The Pensioners’ Stables (an ensemble of the Alexander Park)

Categories / Tsarskoe Selo and town of Pushkin. The digital chronological reference book/Monuments of history and culture
A path of the Alexander Park to ponds on the Kuzminka River has led to the Pensioners’ Stables, a Gothic park building hidden in trees thicket. The pavilion was built by Menelaws in 1827-1829 and intended for eight horses which were used by the Tsar, horses were placed in this pavilion after the death of Alexander I. Later the pavilion was used for other emperors’ favourite horses. A picturesque space design, similar other constructions of the architect in the Alexander Park, was harmoniously connected with the nature surrounding. On the opposite corner from the path a round tower towered above one – two – story stone U-shaped pavilion. The high pyramidal roof and frieze decorated with lancet arches do the tower expressive. Plaster detailed of the cornices, string-courses and surrounds with bracket-shaped canopies stand out against a background of the brickwork. In the tower ground floor there was a stable with eight horseboxes and a semicircular room where horses’ rich attires were saved. Afterward these items increased collections of the Stable Museum in Saint Petersburg. In the first floor there were apartments for a supervisor and stablemen. In summer old horses were let to graze in the park. Rows of marble gravestones in the park, located opposite the tower, showed burial grounds of the horses. Signs on gravestones told that the horse “L’ami”, who had been in the Paris campaign with Alexander I, had been buried here, and the horse “Flora”, who had been with Nicholas I near Varna, had been buried here, and the horse “Kob”, who was used by Tsar-Peace-Maker Alexander III for greeted troops, had been buried here also. Semenova Galina Victorovna
Alexander I, Emperor
Alexander III, Emperor
Menelas Adam Adamovich
Nicholas I, Emperor
Dvortsovaya Street/Pushkin, town Александровский парк
Stable Museum