The Farm (an ensemble of the Alexander Park)

Categories / Tsarskoe Selo and town of Pushkin. The digital chronological reference book/Monuments of history and culture
The Farm is located in the heart of the Alexander Park near the White Tower and the Military Chamber. The complex has been founded at this place from 1810 when the first wooden constructions were built according to the design of the garden designer Joseph Busch at the Menagerie stone wall. Under the direction of Busch the former farming lands of peasants of the village of Kuzminki s were transformed into the fine Farm meadow with beautiful groups of trees and ponds. At the distant from the town meadow edge an artificial mound, that was decorated with terraces and a spiral path going to the top planted along with birches, was erected. The visitors of the park were attracted with the countryside landscape with well-groomed purebred animals which were often offered bread.
The Farm stone constructions, having been now, were built by the architect Menelaws during 1817-1822 in the same English-Gothic forms as other park pavilions. These constructions were survived until the present days without major changes, only wooden construction of the fodder yard located at the western side. One- and two-story buildings connected with a fence with some gates form a picturesque ensemble. Metallic décor, yellowish limestone, red brickwork with white pointing and white plaster window casings and sandriks were used in the architectural design.
In the center between two entrance gates from the Farm road there was a two-story house of a supervisor , the façade of the house attracts the attention by two projection octahedral towers-buttresses wich are crowned with a fronton with a merlon. Different offices, apartments of a vet and farmyard workers were placed in one-story wings. In the vast yard there is a cruciform-plan building of a cow-shed with 84 stalls (now the cow-shed is used as a stable). In a corner there is a compound-plan wing intended for an ice-house and dairy with separators, refrigerators and other equipment. The wing is crowned with the fifteen-metre high round tower with the watch ground. Yakovkin in his guidebook wrote about the watch ground function , “It’s quite pleasant in bright morning to sit here and read or think or watch different views and especially to observe something using a telescope”. On the second floor there was a room for rest.
Near the tower inside the Farm fence there was a wing for imperial visitors, this wing stood out the richer decor of facades then other buildings of the complex. An cast-iron trellis terrace, used to entwine with ivy, joined with the wing outside. A beautiful Gothic Gate joined from the other side. In the wing there were two lounges, dining room, kitchen and there were four sofa rooms for rest in the mezzanine. The light maple furniture was decorated with the Gothic carving according to Menelaws’s drawings. Interiors were decorated with the Alexander time etchings with rural views of Switzerland and the Netherlands, portraits of Alexander I and his wife Yelizaveta Alekseyevna.
The imperial Farm was “a successor” of the former farm-yard that had been in Tsarskoye Selo since the first years of its foundation. Establishing the new economy Alexander I followed the advice of Empress Maria Fiodorovna, his august mother, who established the similar economy in the Pavlovsk Park earlier. According to the Emperor’s order the Tsarskoye Selo Farm workers were sent to the Empress’ farm for training. In 1822 sixty two cows and bulls of Kholmogorean and Cherkassean breeds just as European breeds – Tyrolese, Hungarian, Swiss, English and Holland ones- as well as a hundred merino sheep from Silesia were brought into the Tsarskoye Selo Farm. But only thoroughbred Kholmogorean cattle could settle down there. Afterwards breeds were chosen with the experimental way. The production was supplied for Emperor court, surpluses were sold. Farms worked under the especial supervision of the Tsarskoye Selo governor Ya.V. Zakharzhevsky. After 1865 Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholayevich became a trustee of the farms.
After the nationalization of emperor’s property the Farm and a large part of the Alexander Park with constructions, located there, were passed to the Agronomical Institute (later the Agricultural Institute, now it is the Agrarian University). The origin of the new toponim “The Farm Park” is connected with using the Farm complex as the Institute training economy. The well equipped winter stone cow-shed with cast-iron drinking bowl and other buildings used for the origin purpose during the long time. The stable of the Tsarskoye Selo Museum Preserve, where thoroughbred horses are placed now here. The horses are used for coaching in summer and sledging in winter. Semenova Galina Victorovna
Alexander I, Emperor
Bush, Joseph
Elizaveta Alexeevna, Empress
Maria Fedorovna, Empress
Menelas Adam Adamovich
Nikolay Nikolaevich (Sr.), Grand Prince
Yakovkin Alexander Alexandrovich
Zakharzhevsky, Ya.V.
Dvortsovaya Street/Pushkin, town Александровский парк
Agricultural University