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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-37

Last update of repository: 16 March 2020

Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-arkhitekturnyi, khudozhestvennyi i landshaftnyi muzei-zapovednik “Tsaritsyno”


History
The Tsaritsyno State Historico-Architectural and Natural-Landscape Museum-Preserve has existed as a museum for more than ten years in the park and architectural ensemble purchased in 1775 by Empress Catherine II from the Kantemir family. At the end of the sixteenth century under the name of Chernaia griaz (Black Mud), there had been a country estate for Boris Godunov’s sister Irina Godunova, wife of Tsar Feodor I, but the main buildings were destroyed during the Polish invasion of 1612. Later the village of Bogoroditskoe was inherited by the Golitsyn family, but Peter I presented to Dmitri Kantemir of Moldavia. After Catherine II purchased the property, the palace and gardens were reconstructed as a suburban summer Moscow residence for the empress. The main palace ensemble erected in 1789–1782 on plans of the architect V.I. Bazhenov displeased the empress, and it was subsequently reconstructed on plans of the architect M.F. Kazakov. After the Revolution, a museum was established on the estate, but it was closed down in 1932.
        Collecting materials for a reconstructed museum in Tsaritsyno started in the 1960s under the Ministry of Culture, but it was only in the mid-1980s that the museum was formally reestablished with the intention that it would house a state museum of decorative and applied arts of the peoples of the USSR. Since the mid-1980s the museum collections have been extensively expanded. Restoration of the main palace ensemble began in the early 1990s, with the opening of one of the buildings in 1994. It was given the status of a “museum-preserve” in 1993 and considered a monument of history and culture of federal significance.
        Although most important are its collections of contemporary decorative and applied arts, including porcelain, as well as folk art collections, there are some archival materials of interest.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted