What the Vorontsov Palace is made of. Vorontsov Palace in Alupka: history of creation, photo, description, architect
Rest in Crimea can turn into an interesting adventure that will remain in your memory forever. The main thing is to properly plan your visit to the most interesting and exciting attractions. One of them is the noble Vorontsov Palace, which definitely deserves attention. The building is located in scenic location by the sea and at the foot of Ai-Petri. It is surrounded by a magnificent park that harmoniously complements the amazing view. A visit to the palace will give you truly unforgettable emotions and the opportunity to feel like a guest of an eminent prince.
Vorontsov Palace in Crimea: history
The exquisite Vorontsov Palace combines the severity of English architecture and the luxury of Indian palaces. The building is in harmony with the local landscape and mountain-sea panorama. It also has interesting story which dates back to 1828.
The construction of the palace began by order of Count Mikhail Vorontsov, known for his courage and participation in many military events. He personally chose the ideal location for his estate and invited an Englishman, Edward Blore, as an architect. The architect managed the process remotely and never came to the construction site. The very process of building the palace was quite lengthy and took 20 long years - from 1828 to 1848.
The count's estate was built of a very strong stone, which must be handled confidently and skillfully - diabase. It was he who beautifully decorated the exterior of the building. The stone was processed by hand by specialist stone-cutters who were brought in from central Russia. The cost of building the palace reached a tidy sum - 9 million silver rubles.
Vorontsov himself is not very long time lived in the palace, since he had to leave for the Caucasus. However, his daughter settled in it with her children. Then, after the death of the count, the estate was inherited by his son. After the revolution and the change of government, the palace, along with the lands, were nationalized. In 1945, the Vorontsov estate became the seat of the British delegation for some time. The heads of the allied states - Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt - met in the front dining room.
Later, the palace acted both as the state dacha of the NKVD and as a sanatorium. Only in 1956 did it become a museum. Nowadays, it is very popular among tourists who come even from abroad. Here you can see various works of painting, applied art, sculpture. Also old documents, lithographs, drawings.
What else is interesting about the Vorontsov Palace in Yalta?
The general impression of the grandeur and sophistication of the palace is complemented by the unique Vorontsov Park, which arouses the same interest of tourists as the estate itself. It allows you to enjoy unique plants that have been carefully selected, taking into account local climate and relief. They were brought to Crimea from different parts of the world; in total, there are about 200 different types of vegetation in the park.
The park was created by a German gardener - Karl Kebach, who happily set to work. He planned the area like an amphitheater with a clear structure. The park itself was supposed to maintain a connection with the palace and complement the chosen style in architecture. Karl Kebach managed to achieve this goal, because the park fits perfectly into the overall concept.
The park is conventionally divided into lower and upper. Its lower territory is decorated in the style of Renaissance gardens. There are graceful fountains, stone benches, Byzantine columns, beautiful vases, marble sculptures. It also provides access to the beach.
The upper territory was created in the English style of romanticism, which was characterized by naturalness and naturalness. There are shady ponds, a well-thought-out system of lakes, picturesque meadows, areas of the Crimean forest, rocky debris, grottoes, small waterfalls. This part of the park was conceived as an impeccable place for contemplating the mountains and the sea.
The park almost always remains green, as pines, spruces, cypresses, cedars, and firs grow here. In the warm season, delicate magnolias, amazing cercis, and various exotic shrubs bloom here. The territory of the park is captivating with its beauty and elegance; many guests of the peninsula often visit only the park and enjoy the exterior of the palace. Photos of the Vorontsov Palace in Crimea and its original park will be an excellent souvenir that will remind you of an unforgettable vacation.
How to get to the Vorontsov Palace in Yalta?
The exact address of the Vorontsov Palace in Crimea: Alupka, Palace Highway 18. You can get there in several ways:
- Take advantage of by public transport... If you get from the Yalta bus station, you should use buses No. 107 or No. 115. The stop at which you will need to get off is called "Bus station" and it is located in Alupka. Then you need to go to the western gate and go through them to the territory of the palace. You can also get to the complex from the city center. To do this, you should use minibus No. 132, which will take you to the final stop called "Vorontsov Palace". Then you need to go to the northern main entrance to the building.
- Get there by car. This travel option is the most comfortable and fastest. From Yalta you should go to the highway "Yalta-Sevastopol" and move to the Alupka sign. Travel time can take 15-20 minutes.
- Take a taxi. In Yalta, you can order a taxi directly to your hotel and from there drive to the palace. Such a trip will be as comfortable as possible, but its cost is more expensive than other options.
