white marble fountain "Source of Cupid".
The southern facade of the palace.
The southern facade is famous for a high portal with a deep niche, on the frieze of which the saying is inscribed in Arabic script
"There is no conqueror but Allah."
Marble lion on the south terrace.
PALACE INTERIORS
The main exhibition includes 10 rooms. The rooms on the upper floor are closed so as not to overload the weakened ceilings. The excursion begins through a side entrance leading to the corridor that led to the count's office. Initially, the rooms on the ground floor served as a bedroom for the Vorontsov couple. The main rooms opened in the exposition "ceremonial halls of the main building":
1. Front office;
2. Dining room with a balcony for musicians;
3. Greenhouse, including a collection of rare plants from distant countries;
4. Billiard room;
5. Calico room;
6. Chinese Cabinet;
7. Lobby;
8. Blue living room, the walls of which are decorated with stucco roses. Also on display here is a grand piano that is not original in Vorontsov's interior.
Each of the 150 rooms that make up the palace ensemble is unique: the Calico Room, the Blue Living Room, the Front Dining Room, the Winter Garden, the Chinese Study, the Billiard Room, and the Vestibule. The luxury and love of the owners for their home is visible everywhere.
The special pride of the Alupka Palace is luxury fireplaces in the Gothic style, made of marbled limestone and polished diabase stone.
"Front lobby
The front lobby is located in the center of the palace. Two small vestibules are symmetrically adjacent to it from the south and north, and offices and lounges are located from the west and east. The northern vestibule, like the northern facade of the palace, is made in the English style. In contrast to the Englishness, the southern vestibule is decorated with carpets depicting the Persian Shah Fath Ali.
"Front Office"
The office looks rather restrained, in English, but the abundance of wood in the room gives warmth and coziness to the interior. The wallpaper was specially ordered in England.
The central place on the western wall of the office is occupied by the portrait of Count Vorontsov by Louise Desseme.
Massive wooden doors are complemented by oak paneling on the walls and a stucco wood-like ceiling. Against the wall is an antique ebony bookcase in Boulle style, bought by the owner of the palace. The cabinet is decorated with a tortoise shell and intricate carved bronze inlay.
A round table, English chairs and armchairs with Gothic carvings are snugly nestled next to a bookcase. This arrangement of furniture gives the office an atmosphere conducive not only to business conversations, but friendly meetings.
Another reminder of Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov's Anglomania is a bay window-shaped window. This element, often found in English architecture, visually enlarges the space of the study and gives more light. A table covered with a green cloth and two armchairs were placed in the bay window. Sitting in an armchair, you can admire the upper park, and in clear weather and the Ai-Petri peaks.
"The calico room"
From the study we find ourselves in the Calico room. It is called chintz because the walls of the room are really covered with chintz.
On the walls there is an original fabric, the only flaw of which is the faded color. Originally, the chintz was a crimson shade with small splashes of blue, which was combined with a fireplace made of pink Ural marble and a basket-shaped chandelier. The pinkish-blue reflections of the pendants on the chandelier echoed the color of the chintz on the walls.
Through the Calico room we pass into Chinese study of the hostess of the house Elizaveta Ksaveryevna Vorontsova, whose portrait by George Doe can be seen on the right wall from the entrance.
Portrait of Elizabeth Ksaveryevna Vorontsova, by George Doe.
"Chinese Cabinet"
The room is decorated in the then fashionable oriental style, but without any specific ties to China, India or the countries of the East in general. Oak panels, tall lancet windows and doors leading to the south terrace, to the sea, are unexpectedly but successfully combined with silk and beaded rice mats on the walls and wood carvings in the interior.
The ceiling in the room is not wooden, as it might seem, but stucco. Russian peasant Roman Furtunov skillfully made the ceiling from plaster, imitating woodcarving.
In the corner between the windows is a valuable piece of furniture, a small corner cabinet.
It is made in the shape of a tortoise shell in the Boulle style, decorated with bronze, but it is especially valuable that it is a gift from Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I, as a token of gratitude for the hospitality shown by him to the owners of the house in Alupka.
And some lyrical digressions. From school, many know that Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was carried away by the wife of the Novorossiysk governor-general. It is believed that it was Elizaveta Vorontsova that Pushkin dedicated the poems "Burnt letter", "Rainy day went out ...", "Desire for glory", "Talisman", "Keep me, my talisman ...".
It was rumored that it was Pushkin who was the father of one of the daughters of Elizaveta Ksaveryevna. However, the researchers of the poet's biography have reason to believe that Pushkin was only a cover for the novel of Elizaveta Ksaveryevna with her relative and friend of Pushkin, Alexander Raevsky. In any case, we can say thanks to Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, who "contributed" to the change of the poet's southern link to a link to Mikhailovskoye. Because it was there that Alexander Sergeevich wrote not only the novel "Eugene Onegin", but also his other poetic works, which became the pride of Russian literature. And by the way, the same researchers claim that Vorontsov himself had an illegitimate daughter with his wife's best friend Olga Stanislavovna Naryshkina. Portraits of Olga Stanislavovna and her daughter were always kept among Vorontsov's personal belongings and even stood on the desktop of the front office.
