Alexander Palace used for Orphanage

[Natasha]

 :-/ When the palace was used for an orphanage did the orphan sleep in the Gd's and Alexei's Bedroom? How long did they use it as an orphanage. It would be cool to actually live there!   Suppose one of the orphans found something that belonged to one of the GD's? What exactly happened with that?  
Just Curious....  

[aussiechick12]

I didn't know it was used for an orphange at any point in time. That would be really cool to live their!  

Emma

[Natasha]

They used it as an orphanage and stopped using it because of the state and the bad elecktricity and heating.

[Forum Admin]

Actually, the children were housed in the Great Catherine Palace itself and not the AP. They were moved after a while because of the lack of sufficient indoor plumbing, not electricity. The entire park, then renamed Detskoe Selo including the AP was part of the orphan camp.  

The AP had several commissars of the area as residents, with their families. However they took up residence on the upper floors of the right side aisle, not the other side used by the IF themselves. That side was a public museum.

[Sarushka]

How come we see cribs in the photos of the children's rooms from the AP's days as a museum? I know the imperial children took their camp beds into exile, so did the Soviets just bring the cribs in to take up space the children's beds would have occupied, or were the cribs actually used by the IF at some point?

[Forum Admin]

Lukhomsky's commission "dressed" the rooms for the museum. They were obsessed with accuracy about things, so we can only assume that the cribs on display during this period HAD been used by the IF at some point. Probably because the camp beds did not return from Ekaterinburg

[hikaru]

Usually, when orphanage took place in any previouse palaces, all decorations and previous furniture as well as small things - all should be removed to other places.
All orphane children  had when they entered palace - were walls.
Orphanage - in russian - Detsky Dom Yunykh Kommunarov took place in the previouse rooms of tsar's childrens in the left wing.
A lot of so-called things of Tsar children , as well as closes of IF used instead of the salary (as form of the payment) to the museum staff.

[Forum Admin]

Hikaru,
Can you tell me where you learned that orphan children were housed in the Imperial Children's rooms? We have several pieces written by Lukhomsky going into great detail on the conversion of the AP into a museum (sorry in advance, but any more specific detail is being saved for Bob's book.) and he says specifically that while the rooms of the Imperial Children were stripped completely, and the contents given to the workers in lieu of salary (as you stated), the children were housed in the Great Catherine Palace, but then sent elsewhere. He says they were not housed in the AP itself.

[hikaru]

The name of Orphanage was -
Detsky dom Yunykh Kommunarov
- i.e. "Orphanage of Young Communists".
I have read about it in the very good and quite rare new guidebook of Tsarskoe Selo printed in 1999.
It is said that iafter nationalisation 1918, all palace became a museum, but later  in right wing  was located Resort (Dom Otdykha) for NKVD people and  at 2nd floor of left wing, in the place of the closed rooms of Nicholas'children,  Detsky Dom imeni Yunykh Kommunarov was located.
Just it.
I think that it was very small orphanage.
But I do not find it a strange, because the same thing was in the winter palace too.

[Forum Admin]

Maybe that small orphanage was put it after Lukhomsky left Russia in 1919.

[hikaru]

Yes, it was after, obviously.
It was when almost in all palaces was made some children institutions and that's why
the city was renamed to the Detskoe Selo - Children Village

[hikaru]

In russian Lukomsky is just Lukomsky , whithout kh ......

[Forum Admin]

Lukomsky said that the first orphanage in the Catherine Palace was set up in 1918.

[hikaru]

I could presume, that this orphanage was made in 1932.
This time all furniture from imperial tsar children's room was removed to various places - to orphanage centers,
to Toys museum, to library etc....

[hikaru]

I am sure that Orphanage in Catherine Palace of 1918 and in AP of 1938 are two different things.