- Take a ride on a scheduled boat. The journey starts from the sea station in Yalta, from which a boat departs every 2 hours. The journey takes about 35 minutes. The ticket costs 100 rubles, the price is quite affordable. You will need to get off the boat in Alupka and go up a little towards Vorontsovsky Park.
The ticket price for visiting the Vorontsov Palace in Crimea is 350 rubles for adults and 200 for children. This price includes a sightseeing tour. Visiting thematic exhibitions in the palace is paid separately, if there is a desire to see them. A tour of the park of the complex is also paid separately. There is a souvenir shop in the palace where you can buy small items as a keepsake.
Where to rest after visiting the sights of Yalta?
The unique Villa Elena Hotel & Residences will be the best choice for a perfect holiday. Here, guests can enjoy an atmosphere of luxury that brings incredible home comfort. You can stay in a magnificent historical building with its own unusual history since 1912. A modern building is also available, which will delight you with rooms with an exquisite interior. On the territory of Villa Elena, you can visit a restaurant, relax by the pool, spend time in the spa center.
Vorontsov Palace in Alupka is one of the most visited Yalta palaces and the only one that I visited, and even then by accident. Not that I didn't want to see it, but I really didn't want to do it in the summer, it's too crowded at this time.
The palace was built in the English style, and the building contains elements of various eras, from the early forms to the 16th century. The further from the western gate, the more recent the style of construction. English style is combined with neo-Moorish style. For example, Gothic chimneys resemble the minarets of a mosque. The palace was built from 1828 to 1848 as the summer residence of the Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Territory, Count Vorontsov. It is interesting that the Vorontsov Palace is one of the first buildings in Russia, where sewerage and water supply were built for the comfort of living.
The main facade of the Vorontsov Palace
The palace was owned by three generations of the Vorontsov family. Since 1921, a museum has functioned in the palace complex. After the Great Patriotic War, for about 10 years, the territory of the Vorontsov Palace was a secret object and there was a dacha for the party leadership. Now it is a museum again.
The Vorontsov Palace is located on the territory of the Alupka Park, which was created by the famous botanist and gardener Karl Antonovich Kebakh for 25 years. He designed the clearings, placed the trees according to their size. It was a matter of principle, because according to Karl's plan, the trees were not supposed to block the gorgeous view of the top of Mount Ai-Petri.
The park is spread over an area of 40 hectares. Geographically divided into Upper and Lower parks... The park is designed in such a way that it complements local nature... More than two hundred species of plants grow here, which were brought from the regions of Northern and South America, Mediterranean. The cost of setting up the park is twice as high as building the palace itself. Up to 36,000 rubles were spent on the maintenance of the park in 1910 - a huge amount at that time.
Vorontsovsky Park Map
The attraction of the park is the piles of stones made of solidified magma, thrown out by the volcano back in time immemorial, which received the names "Big Chaos" and "Small Chaos". These chaos were meticulously incorporated into the park's layout, a dozen paths were laid through the piles of stones, forming an almost labyrinth, benches were set up, viewing platforms were arranged. Individual blocks are entwined with ivy and wild grapes. Sometimes it is very difficult to believe that you are in a park, and not abandoned.
A large number of fountains have been built in the park. Most of them were built according to the designs of V. Gunt.
In general, Crimea has a long tradition of respectful attitude to water. The construction of a fountain, both in the Muslim Crimea and in the Russian one, was considered a worthy and even godly deed. Where at least some trickle flowed, they put a fountain, decorated with a saying from the Koran or the emblem of the engineering department, sometimes they knocked out the date. Along the old roads, in the old Crimean settlements, many of these ancient fountains have survived, many are still functioning.
Three ponds have also been artificially created on the territory of the park: Upper, Zerkalny and Swan. Maples, ash and dogwood grow around the ponds.
To decorate the bottom of Swan Lake, Count Vorontsov ordered 20 bags of semi-precious stones, which were delivered by ship. In sunny weather, they created an indescribable play of light.
The owner drives the ducks out of his domain
A couple more interesting facts about the park, according to the guides. Vorontsov Park literally grew out of blood, for the soil under the trees was abundantly fertilized with the blood of freshly killed animals. A separate gardener was assigned to each tree, who did not sleep, did not eat, but watched over his ward, cared for, and cherished.
Chilean araucaria owes its name to the Araucanians - Indians living in Chile, for whom the fruits of this tree form the basis of the diet. This specimen is over 130 years old. It develops poorly in our conditions. In its homeland, it grows up to 50 meters in height, has a trunk up to one meter in diameter. In Crimea, there are only 5 such trees. Araucaria branches are covered with sharp thorns, so neither monkeys nor birds sit on them.