"Front dining room"
The “Parade Dining Room” is the most majestic hall of the Vorontsov Palace.
The dining room area is about 150 square meters, the ceiling height is 8 m. Under the Vorontsovs, it was lit by dozens of candelabra and chandeliers. A huge table, made up of four shifted parts with polished mahogany countertops, rises atop beast-pawed pedestals and takes up much of the room. A massive sideboard was installed near the window on the same lion's legs as the tables, and under the sideboard there was an Egyptian-style bathtub for cooling the wine, which was filled with crushed ice.
In the center of the northern wall of the front dining room, between the fireplaces, there is a fountain, the niche of which is decorated with a majolica panel depicting fantastic birds and dragons. Above the fountain there is a carved wooden balcony for musicians.
"Kitchen"
"Blue living room"
The living room is divided into southern and northern parts by retractable wooden curtains, which are almost invisible when folded. In the southern part there was an "auditorium", where a set of furniture was located, transported to Alupka at the end of the 19th century from the Odessa Palace. The interior is complemented by a carved fireplace made of white Carrara marble and huge vases - craters painted in blue tones.
For musical evenings and theatrical performances, a grand piano is installed in the northern part of the Blue Living Room. In 1863, one of the founders of the Russian realistic theater Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin performed here. In 1898, Fyodor Chaliapin sang at the Vorontsov Palace to the accompaniment of Sergei Rachmaninoff.
"Billiard room"
There is a lot of wood here: panels, ceiling, parquet floor.
Sofas and chairs are upholstered in expensive olive satin satin. There are many paintings on the walls. The canvases of the painters of Holland, Flanders, Italy of the 16-18 centuries were especially appreciated then.
From the Blue Drawing Room the guests of the Vorontsovs went out to the Winter Garden. In the 19th century, almost every European palace had its own winter garden, which was used for reading and relaxation.
"Winter Garden"
Near the glazed wall, consisting of huge French windows, there is a row of marble busts, including sculptural portraits of representatives of the Vorontsov family - Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov, Mikhail Semenovich himself and his wife Elizaveta Ksarevna. Next to them is a marble bust of Catherine II by Johann Esterreich. They say that for the excessive realism of her image in stone, the aging empress not only did not pay for the work, but also expelled the sculptor from Russia within 24 hours.
The winter garden serves as a transition from the central building to the dining room. Initially, it was a loggia, which was later glazed, constructing a large lantern on top for better illumination. The walls of the winter garden are surrounded by ficus repens. The fountain and marble sculptures are surrounded by araucaria, cycad, date palms and monstera.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/u7-r7cK5dUE
"Vorontsovsky Park"
The work on the creation of the park, begun even a little earlier than the construction of the palace, in 1820, was entrusted to the chief gardener of the southern coast of Crimea Karl Antonovich Kebakh. When laying the park, the abundance of mountain springs was taken into account, which were used to create artificial lakes, numerous cascades and small waterfalls. In this part of the park, the murmur of water is incessantly heard.
Most of the paths in the Upper Park lead to lakes and the Great Chaos - a huge stone blockage of natural origin.
The largest of the park's lakes is Swan Lake. The gardener deliberately gave it an irregular shape in order to create the illusion of its natural rather than artificial origin. Under the Vorontsovs, the bottom of the lake was strewn with semiprecious "Koktebel pebbles" - jasper, carnelian, chalcedony, which were found in abundance in Koktebel.
Near Swan Lake - Trout Pond and even further - Mirror. On the Mirror Pond, the water seems motionless, which is why the trees and the sky are reflected on its surface like in a mirror.
To the east of the lakes, in the landscape part of the park, there are four picturesque glades - Platanovaya, Solnechnaya, Kontrastnaya, where Himalayan cedar and yew berry rise in the middle of the lawn, and Kashtanovaya.
Above the ponds, along a path through the Hall of grottoes, between skillfully placed fragments of rocks, the path leads to the Great and Lesser Chaos. Millions of years ago, frozen magma as a result of earthquakes and landslides turned into a scattering of huge debris. The creators of the park left the boulders intact, only removed small fragments and planted the top with pine trees. This is how the famous "Alupka chaos" turned out.
The Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve, also known as the Vorontsov Palace, was built in the period 1828-1848. designed by the English architect Edward Blore as the Crimean residence of Count Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov. The local landscape was used in its creation, and the main feature of the palace is a mixture of several diametrically opposed architectural styles.
The entrance to the territory of the palace is more like a castle of the European Middle Ages.
The palace was built of especially hard dolerite stone, the natural resources of which were located at the site of the future building. It is frozen magma, formerly called diabase. Dolerite is characterized by a high hardness of 6-7 units on the Mohs scale. This means that this material is so hard that it is used for paving roads, and can only be processed with diamond.
It sounds even more surprising when you learn that the palace was built by serfs from the Vladimir and Moscow provinces, working by hand with the most primitive tools.
This narrow corridor between two fortress-like walls is called Shuvalovsky Proezd. Counts Shuvalovs were relatives of the Vorontsovs. And somewhere here was located the apartment of Sophia - the daughter of Mikhail Semyonovich.
