Countess Marie Kleinmichel (nee' Keller) was regarded by her contemporaries and present day scholars as one of Russia's greatest pre-revolutionary society leaders. She survived the upheavals and emigrated to Germany where she wrote her memoirs. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Peter Massie both wrote of her escape from her palace. Her on account differs from theirs. I know it was sacked during the Revolution. The Countess herself mentions this. Does anyone know of its subsequent fate? She also had a villa on one of the islands. It still stands.
Countess Kleinmichel was indeed a great hostess, but as Meriel Buchanan recalled "her parties lacked both the charm of Princess Orlov´s and the dignity and magnificence of Countess Shuvalov´s"
I must say that the beauty and magnificence of the Shuvalov palace is really overwhelming, even for Petersburg standards.
Her Palace was on Sergievskaya Ulitsa 35-37. I suppose that something of the interior decoration must remains to this day.(Most probably the ballroom)
Her neo-gothic villa is in quite good shape. This villa was designed by I. A. Pretro in 1904, and replaced the earlier mansion by Stakensneider from 1836. Some of the interiors preserved, though, the decorations of the second half of the XIX century. Sadly, the villa´s wonderful wooden adjacent pavillion no longer exists(i think it was burned...). The pavillion was designed by F.F. Postels in 1909. During the 1920s the villa housed a Club for workers similar to a sanatorium( sanatori is the russian word).