Chilean araucaria
Crimean pine
Pistachio blunt-leaved
Lower park
The fountain "Maria" is based on the famous Bakhchisarai fountain, sung by Pushkin. The fountain is made of white and colored marble and is decorated with shells and rosettes. Water falls in small drops from one bowl to another, forming a quiet, even rhythm of drops - "tears".
Fountain "Maria" (Fountain of Tears)
On the side of the sea is the famous lion's terrace.
The southern entrance is decorated with oriental splendor. The Arabic inscription translates as: "And there is no conqueror but Allah."
Coral tree
Fountain of Bakhchisarai
I didn’t go inside the palace, I really don’t like a slender run in a crowd. Maybe some other time I'll visit.
Winter garden of the palace
During the Yalta Conference in February 1945, an English delegation headed by W. Churchill lived in the Vorontsov Palace. An interesting story is connected with it, which happened during a walk in Churchill and Stalin park. Churchill, who really liked the sculpture of the sleeping lion, said that he looked like himself and offered Stalin to buy it out. Stalin refused this offer, but suggested to Churchill that if he answered his question correctly, then Stalin would give a sleeping lion. "Which finger on your hand is the main one?" - that was Stalin's question. Churchill replied: "Of course the index." “Wrong,” Stalin replied and twisted a figure out of his fingers, which is popularly called a fig.
Sleeping lion
Fountain "Sink"
Fountain "Sink"
The southern facade of the Vorontsov Palace and the Lion's Terrace
According to statistics, most of the tourists visiting Alupka with excursions come here with a very specific goal - to look at the famous Vorontsov Palace. Among the tourists walking around the territory of this magnificent palace, there are a variety of people. Someone came here "for show", someone for the sake of wonderful mountain-seascapes, opening from observation deck palace. But quite a significant percentage of tourists purposefully come here in order to touch the history ...
And this story began back in 1828, when the Novorossiysk and Bessarabian Governor-General, Count Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov decided to build a summer residence for himself in Alupka, having bought up a lot of land plots in Alupka for this purpose.
The venerable English court architect Edward Blore (1787-1879), with whom M.S. Vorontsov was personally acquainted. Among the most famous objects, to which Blore had his hand, we will name Buckingham Palace in London and the Salisbury Tower at Windsor Castle.
The palace was built in several stages: first, the dining building was erected (1830-1834). Then the central building appeared (1831-1837). In 1841-1842 a billiard room was added to the dining room, in 1838-1844 the guest building, eastern wings and towers of the palace, and utility buildings were completed. And finally, last of all, the library building was erected.
In total, the construction of the palace lasted for 20 long years and was completed in 1848, costing Vorontsov 9 million silver rubles.
Diabase stone ( modern name- dolerite), from which the main part of the palace is made, is one of the strongest natural building materials. The structure of this volcanic mineral is extremely strong, which creates additional difficulties in its processing. The building material for the palace was mined in the mountains, not far from Alupka. As for the workers, their bulk was represented by serfs from the Moscow and Vladimir provinces, moreover, qualified stonemasons who already had experience in building stone cathedrals were specially selected from them.
Interesting fact: Red Square in Moscow is also paved with Crimean diabase
In the construction of the Vorontsov Palace, mostly heavy manual labor was used.
Deserves a separate story architectural style, in which the palace was built.
The main architectural motive prevailing in the buildings of the palace is the English style, which is not surprising, given the architect's nationality and Count Vorontsov's predilection for English culture, which was very close to him. M.S.'s father Vorontsova - Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov for many years was the Russian ambassador to London, and Mikhail himself spent all his childhood, adolescence and youth in England, absorbing the spirit and mentality of Foggy Albion.
According to the architect's idea, the Vorontsov Palace contained the styles of the most different English eras, which replace each other in chronological order, starting from the western gate.
A very unexpected architectural turn awaits tourists who wish to explore the Vorontsov Palace from its south side... According to the original idea of the architect, the side of the palace facing the sea was made in the neo-Moorish style and resembles the palaces of the eastern rulers. Against the background of the strict English features of the northern side of the palace, the lush southern facade looks very contrasting and unexpected. All doubts about the "eastern" origin of the southern facade of the palace are dispelled by the Arabic inscription on the frieze "And there is no God but Allah", repeated several times.
The entrance and stairs on this side of the palace are guarded white marble lions, which were made in the workshop of the Italian sculptor Giovanni Bonnani.