Through the passage we find ourselves in the courtyard. The textured treatment of the walls with "torn" stone is used here. We did not examine the museum expositions, limiting ourselves to external inspection.
The northern facade of the palace. Here you can already see the features not of a medieval fortress, but of an English country palace of the 16th century, for which large window openings and high chimneys are typical.
The western part of the palace is made in the neo-gothic style.
At the Vorontsov Palace there is a park, founded about 200 years ago, which includes more than 200 species of trees and shrubs from different countries of the world. The famous German gardener-architect Karl Kebach was specially invited to create it.
On especially interesting and rare specimens, there are plates with the name, homeland and approximate age. For example, this is an oriental plane tree from the western Mediterranean, 190 years old.
The park ensemble consists of upper and lower parks. The upper park is a natural diabase massif, also called "Alupka chaos". Paths are harmoniously laid through all these stones and plants.
Through the park we approach the eastern facade.
On the southern terrace, a wide staircase from the same diorite leads to the facade, on the sides of which there are sculptures of lions, made in the workshop of the Italian sculptor Bonanni. The southern façade itself is designed in Arabic style and with oriental splendor. Exactly this a nice place palace.
Horseshoe arch, two-tiered vault, plaster carving in a niche where the Tudor flower pattern and the lotus motif are intertwined. On the fresco of the niche, an inscription repeated six times with the saying from the Koran: "And there is no god but Allah."
The palace is located right at the foot of Mount Ai-Petri, we will also climb it, but a little later.
And what kind of sea view from the southern facade ...
The area around Alupka is rich in water, which made it possible to create more than a dozen different fountains in Vorontsov Park. Most of them were designed by V. Gunt.
The lower park is also diverse and begins with a gentle relief. It borders the Vorontsov Palace and is decorated in a classic park style.
And on the right is a large rose garden.
The Vorontsov Palace was nationalized after the revolution, the remaining property was supplemented with collections from other palaces on the south coast, and in 1921 a history and everyday life museum was opened here.
In years Patriotic War Crimea was occupied by German fascists. During the retreat, the Germans wanted to blow up the palace, but the explosion could not be carried out, this was prevented by museum workers.
In February 1945, during the Crimean Conference, the Alupka Palace was provided to the British delegation headed by W. Churchill, who even wanted to buy it.
From 1945 to 1955 there was a state dacha, referred to in the documents as "special object No. 3".
As a museum, the palace was reopened to visitors in 1956.
Vorontsov Palace in Alupka is a stunningly beautiful palace surrounded by a charming park, located at the foot of Ai Petri Mountain. There are a lot of attractions on the southern coast of Crimea, but Alupka is always full of tourist groups... There is something special and attractive about this place. The English castle of Count Vorontsov in the Crimea, immersed in greenery, leaves no one indifferent, and makes you come back there again and again.
The palace in Alupka is a former dacha, the summer residence of a prominent politician of the 19th century, the former governor of Novorossia, Mikhail Vorontsov. The love of the Russian politician for everything English was understandable - the father of Count Vorontsov was the ambassador of the Russian Empire to England, so Mikhail spent his entire childhood in London. After nationalization, the former residence became a museum.
On excursions in the Crimean Vorontsov Palace I was twice: the first time in April, the second time in August. In every season of the year, the palace and the grounds that adjoin it looked delightful. It is best to choose April or September to visit the palace, while the season is not crowded here.
In order to get to the main entrance to the palace, you need to walk along the narrow corridor of the palace walls (Shuvalovsky passage). It is pretty cool here in summer, as there is almost always a shadow here. When you come here for the first time, you don't expect to see a real English castle in Crimea. Passing along the narrow, harsh passage, the heart stops in anticipation of something unusual. And very soon curiosity will be rewarded with interest.
After passing the path through a corridor of powerful walls, tourists find themselves in a small square in front of the palace. Before the gaze there is a castle built in the English style, and by the same architect Edward Blair, who was the author of Buckingham Palace in London.
The first thing you pay attention to is the unusual material of the castle walls and walls. Later, according to the guide, we learned that this is a very hard and rare stone of volcanic origin - diabase. The palace was built by more than 6 thousand Vorontsov serfs, as well as skilled masons specially brought from the Moscow and Vladimir regions. Each stone has been handcrafted to create an unusual surface! The work must be said to be skillful and very painstaking. Vorontsov built this castle with his own money, for himself, conscientiously.
In the courtyard, we waited for the excursion group to form and, looking up, we saw the Ai-Petri teeth brightened by the sun's rays - a kind of pointed rocks located at the very top of the mountain. This is one of the best landscapes in Crimea!
The excursion to the Vorontsov Palace is free to enter, they are held every day. Each group is accompanied by a guide, the excursion is in Russian. It was very interesting to listen to the guide, from her lips we heard a lot of interesting information about the history of the palace.
A few minutes later we crossed the threshold and felt as if in an old English castle. The palace has many architectural features: on one side (north) the building resembles an English castle, and on the southern facade - a Moorish mosque. In addition, the castle is so skillfully inscribed in the mountain landscape that it seems as if nature itself created and placed it here.
