Mansion of General-Governor, residence of GD Sergei Alexandrovitch

[Almedingen]

I was wondering if anyone can tell us about Sergei and Ella's home in Moscow (not Illynskoie but the place they lived in town).

[Greg_King]

They had two residences-the Governor-General's Palace, which was situated midway down the Tverskaya between the Kremlin and Petrovsky Palace, and the Nicholas Palace in the Kremlin.  Serge spent a lot of money redecorating rooms in the GG Palace on taking up office in 1891; they seem to have moved freely between the two, but in 1905 had moved into the Kremlin permenantly owing to security concerns.

Greg King

[Almedingen]

Is the former Governor General's palace now the Mayor's office?

[BobG]

Sergei and Ella were also allowed by the Tsar to use the Neskuchny Sad (The Alexandra Palace) which is now the Academy of Sciences.  It is just south of Gorky Park and had large gardens surrounding it.  I don't believe the palace or the gardens are open to the public.  Once Sergei was given the right to live here, Muscovites were no longer able to visit the gardens.  Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna mentions the palace in her autobiography "The Education of a Princess".  When radicals made it dangerous, Sergei and Ella moved back to the Kremlin.  Its a pretty little palace.  I have a picture of it on a collection of Moscow Palaces.

[Janet_Ashton]

Is the former Governor General's palace now the Mayor's office?

I think it's nominally the same building, but some rather odd things happened to it in the Soviet era - it was moved back by a couple of inches and they put some extra storeys on top...

Janet

[Greg_King]

I think it's nominally the same building, but some rather odd things happened to it in the Soviet era - it was moved back by a couple of inches and they put some extra storeys on top...

Janet

Somewhere here I've got a massive 3 volume set on 17-19th Century Muscovite architecture, which probably gives further details.  But from memory, I seem to recall being told the old G-G Palace WAS (at least in 1992, when I asked) the Mayor's Office-so that's probably it-or at least was it.  I remember it as a multi-storeyed (3 or 4?) neoclassical building, with a red facade and white pilasters and cornices.  It seems to me as though it was much closer to the Kremlin than the address on the Tverskaya I have for the G-G Palace, though, which is why I was never certain about it actually having been Serge and Ella's official residence.  That said, however, I'm on my way out the door but I'll dig out the books tonight when I get home tonight and if there is any information post it here.

Greg King

[Antonio_P.Caballer]

I saw an antique engraving of the GG palace and as far as i know it´s more or less in the same place. When i saw it this last summer i found it quite altered(distorted?). As Greg says it was reconstructed following the communist fondness of enlarging buildings and therefore was, as the Paley palace in Tsarskoe, somehow redone. I do not know anything of the present state of its interiors but have no hope on this subject...

[BobAtchison]

That red and white palace was a Museum of the History of the Great October Revolution in the 1970's.  When Stalin had Tverskaya widened I believe they moved the palace back and added the extra story mentioned above.

If I remember correctly the building had these sad lions in front that looked like more like big mean dogs than cats.

Bob

[Belochka]

If you look closely at the Mayor's Office building you can see the first 2 levels are different to the 2 above. The central columns on the lower half are squared while the upper 8? are rounded. The windows in the reconstructed levels are different ... much smaller. The more you look at the facade the more ugly it becomes.

I do not remember seeing any lions. However there is quite a stylish wrought iron double gates/fence to one side which still bares soviet symbols which was constructed in the 1940's. It provides an interesting contrast to the enormous gold-coloured Double-headed Eagle appended at the top of the facade.

The building faces the relatively new statue (1950's) of Yurii Dolgorukii who was the founder of Moscow.

Tverskaya Ulitsa like Nevsky Prospect was widened in the 1930's to permit the increase flow of traffic.

[brnbg aka: liljones1968]

since i cannot for the life of me remember in which topic (let alone which thread!) i saw the original request, i'm just going to start a new topic and hope the person who originally mentioned a desire to see the former Kremlin home of Serge & Ella, sees it.



their home in the Kremlin was the little Nicholas palace.   it was from there that HIH the grand duke serge Aleksandrovitch of Russia and Governor-General of Moscow, left for his offices and was the victim of a revolutionary's bomb.

this photo shows the view from the Ivan Veliki looking north, with the small Nicholas palace in the foreground on the right; the other buildings shown, are:
the Chudov Monastery (left foreground); the church of the Archangel
Michael (background center w/ onion domes); and the court of Justice (in the back, on the left w/ the single large dome).


while the court of Justice building is still there, the other three buildings in foreground were razed and replaced with a "modern" theater.

[Annie]

Thanks, I've never seen that. What a shame they are no longer standing Isn't it true that until recently Sergei's body had been literally paved over with a parking lot?

I also want to say thanks again for bringing us your awesome collection, you have so much we've never seen! I'm so glad you joined!

[brnbg aka: liljones1968]

i could be wrong, but i don't think his memorial exists anymore.    Ella asked that it be built (i don't know if she or the state paid for it) and it was one of the first things destroyed by the revolutionary government (Serge was liked by very few).  

also, i too am curious as to why Serge Aleksandrovitch's body was not re-buried in the Romanov crypt?   maybe it boils down to money & publicity?   reburying his body with even remotely similar equippage as those already resting there, would cost an enormous amount of money.   and the world at large would have no clue whatsoever who he was;  but reburying Nicholas II, Aleksandra, & family, while outrageously expensive, would (and did) reap even larger benefits in terms of publicity & revenue through various means.

but that's purely speculation, and he may be there resting peacefully.

does anyone know for sure?

[grandduchessella]

i could be wrong, but i don't think his memorial exists anymore.    Ella asked that it be built (i don't know if she or the state paid for it) and it was one of the first things destroyed by the revolutionary government (Serge was liked by very few).  

also, i too am curious as to why Serge Aleksandrovitch's body was not re-buried in the Romanov crypt?   maybe it boils down to money & publicity?   reburying his body with even remotely similar equippage as those already resting there, would cost an enormous amount of money.   and the world at large would have no clue whatsoever who he was;  but reburying Nicholas II, Aleksandra, & family, while outrageously expensive, would (and did) reap even larger benefits in terms of publicity & revenue through various means.

but that's purely speculation, and he may be there resting peacefully.

does anyone know for sure?

Yes, this is true. Sorry I omitted the date of the photo (it was 1910). I wonder how much it cost to rebury VM & Kyril? Since Serge wasn't liked or maybe even really known today, he certainly wouldn't need a big to-do like N&A and family who were the last imperial family. I know I have saved somewhere the information on the church where he's buried.

[ChristineM]

The Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was blown to pieces in the explosion.   Marie Pavlovna (jnr) recalled   in her memoirs how little there seemed to lie beneath the pall covering the stretcher which bore the remains which had been gathered and taken into one of the Kremlin churches.  

I think I recall reading - at the time of the discovery of a coffin in a car park - that it contained a small effigy of the Grand Duke, dressed in uniform alongside lay his medals.

tsaria

[jfkhaos]

If Ella would not have renounced her position in the world and took the veil, where would she have lived after the death of Serge?  Did she remain in The Nicholas Palace in the Kremlin?  Would Illinskoye have remained hers?