The Memorial House of Grand Duchess Alexandra Nicholeavna

On the other side of the gate near the stone guardhouses a road leads to the Upper Llama Bridge, which spans the Kuzminka River. After entering the Tsarskoe Selo Parks, near Bablovo Palace, the Kuzminka twines capriciously about between the meadows of the park cuting the Stolbovaya road and then enters the Alexander Park where after having been joined by the Vittolovsky Canal it forms two picturesque lakes between the Upper Llama Bridge and the Small Dam. Not far from the Upper Llama Bridge a narrow foot path, which was laid down in 1908, branches off from the carriage drive, which commences at the stone guard house and leads through the wood to the Llama Bridge. Along the banks of the lake on one side a foot path leads to the same bridge and on the other side there is a carriage drive which commences at the same spot and leads to the right in the direction of the Chapel.

To the left of this road, near Arsenal Avenue, hidden by trees and surround by an iron grate, stands a marble monument of the Grand Duchess Alexandra Nicholaevna, daughter of Nicholas I, who died in her youth. The monument was erected in 1845 and is the work of the master mason Katotsi from the drawings of the architect Stakenschneider. The marble statue is the work of Professor Vitali.

The statue stands in an open marble oratory in front of which is a small platform of Serdobol granite with benches and a parapet of the same material. A flight of steps leads to it. The platform is decorated at its four corners with urns of dark sionite. On the front of the oratory we read the inscription; "Lord, Thy will be done!" The interior walls of the oratory are ornamented with Byzantine work on one of the side walls are, the Beatitudes and on the other the Saviour's words:

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest, unto your souls'. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Near the oratory is a small wooden house, also built in 1845 by architect Efimov. The house consists of two rooms, the walls are of planed logs and have two open terraces with banisters of birch. The house is thatched with straw; several garden chairs of ash, a couch covered with leather, a writing-table and a large leather easy chair complete the furniture; on the terrace stand some rush chairs. The couch, the writing-table, and the easy-chair, are said to be from the Grand Duchess's own room. The rest of the furniture was made by Gambs in 1845.

The house was erected by the Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich on the spot where his daughter (who was carried away very suddenly) had loved to sit of an evening on the bank of the lake, and feed the swans; he often used to come himself and sit for a long time in the large easy chair.

On the other side of the road there is a wooden guardhouse for one of the park rangers - from him may be obtained the key of the gate leading to the monument and to the wooden house.

 

The Imperial Stable for Retired Horses (post WWII photo).

At a few paces distant from the guard house, is the Llama Bridge, where a narrow foot path begins; this footpath was made in 1907 and connects the bridge with the Stable for old imperial horses, which lies deep in the park not far from the fence in the direction of the Imperial farm.

Up to 1826 their Majesties' old saddle horses spent their last days as "pensioners" in the stables at St. Petersburg. But in January of that year, the Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich, after examining the register of saddle horses which had belonged to His Majesty the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, ordered that eight of them should be transferred to Tsarskoe Selo where a special dwelling was to be prepared for them; in summer a stable was to be built near the farm where the old horses could walk about as they liked.

At the same time, an Imperial order was given to build a separate house not far from the farm. In consequence of this order, a special building called the Retired Horse's Stable", was built in 1827 by the architect Menelas.

The Stable is a small two-storied building of stone with a round tower at one side. Eight stalls and a small semicircular room, in which formerly was kept the harness, are in the story below. The harness was afterwards sent to the Stable Museum in St. Petersburg. The room, which is still called the museum, has furniture in the Anglo-Gothic style, which was such a favorite with the architect Menelas. The upper story is occupied by the groom and stable men. The yard of the stable is surrounded by wooden farm buildings.

The old horses are allowed to walk about in the meadow during summer. On the other side of the stable is a burial ground where a row of marble slabs mark the resting places of the favorite horses. Here lies "Ami" the horse that was with the Emperor Alexander I in Paris; "Flora", the horse that carried the Emperor Nicholas at Varna; and "Cob" the horse, which the late Tsar Alexander III used to ride, when he reviewed his troops.

The wish of the Emperor Nicholas I (which, he expressed during the first month of his reign) that the old horses of his August Brother, Alexander I, should be properly looked after, is religiously carried out; the Imperial saddle-horses spend their last days in a beautiful stable; in summer they are allowed to wander at liberty; and their bones, are laid to rest here under marble slabs, which bear witness of their faithful service to their August Owners.

Five minutes' walk from the Llama Bridge, by the broad Arsenal Avenue, brings you to a tall brick building in the Anglo-Gothic style. This is the Arsenal. Up to 1818 this place was the center of a wide quarter of the park, surrounded by a high stone wall, and was called the Zoo.