The castle has more than 150 rooms, but about 9 ceremonial chambers are open for excursions.
This palace belonged to three generations of the Vorontsovs, so the interior elements changed slightly, because each owner wanted to bring something of his own, modern.
In the beginning we got to the front dining room. Particular attention was drawn to a small bowl, which somewhat resembled a miniature fountain. As it turned out, this bowl served to cool drinks.
Each room of the Vorontsov Palace has its own unique style and flavor. It was very pleasant to be in the blue room, I liked it the most. Here the walls are blue, with molded flowers and golden furniture.
The dining room, decorated in the English style, is very interesting.
In the office
After visiting several other rooms, we went out into the winter garden, where we saw a variety of species of tropical plants and graceful figurines.
Winter Garden
From the conservatory, there is an exit to the terrace overlooking the sea. When we arrived there, we saw beautiful sunset the sun, which looked very romantic against the background of the sea horizon.
Sea view from the terrace of the Alupka Palace
On the way to the sea, there is a staircase, on both sides of which there are sculptures of lions made of Carrara marble by an Italian master. There are also features here. At the very top of the terrace, there are awake lions, at the very bottom of the terrace there are figures of sleeping lions.
Lions, the terrace of the Palace in Alupka
Sleeping lions, Alupka
The Vorontsov Palace is surrounded by a magnificent park with many unusual plants from the subtropics and beyond. Walk through it in summer time years when everything blooms and pleases the eye - a pleasure.
Alupka Park is divided into two parts: Upper and Lower. The upper part of the park is more "wild", while the lower part is a well-kept classic English-style park.
A copy of the Bakhchisarai fountain can be seen in the park.
A copy of the Bakhchisarai fountain
In the "wild" part of the park, numerous waterfalls, lakes, swans, and trees of unusual shapes are hidden.
Alupka Park also has its own attractions, such as "Big" and "Small Chaos". - a huge pile of stones of the diabase rock.
Great chaos
Swan Lake in Alupka Park.
After the tour, I recommend taking a walk in this garden, relaxing in the shade from the summer heat and, of course, taking a lot of beautiful photos. This park is also called the Alupka Park, where you can see about 200 species of a wide variety of plants: exotic plants, various shrubs, acclimatized plants from other continents.
View from Vorontsovsky Park
Vorontsovsky park
The landscape of the park is presented in the form of an amphitheater, at the bottom of which there is an exhibition park pavilion "Tea House". We were not able to visit it, since it was closed for restoration.
Prices for visiting the Palace
An adult ticket costs UAH 70 ($ 8.75), for children - UAH 35 ($ 4.38), a photo shoot - UAH 10 ($ 1.25).
How to get to the Vorontsov Palace
You can visit the Vorontsov Palace by getting to Alupka at the following address: st. Dvortsovoe shosse, 10. By car, you can get here along the Yuzhnoberezhnoe shosse, this route runs along the sea through the entire southern coast of Crimea. If you go along this road to the Vorontsov Palace from the side of Sevastopol, then there will be a turn to the right to Alupka, and if from the side of Yalta, then to the left.
From Yalta from the bus station you can get the following bus routes: 27, 26, 107, 42.
There are passing buses from Sevastopol: "Sevastopol - Miskhor", "Sevastopol - Yalta".
From Simforopol: buses "Simferopol - Simeiz", "Simferopol - Castropol".
All articles by direction Crimea
Hotels in Crimea: reviews, booking
Yalta hotels
Alupka Hotels
The presence of a huge fortune in someone always raises questions. But still there were and will be people who know how to spend a lot of money (obtained in different ways) not only on pleasing themselves, irreplaceable. Yes, representatives of the richest Russian noble families were serfs. But they were also patrons of arts and sciences, and left to their descendants the masterpieces of architecture paid for by them by millions. Such as the Vorontsov Palace in Crimea.
Where is the Vorontsov Palace on the map
Looking at the map of Crimea, it becomes clear that palace and park ensemble is located on the territory of Big Yalta, in the small but picturesque village of Alupka, which is why the palace is often called as Alupka. Its territorial location is the center of the resort village, on the Black Sea coast.
History of the Alupka Palace
Crimea and England
The family of Counts Vorontsov is known in Russian history. Its representatives held the most important government posts. The family was also one of the richest in the country and could afford to realize any of their most incredible fantasies.
A representative of this genus, M.S. Vorontsov, was a brave officer, a participant in the war of 1812. He was also the nephew of the famous Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova, which already meant that his upbringing and education were good. More than others, the earl liked the English tradition - people like him were called Anglomaniacs in the 19th century.
In the mid-20s of the XIX century, this nobleman was appointed to the Crimea - the governor of Novorossiya and Bessarabia. After taking office, the governor looked for a good estate not far from - near the small Tatar village of Alupka. In 1828, they began to build a residence there by his order - real palace on a grand scale.
As an Anglomaniac, Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov wanted to see features of English architecture in his home. Therefore, he rejected the original project of E. Boffo and T. Harrison in the classical style and turned to E. Blore, the architect of Walter Scott and the British royal family. Certainly a master who brought to mind Buckingham Palace, was also suitable for a Russian count.
Blore has never been to Crimea. But he received from the customer comprehensive data on the terrain, as well as materials from his predecessors. And he did a miracle - he designed a masterpiece building, which naturally combined several eras of English history with an oriental flavor.
Incredible construction
Then everything became even more wonderful. The main building stone for the realization of the idea of the great Englishman was the Crimean diabase - the breed is even too strong. It is very difficult to process. In the conditions of the Russian Empire in 1830 (just then the direct construction work began) did not imply the mechanization of labor.
The main labor force in the construction was quitrent peasants from the owner's numerous estates (mainly from near Moscow and Vladimir). Vorontsov's people tried to select for work the maximum number of people with specialties - stone cutters and stone cutters. Guided by the fact of the participation of candidates in the construction and decoration of rich stone churches. These craftsmen worked in the Crimea with superhard material virtually with their bare hands - they worked the stone with axes and chisels! It is not surprising that the construction took a lot of time.
However, Blore's project had one advantage - the palace was, as it were, a complex of buildings of different styles. So they built it in parts, and not all at once. In the years 1830-1831. a canteen building was erected. In 1831-1837. a central building was added to it. In 1838-1844. they built all the towers, the eastern wings, the guest wing, decorated the front yard. At the same time in 1841-1842. a billiard room was being built next to the dining room. The library was finished later - in 1846.
At the same time, individual elements of the building demonstrated different stages in the development of English architecture. The "timeline" ran from west to east: the farther west an element was located, the more ancient style it represented.
Then the governor began to equip a park near the palace, reprehensibly using soldiers for earthwork. In 1848, the palace ensemble was supplemented with a terrace and stairs, decorated with sculptures of lions. But this M.S. Vorontsov did not see him any more - in 1844 he was assigned to serve in the Caucasus.
Noble Nest
Further, the whole case almost perished, and all because the eldest son of M.S. Vorontsov did not bother to provide him with grandchildren. CM. Vorontsov, the son of the governor, lived in the palace with his wife and was gradually engaged in the completion of the construction and finishing of his property. However, he died without acquiring heirs. And his widow did not want to live in Crimea and drove off abroad, taking with her from the Crimean estate a lot artistic values.
Because of this, the palace almost fell into disrepair, because no one lived in it for a long time. But then the estate went to the governor's relatives through the Vorontsov-Dashkovs and Shuvalovs. These nobles turned out to be enterprising people - they set up summer cottages for rent on the territory of the estate. It happened in 1904. But in 1917, a revolution broke out that ruined the old noble nests.
With the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea, the estate was nationalized. And on February 22, 1921, the telegraph sent Lenin's personal order to the peninsula: to take all possible measures to preserve the valuables from the palaces of the Crimean nobility. And the order was carried out. Already in the middle of the same 1921, the palace was opened to the public as a museum.
Saved value
It should be noted that the Vorontsov Palace in Crimea has been perfectly preserved, and today it looks almost the same as in the days of the last owners-counts. But it was not easy for him.
After the invasion of Crimea in 1941, the Nazis shamelessly plundered the locals. They brought to Germany everything that was not nailed down, and what was - they broke and also took away. The Soviet command did not manage to evacuate most of the Crimean museums, and the Vorontsov Palace was one of them. The conquerors took out a lot of valuable things from there and threatened to destroy the building.
But the palace survived, and a significant part of its collections also survived. This became possible thanks to the dedication of the researcher S.G. Shchekoldin. The Nazis appointed him director of the museum, which meant that he had to hand over to them the most valuable of the exhibits. But Shchekoldin hid part of the collections, supplied the invaders with inaccurate information, and also prevented the explosion of the building during the retreat of the Nazis.
It was Stepan Grigorievich who compiled a complete inventory of the exported exhibits for an absolutely wild amount of 5 million rubles at that time (thanks to which some of them were later found and returned).
The worst part of this whole story is that the defender of museum collections later served several years for "collaboration". True, Shchekoldin was still lucky - he left the places of detention relatively quickly, relatively healthy, and then spent a long time doing what he loved, looking for values that had disappeared from the museum (he died in 2002, at the age of 98).
In 1945 the Vorontsov Palace was in such good condition that it was used to accommodate the participants. English architecture predetermined the choice of the guest for the estate - it was the British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
Here the first meeting of the leaders of the Anti-Hitler coalition took place within the framework of the conference (further, all events for convenience were moved to). Further, for several years the castle was used as a departmental dacha for the NKVD officers, and in 1955 it again became a museum, which it is to this day.
The architecture and decoration of the palace
Mixing styles and peoples
As already mentioned, in general, the architecture of the Vorontsov Palace is of the English style. Moreover, this is, as it were, the history of foggy Albion in miniature, since the structure combines features different eras- from William the Conqueror to the Tudor dynasty.
But in the century in England (and in other European countries too), in connection with the expansion of colonial expansion, a fashion for the East arose. Pseudo-Indian and pseudo-Egyptian elements appeared in literature, clothing, interiors; architecture did not pass them either. And in the building of the Vorontsov Palace, E. Blore in an incomprehensible way managed to harmoniously combine his contemporary ideas about the East with the traditions of medieval England.
The western façade of the palace is a real castle of a medieval robber baron (you see, the work for W. Scott influenced the royal architect!). This is a perfect example of the skillful use of the neo-gothic style. Almost the same era is represented by the so-called Shuvalov Passage - a driveway that rather resembles a fortress gallery. The inner courtyard is decorated with uneven "torn" stone, which also suggests the Middle Ages.
The northern facade demonstrates a completely different style and a different time period. This is the beginning of modern times, the Tudor 16th century - straight lines, large tall windows and chimneys.
The southern facade manages to form a harmonious whole with other parts of the palace and at the same time represent the Moorish style - with splendor befitting the East. Particularly interesting is the arch, in which the architect somehow managed to combine the motifs of the Tudor rose and the oriental lotus, and also added a saying from the Koran, without fear of harming the English idea of the whole structure. E. Blore managed to add a Moorish touch to old England - for example, the purely English appearance of the northern facade is crowned with tent-shaped roofing elements, and the long pipes are made similar to the eastern minarets.
Although the palace actually consists of 5 buildings, all of them are successfully integrated into the ensemble and are perceived as a whole. Moreover, the architect, who had never seen the Crimea, managed to successfully fit his creation into the landscape. He took into account not only the technically important features of the area, but also its aesthetics (according to the sketches given to him). As a result, the silhouette of the palace repeats, as it were, the outline of the plateau, against which it is located.
Dacha with comfort
In the view of the governor Vorontsov and his heirs, the palace in Crimea was not an official residence where ceremonial secular hospitality should be demonstrated, but something like a summer residence. The family was supposed to spend the summer here, as well as relatives and close friends to visit the owners. Nevertheless, the count invested 9 million rubles in the construction (wild money by the standards of the 19th century!), And his heirs also invested additionally in the arrangement of the interior.
The palace inside is very well preserved, so you can be sure that even at the dacha representatives of the Vorontsov family preferred to live both beautifully and comfortably. In total, this "summer house" has 150 rooms, located with English austerity - doors to doors. Another English detail - there is a fireplace in every room (although in the Crimea it is not as necessary as in England).
Each room in the palace is decorated in its own style and has its own name. There is the Blue Lounge, the Calico Room, the Chinese Study, and similar themed rooms. The large palace living room, as it were, copies the main hall of the feudal castle - dark colors, solid oak and family painting reign there.
The blue living room is not only designed in this color, but also decorated with unusual stucco molding, depicting 3 thousand embossed flowers, each of which is not like the others. At the time of Count Vorontsov, chintz was considered a fashionable and rather expensive material, and even now it is successfully used in interiors. And the walls of the Chinese study are decorated with inlays made of rice straw (and they are well preserved).
There is also a greenhouse in the palace, named in the traditions of that time winter garden... By analogy with the summer garden of St. Petersburg, it is decorated with beautiful statues.
The owner-graphs cared not only about the beauty, but also about the practicality of their home. In the Vorontsov Palace, one of the first internal water pipelines (with uninterrupted hot water supply!) Was installed and a sewerage system, normal according to modern concepts, was arranged. In 1914, they switched to electric lighting.
All work was carried out with high quality, and this is not the last reason for the excellent preservation of the interiors. Artistic parquets and wall panels remain the same as in the days of the Novorossiysk governor. A lot of old furniture, utensils, ornamental knick-knacks have survived. The art collection suffered the most, as the Nazis took more than 500 paintings from Germany to Germany. And only a small part of the stolen was found and returned.
Photo inside the Vorontsov Palace
Screen star
Due to its excellent preservation and noticeable "appearance" the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka is always popular among camera masters. His photos are adorned with all kinds of calendars and advertising posters, and the interior premises and the adjacent park area have become the places of filming for many beloved by the audience.
The most famous of the films filmed here was 1961. In this most popular film, the Vorontsov Palace "played" the rich mansion of the Gray family. 30 years later, he was "retrained" into the interior of the American millionaire's estate during filming (the outside view of Francis Morgan's estate was filmed).
The complex also appears in "Heavenly Swallows", "Hamlet", "Ten Little Indians", " Ordinary miracle”(Not the most famous version from M. Zakharov, but earlier, from E. Garin). Of the more “innovative” films, the palace had to take part in the creation of “Assa” and the Ukrainian film “Sappho” (for an amateur, but at one time the cinema made a splash).
It is quite difficult to list the entire filmography of the Vorontsov Palace - filmmakers often used it. The reason, among other things, lies in its architectural diversity - having chosen the right angle, it was possible to shoot literally anything.
Vorontsov Palace - visits and excursions
Despite the exclusively museum status of the complex, it cannot be said that it is so easy to visit the Vorontsov Palace. The reason is not in the desire to hide something from tourists, but in the need to observe a rather strict security regime.
You will be able to inspect the palace for free and completely independently only from the outside. The entrance is free. In Alupka, many vacationers go through it, combining two amenities at once. Reviews of many tourists claim that external examination enough to get a strong impression.
The internal premises are visited for money and with a guide. But this has its own complexity: the Vorontsov Palace is actually not one museum, but several. It constantly organizes temporary exhibitions of a wide variety of content. Accordingly, there are many excursion programs, and the work schedule of different departments may differ.