The interior decoration of the Vorontsov Palace was luxurious, but at the same time, it was executed with taste. In total, the palace consisted of more than 100 rooms, of which the most famous are the Blue Living Room, the Calico Room, the Winter Garden, the Chinese Study, the Billiard Room, the Front Dining Room, and the Vestibule. In indoor areas a large number of things and objects dating back to the times of the very first owner have survived to this day.
If you look at the Vorontsov Palace from the sea, you will notice that its features repeat the relief of the mountain range towering over Alupka from the north. And this is not an accident at all, but an original architectural idea.
In parallel with the construction of the palace, next to it, for the whole 25 years, the magnificent Vorontsov Park was created, which, without exaggeration, is one of our most outstanding works of gardening art in the Crimea. Today the area of this park is 40 hectares.
The palace in Alupka belonged to the Vorontsov family until the revolution, after which it was nationalized and a museum was opened in it. The palace remains in this status to this day, annually receiving thousands of tourists.
During the years of the German occupation, the Vorontsov Palace itself was not damaged, which cannot be said about its exhibits, which were stolen and taken away in the amount of several hundred.
After the war, the palace was used for 10 years as a state dacha for party bosses, and from 1956 it began to work as a museum, which operates to this day.
The Alupka Palace, a masterpiece of romanticism architecture, was built for almost 20 years, from 1828 to 1848, by order of the powerful Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Territory, an aristocrat and Anglomaniac Count Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov. The count personally chose a place for his Crimean residence on a picturesque stone promontory at the foot of Mount Ai-Petri in the little-known Tatar village of Alupka. The Englishman Edward Blore, the author of the Walter Scott Castle in Scotland, and the court architect of the British crown, managed to organically fit the building of the palace into the surrounding landscape. In the architecture of the Vorontsov Palace, Blore combined different styles - English, neo-Moorish and Gothic, paying tribute to the secular fashion of the time for the novels of Walter Scott and oriental tales.
History of creation
Initially, the famous Italian architect Francesco Boffo, who had already built a palace in Odessa for the count, was appointed to build the residence. The Englishman Thomas Harrison, an engineer, an adherent of neoclassicism, was supposed to help him. Work began, and by 1828 the foundation, which was filled with lead for earthquake resistance, as well as the first masonry of the portal niche of the central building were ready. But Harrison died in 1829, and two years later, the earl decided to suspend the construction of the palace, apparently abandoning the idea of building a neoclassical residence.
Vorontsov turns to the Englishman Edward Blore, a brilliant historian of architecture, graphic artist and fashionable architect in his homeland. Most likely, the Earl of Pembroke recommended him to Vorontsov. We had to wait almost a year for new drawings. But Mikhail Semenovich liked the result, and in December 1832 the construction of the buildings began. Blore brilliantly solved the problem in a historical perspective: the architecture of the palace demonstrates the development of medieval European and Moorish architecture, from the forms of the early Middle Ages to the 16th century. The building of the palace is deployed in such a way that it repeats the outlines of the visible mountains. It is surprising that the architect himself, who so accurately entered the building into the surrounding nature, never visited the Crimea, but used only numerous landscape sketches and relief drawings that were sent to him in England.
The resulting castle could well serve as an illustration for historical novels: five buildings, fortified by defensive towers, different in shape and height, are interconnected by many open and closed passages, stairs and courtyards.
The construction was carried out from local greenish-gray stone - diabase, which is not inferior in strength to basalt, which was taken from natural placers in Alupka. When processing it, considerable effort was required, since the decoration of the exterior of the house, which is complex in drawing, could ruin one wrong blow with a chisel. Therefore, for the most complex masonry work, they invited Russian stone cutters, who built white-stone churches in Central Russia.
The main decorative decoration of the Vorontsov Palace - the motif of a shallow pointed keeled arch - is repeated several times in the cast-iron balustrade of the balconies, and in the carved stone lattice that encloses the roof, and in the decoration of the portal of the southern entrance, made in the Moorish style of the Alhambra palace.
In the design of the southern entrance facing the sea, a Tudor flower pattern and a lotus motif are intertwined, which end with an Arabic inscription repeated six times over the frieze: “And there is no winner but Allah,” just as it is written in the Granada Alhambra.
In front of the façade is the Lion's Terrace and the monumental staircase of white Carrara marble by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Bonanni. On both sides of the steps there are three pairs of lions: the left one below is sleeping, the right one below is awakening, above is a pair of awake ones, and the third pair is roaring.
The rear facade of the palace and its western part, a variation on the theme of Tudor England of the 16th - early 17th centuries, resemble the austere castles of English aristocrats.
By the way, this palace was one of the first in Russia to be equipped with a hot water supply system and sewerage system.
The cost of building the palace complex amounted to about 9 million rubles in silver - an astronomical amount for those times. But Count Vorontsov could afford it, since after his marriage in 1819 to Elizaveta Ksaveryevna Branitskaya, he doubled his fortune and became the richest landowner of the Russian Empire. Elizaveta Ksaveryevna, the one with whom, according to one version, Alexander Pushkin fell in love in Odessa exile, personally supervised the creation of the building's interiors, took care of the decoration of the park and often paid for the work.
Inhabitants of the palace
Mikhail Semenovich did not manage to live for a long time in the Alupka Palace. Another appointment followed - this time to the Caucasus. But in the late 1840s, his daughter, Countess Sofya Mikhailovna, settled in Alupka with her children. Then, after the death of Prince Vorontsov (he received the princely title in 1845), the palace, by right of enthronement, passed to his only son, Semyon Mikhailovich. In 1882, his widow, Maria Vasilievna Vorontsova, went abroad and took out many valuables from the palace. She had no children, the palace was abandoned, and by the end of the 19th century, the building, park and economy fell into complete decay.
In 1904, new owners appeared at the castle - relatives along the line of the Vorontsov-Dashkovs. The wife of the governor of the tsar in the Caucasus, Countess Elizaveta Andreevna Vorontsova-Dashkova, nee Countess Shuvalova, energetically set to work. She leased land for sanatoriums and boarding houses and built more than 120 summer cottages on the estate.
After the revolution and the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea, the lands of the Vorontsov-Dashkovs were nationalized. And on February 22, 1921, a telegram from Lenin arrived in Crimea: "Take decisive measures to effectively protect art treasures, paintings, porcelain, bronze, marble, etc., located in Yalta palaces and private buildings, now assigned to the sanatorium of the People's Commissariat of Health ..."
In the early 20s on South Bank Crimea, in a number of the largest noble estates, museums were created, among them the Alupka Museum. The collection of the museum was seriously damaged during the Great Patriotic War: a lot was taken out by the invaders, including 537 paintings and drawings. Only a small part of the paintings were found after the war and returned to the palace.
In February 1945, during the Crimean (Yalta) Conference, the Alupka Palace became the seat of the British delegation. Meetings of the heads of the allied powers - Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt - took place in the ceremonial dining room of the palace.
Later, the palace became the state dacha of the NKVD. In 1952, a sanatorium was placed there, and only in 1956, by the decision of the Soviet government, the Crimean state museum visual arts. Since 1990, the palace has been part of the Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve. Its collection today includes works of painting, sculpture and applied art, as well as documents, old drawings and lithographs introducing the history of the palace's construction.
English park
The English park of the palace is the work of the German gardener-botanist Karl Kebach, whom Vorontsov invited to Crimea in 1824, when there was no project of the palace itself. He eagerly set about creating a park, taking into account the relief, climate and local flora, combining, however, everything with the latest achievements of gardening art. About 200 species of trees and bushes were brought here from all over the world. Parcels with seeds and seedlings came from America, Italy, the Caucasus, Karelia, China and Japan. It was said that more than two thousand varieties of roses bloomed here at the same time. The German gardener became so famous in the Crimea that landowners began to invite him to create or improve their parks and gardens along the entire coast.
Karl Kebach clearly planned the park on the principle of an amphitheater, retaining in its structure connections with the main palace and other architectural objects. The coastal highway (Yalta - Simeiz) divides the park into Upper and Lower.
The lower park is decorated in the style of Italian Renaissance gardens with fountains, marble sculptures, Byzantine columns, vases and stone benches. The upper one was created on the principle of English landscape parks of the Romantic era - more natural and natural: in it rocky fragments, shady ponds and preserved areas of the Crimean forest are interspersed with picturesque glades, a unique system of lakes, waterfalls, cascades and grottoes. Kebakh created the Upper Park as a place of contemplation of the sea and Mount Ai-Petri, towering above the park and the palace, like the ruins of a castle of giants.
A carefully thought-out drainage system and individual care of the plants did their job - many, even very rare and whimsical plants, rooted well. In total, 250 species of trees and shrubs grew on the territory of the park by the end of the 19th century. The plants of Vorontsov Park were so popular that the seedlings were even sold to other gardens and estates.
The glory of Vorontsov Park as a masterpiece of landscape architecture was strengthened by the artists who worked here on sketches: Isaac Levitan, Vasily Surikov, Aristarkh Lentulov ... Alushta to Foros.