During the lifetime of Peter the Great, when the the thick Tsarskoe Selo Park was just beginning its existence, the forest which grew here was surrounded by a wooden fence and was appointed as the place, where wild animals might be kept at liberty. Hither used to come from Petersburg and from Ribachia Sloboda the Tsarevna Elizabeth to amuse herself hunting; she used to shoot deer, elk, and foxes, which were driven from the neighbouring woods into the Zoo. At night-time she shot woodcocks and blackgame from specially constructed huts. In 1751 on the spot of the old wooden palisade a high square stone wall was built with towers at each side. Three towers were called "lusthauses" pavilions of entertainment for the huntsmen; the fourth was to be a church. The walls and the position of the three towers, which have disappeared (the fourth remains, and is known as the White Tower) can be seen on the plan of 1779. The walls were 4 1/2 arshin (10 feet 6 inches) high. The north wall ran from the White Tower in the direction of the Imperial Farm Buildings and ended in a tower, where it joined the west wall, the stone guard houses of nowadays. This tower had a church inside and was pulled down in the reign of Catherine II. The south wall passed through what is now the Upper Llama Pond and ended at the southeast tower, where the Chapel now stands, while the east wall went from this place to the White Tower. Part of this wall still exists and serves to enclose the Upper Hothouses. Since 1818, when the Zoo walls were taken down, the materials from them have been used for building the Llama-House, the Chapel, the Farm, the White Tower and the Ruins near it.

The "lusthouses", which occupied three of the towers with their turrets cupolas and decorations, were pulled down in the beginning of the 19th century. Only the Arsenal remains, but also in quite a different state, from what it was originally.

The Zoo was not yet surrounded with a stone wall when there used to stand on a little hill a stone cellar surmounted by a wooden gallery. About the year 1748 the building of "Mon Bijou", designed by the architect Rastrelli, was begun on the spot of the cellar and gallery. It was of brick, two stories high, with a cupola over its center, and four side wings. The central hall had 16 columns. Over the porch and along the cornice, the pavilion was decorated with vases and statues of alabaster while the roof and cupola were surrounded by a wooden balustrade with gilt carving. Round "Mon Bijou", was a stone-lined canal with a stone balustrade. The interior of the pavilion was richly gilded, the floors were of inlaid parquet, and the walls were covered with painting by the architect Grot. On the other side of the canal were two stone houses for servants. All this magnificence has vanished. In 1800 the architect Nilov asked about 43,000 rubles for repairing "Mon Bijou", and 20,000 for the roads in the Zoo. But in 1801, when the Emperor Alexander I came to the throne, orders were given for all work in the Zoo to be stopped.

During the Emperor Paul's reign the pictures of "Mon Bijou" were sent to Gatchina.

Under the Emperor Alexander I, the architect Menelas entirely changed the external appearance of "Mon Bijou" by rebuilding it in the Anglo-Gothic style, thus making it a very close copy of a pavilion at Shrubshill in England, an engraving of which hangs in the Admiralty.

Rastrelli's creation is no longer recognizable, the character of the park, which surrounds it, is entirely changed, while even the name "Mon Bijou" has, given place to that of the "Arsenal". Instead of the well-clipped avenues that stretched from the stone-lined canal with four-bridges, an English Park has grown up; the canal has been filled with earth and the bridges have been destroyed. Until quite recently, the Arsenal contained a rich collection of armor which was the pride of the Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich. This collection consisted of more than 5,000 articles and was arranged in both stories of the building as well as on the staircase. At the present time the collection is in the Imperial Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich began to collect arms in 1811, being quite a youth. The Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich left his collection to his August Brother, and the Emperor Alexander II completed the collection. Here, besides the armor were a number of precious Eastern saddles; some articles which were & personal property of Napoleon I; a walking-stick with which the Empress Catherine the Great used to walk about the Tsarskoe Selo Parks; some trophies of the Hungarian war (transferred to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in 1894) some trophies, taken during the Polish Insurrection (given to the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg in 1907) and small collections of prehistoric and ethnographic objects (transferred in 1907 to the Museum of the Emperor Alexander III). On the 23rd of May 1842, a, knightly procession, in which 15 gentlemen and 15 ladies took part, left the Arsenal and rode toward the Alexander Palace. The gentlemen were in armor taken from the Arsenal and the ladies in dresses of the 16th century. The Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich and the Tsarevich Alexander Nicholaevich were clad in armor of the time of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian's era and the younger Grand Dukes were dressed as pages of the same epoch. The procession was headed by heralds with music - it rode round the park and came to the open space before the Alexander Palace, which had not yet been planted with lilac trees. Here was performed a, so-called carousel, consisting of quadrilles and other complicated movements on horse-back. A few years later at the wish of the Emperor, Horace Vernet embodied this "Knightly Festival" in a painting which is now at Gatchina. Before the collection of armor was transferred to the Imperial Hermitage at St. Petersburg, 20 veterans of the Guards were kept at the Arsenal. Some of them had taken part in the war of 1812, and were still living in 1860. The veterans took care of the Arsenal, and stood on duty in the Emperor's rooms in the Great Palace. At the present time, models of soldiers of all the cavalry regiments are kept at the arsenal. They are made of papier-mache, and represent officers and soldiers on horseback. All the details of their outfits are carried out with the greatest exactitude. Besides these models there are in both stories collections of glass and porcelain from the Imperial Factory. These collections are not listed and cannot be seen by the public. The hall of the Arsenal is strictly decorated in the Anglo-Gothic style.

In a group of trees, not far from the Arsenal, is the Birch Guard House, a small wooden home for asingle park ranger. On one side of the road near the open space which surrounds the Arsenal is a small artificial grotto with a spring which supplies all the park guard houses with water, and streams into the Llama Pond.