Experienced tourists recommend before going on an excursion to inquire by phone about the opening hours (it may change for permanent expositions, especially depending on the season), the availability of temporary exhibitions and current benefits.
You can also get information on the official websites. It's even easier to sign up for an excursion through the bureau (Vorontsov Palace is an obligatory element of the "Parks and" route, one of the most popular in travel bureaus throughout the peninsula), where everyone is aware of the peculiarities of the visited objects.
Data on the cost of an excursion in the palace occupy more than one page, because a tourist can choose to visit only one of some expositions, several of them, or sightseeing tour throughout the complex. At the same time, the price range can differ significantly.
Speaking of prices, they cannot be called low, but the costs of maintaining such a large and expensive complex are also high. In addition, the Vorontsov Palace has a complex system of benefits for payment and rights to free admission (in particular, for young people under 16).
But beneficiaries should remember that they will receive their discount or free ticket only if they have an original document confirming their status (for example, a birth certificate or an award certificate). Some categories of beneficiaries are required to pay a fee for excursion services, but you cannot call it high.
The exposition is based on several main palace halls, a visit to which allows you to get acquainted with the history of the Russian nobility, and specifically the Vorontsov family and its outstanding representatives. Many original items that belonged to the owners of the estate and their relatives are also exhibited there.
A separate exposition in one of the wings tells about the Vorontsovs' relatives - the family of the Shuvalovs. In the museum, you can get information about people who are not as influential as the multimillionaire counts. In particular, the premises of the palace kitchen (with original tableware and all cooking equipment) and the apartment of the count's butler are decorated in the Economic Wing.
Among the permanent exhibitions there is also a collection of avant-garde paintings, a collection of artistic porcelain and faience (Russian and foreign production), and works of art with a picture of flowers. Temporary exhibitions replace each other, as a result of which unexpected things appear in the palace, such as a collection of fans.
The museum is technically advanced. Here, technical innovations such as audio guides in different languages and virtual exhibitions are widely used.
It is not worth bringing preschool children here - a long one may seem tiresome and boring to them (although such visits are not prohibited, and you do not have to pay for preschoolers at all). But for middle-aged schoolchildren, a visit to the palace is even highly recommended - and the taste will be better, and the level of knowledge of history will increase.
The Alupka Palace, a masterpiece of romanticism architecture, was built for almost 20 years, from 1828 to 1848, by order of the powerful Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Territory, an aristocrat and Anglomaniac Count Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov. The count personally chose a place for his Crimean residence on a picturesque stone promontory at the foot of Mount Ai-Petri in the little-known Tatar village of Alupka. The Englishman Edward Blore, the author of Walter Scott Castle in Scotland, and the court architect of the British crown, managed to organically fit the palace building into the surrounding landscape. In the architecture of the Vorontsov Palace, Blore combined different styles - English, neo-Moorish and Gothic, paying tribute to the secular fashion of that time for the novels of Walter Scott and oriental fairy tales.
History of creation
Initially, the famous Italian architect Francesco Boffo, who had already built a palace in Odessa for the count, was appointed to build the residence. The Englishman Thomas Harrison, an engineer and adherent of neoclassicism, was supposed to help him. Work began, and by 1828 the foundation, which was filled with lead for earthquake resistance, as well as the first masonry of the portal niche of the central building were ready. But Harrison died in 1829, and two years later, the earl decided to suspend the construction of the palace, apparently abandoning the idea of building a neoclassical residence.
Vorontsov turns to the Englishman Edward Blore, a brilliant historian of architecture, graphic artist and fashionable architect in his homeland. Most likely, the Earl of Pembroke recommended him to Vorontsov. We had to wait almost a year for new drawings. But Mikhail Semenovich liked the result, and in December 1832 the construction of the buildings began. Blore brilliantly solved the problem in a historical perspective: the architecture of the palace demonstrates the development of medieval European and Moorish architecture, from the forms of the early Middle Ages to the 16th century. The building of the palace is deployed in such a way that it repeats the outlines of the visible mountains. It is surprising that the architect himself, who so accurately entered the building into the surrounding nature, never visited the Crimea, but used only numerous landscape sketches and relief drawings that were sent to him in England.
The resulting castle could well serve as an illustration for historical novels: five buildings, fortified by defensive towers, different in shape and height, are interconnected by many open and closed passages, stairs and courtyards.
The construction was carried out from local greenish-gray stone - diabase, which is not inferior in strength to basalt, which was taken from natural placers in Alupka. When processing it, considerable efforts were required, since the complex decoration of the exterior of the house could ruin one wrong blow with a chisel. Therefore, for the most complex masonry work, they invited Russian stone cutters, who built white-stone churches in Central Russia.
The main decorative decoration of the Vorontsov Palace - the motif of a shallow pointed keeled arch - is repeated several times in the cast-iron balustrade of the balconies, and in the carved stone lattice that encloses the roof, and in the decoration of the portal of the southern entrance, made in the Moorish style of the Alhambra palace.
