🏛 Bezborodko Dacha and the Lion Fence

Свердловская наб., 40

An 18th-century Quarenghi estate with a famous fence of 29 cast-iron lions holding chains; restoration was completed in 2025.

The first house here was built in the Gothic style in 1773–1777 by Vasily Bazhenov for Senator Teplov.
Teplov came here to take the mineral waters, then claimed they nearly poisoned him.
In 1782 Bezborodko bought the estate for the then huge sum of 22,500 rubles.
According to some accounts, the remodelling design was made not by Quarenghi but by Nikolai Lvov.
Because of the fence, the estate was nicknamed the "House with Lions".
In 1858 Alexandre Dumas stayed at the Kushelev Dacha, and Goncharov, Maykov and Pisemsky came to visit.
From 1896 it housed the Elizabeth Community of Red Cross nursing sisters.

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