🏛 Novoznamenka Estate

ул. Чекистов, 13

A rare example of Elizabethan Baroque: Vorontsov's dacha, later Myatlev's "Novo-Znamenka".

Chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov began building the estate in 1753; the first architect was Giuseppe Trezzini.
On 17 August 1759 Empress Elizabeth stopped here for lunch on her way to Peterhof.
Under the Naryshkins in the early 19th century the dacha was a centre of society life, and the imperial family visited.
In 1866, while visiting the Myatlevs, Pyotr Tchaikovsky finished his First Symphony, "Winter Daydreams".
From the 1890s there was a hospital for the mentally ill here; the writer Gleb Uspensky spent his last years and died in it.
The fire of 1941 destroyed the interiors and brought down the balconies and the south façade; until the late 1950s the palace stood in ruins.
Since 1991 the palace has housed the International Boarding School of the Herzen Institute.