In the design of the southern entrance facing the sea, a Tudor flower pattern and a lotus motif are intertwined, which end with an Arabic inscription repeated six times over the frieze: “And there is no winner but Allah,” just as it is written in the Granada Alhambra.
In front of the façade is the Lion's Terrace and the monumental staircase of white Carrara marble by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Bonanni. On both sides of the steps there are three pairs of lions: the left one below is sleeping, the right one below is awakening, above is a pair of awake ones, and the third pair is roaring.
The rear facade of the palace and its western part, a variation on the theme of Tudor England of the 16th - early 17th centuries, resemble the austere castles of English aristocrats.
By the way, this palace was one of the first in Russia to be equipped with a hot water supply system and sewerage system.
The cost of building the palace complex amounted to about 9 million rubles in silver - an astronomical amount for those times. But Count Vorontsov could afford it, since after his marriage in 1819 to Elizaveta Ksaveryevna Branitskaya, he doubled his fortune and became the richest landowner of the Russian Empire. Elizaveta Ksaveryevna, the one with whom, according to one version, Alexander Pushkin fell in love in Odessa exile, personally supervised the creation of the building's interiors, took care of the decoration of the park and often paid for the work.
Inhabitants of the palace
Mikhail Semenovich did not manage to live for a long time in the Alupka Palace. Another appointment followed - this time to the Caucasus. But in the late 1840s, his daughter, Countess Sofya Mikhailovna, settled in Alupka with her children. Then, after the death of Prince Vorontsov (he received the princely title in 1845), the palace, by right of enthronement, passed to his only son, Semyon Mikhailovich. In 1882, his widow, Maria Vasilievna Vorontsova, went abroad and took out many valuables from the palace. She had no children, the palace was abandoned, and by the end of the 19th century, the building, park and economy fell into complete decay.
In 1904, new owners appeared at the castle - relatives along the line of the Vorontsov-Dashkovs. The wife of the governor of the tsar in the Caucasus, Countess Elizaveta Andreevna Vorontsova-Dashkova, nee Countess Shuvalova, energetically set to work. She leased land for sanatoriums and boarding houses and built more than 120 summer cottages on the estate.
After the revolution and the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea, the lands of the Vorontsov-Dashkovs were nationalized. And on February 22, 1921, a telegram from Lenin arrived in Crimea: "Take decisive measures to effectively protect art treasures, paintings, porcelain, bronze, marble, etc., located in Yalta palaces and private buildings, now assigned to the sanatorium of the People's Commissariat of Health ..."
In the early 20-ies on the southern coast of Crimea, in a number of the largest noble estates, museums were created, among them the Alupka Museum. The collection of the museum was seriously damaged during the Great Patriotic War: a lot was taken out by the invaders, including 537 paintings and drawings. Only a small part of the paintings were found after the war and returned to the palace.
In February 1945, during the Crimean (Yalta) Conference, the Alupka Palace became the seat of the British delegation. Meetings of the heads of the allied powers - Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt - took place in the ceremonial dining room of the palace.
Later, the palace became the state dacha of the NKVD. In 1952, a sanatorium was located there, and only in 1956, by the decision of the Soviet government, the Crimean State Museum of Fine Arts was opened here. Since 1990, the palace has been part of the Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve. Its collection today includes works of painting, sculpture and applied art, as well as documents, old drawings and lithographs introducing the history of the palace's construction.
English park
The English park of the palace is the work of the German gardener-botanist Karl Kebach, whom Vorontsov invited to the Crimea in 1824, when there was no project of the palace itself. He eagerly set about creating a park, taking into account the relief, climate and local flora, combining, however, everything with the latest achievements of gardening art. About 200 species of trees and bushes were brought here from all over the world. Parcels with seeds and seedlings came from America, Italy, the Caucasus, Karelia, China and Japan. It was said that more than two thousand varieties of roses bloomed here at the same time. The German gardener became so famous in the Crimea that landowners began to invite him to create or improve their parks and gardens along the entire coast.
Karl Kebach clearly planned the park on the principle of an amphitheater, retaining in its structure connections with the main palace and other architectural objects. Coastal highway (Yalta - Simeiz) divides the park into Upper and Lower.
The lower park is decorated in the style of Italian Renaissance gardens with fountains, marble sculptures, Byzantine columns, vases and stone benches. The upper one was created on the principle of English landscape parks of the Romantic era - more natural and natural: in it rocky fragments, shady ponds and preserved areas of the Crimean forest are interspersed with picturesque glades, a unique system of lakes, waterfalls, cascades and grottoes. Kebakh created the Upper Park as a place of contemplation of the sea and Mount Ai-Petri, towering above the park and the palace, like the ruins of a castle of giants.
A carefully thought-out drainage system and individual care of the plants did their job - many, even very rare and whimsical plants, are well rooted. In total, 250 species of trees and shrubs grew on the territory of the park by the end of the 19th century. The plants of Vorontsov Park were so popular that the seedlings were even sold to other gardens and estates.
The glory of Vorontsov Park as a masterpiece of landscape architecture was strengthened by the artists who worked here on sketches: Isaac Levitan, Vasily Surikov, Aristarkh Lentulov ... Alushta to Foros.
