The main house of the city estate of Mr. Razumovsky. City estate of Razumovsky. Facade from the garden

Only our own photographs were used - shooting date 04/13/2015

Address: Kazakova St., 18-20, building 1, Kurskaya metro station

The Razumovsky estate - a monument of classicism architecture - was built in 1799-1803. architect A.A. Menelas, and then in 1842 significantly rebuilt and expanded by the architect A.G. Grigoriev.
This is one of the rare examples of Moscow wooden classicist architecture that survived the fire of 1812. The estate of Count Razumovsky is a typical rich city estate of the Yekaterinin era, with an extensive park with ponds, a front entrance yard and a once magnificent and rich manor palace.
Initially, the central building with large corner projections and semicircular galleries ended in separate wings (during later reconstructions, these parts were connected). The central part of the house is marked by a deep niche and a main entrance on the second floor, which is reached by two open staircases between two Ionic porticoes.
The estate complex also includes two service and guest wings (1842, architect A.G. Grigoriev) and a vast park with an area of ​​about 40 hectares, reaching the Yauza River.
In 1812, during the fires during the capture of Moscow by Napoleon's army, the estate was not damaged, since it was the temporary residence of Marshal Murat and was carefully guarded.
A.K. Razumovsky - famous statesman, trustee of Moscow University, one of the founders of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, minister of public education from 1810 to 1816.
A.K. Razumovsk lived in his Moscow residence for two years after resigning from government service.
After the count's death in 1822, the estate began to fall into disrepair. In 1826, during the coronation of Nicholas I, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and her court stayed there.
In 1827, the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz lived in one of the wings of the estate.
In 1829, the Persian prince Khozrev-Mirza and his embassy settled here to apologize for the murder of Griboyedov.
In 1833, the estate was bought by the Moscow Council of Guardians to house “a shelter for the care of orphans of both sexes of officials who died of cholera.”
Since then, throughout almost the entire 19th century. V former palace There were all kinds of charitable and educational institutions. In 1834, the Moscow Alexander Orphanage Institute for children of both sexes was created from the orphanage, which was popularly called the “Razumovsky boarding school.”
In 1842, the estate complex was expanded by A.G. Grigoriev. At the same time, the “juvenile department of the Institute of Chief Officer Orphans” was opened.
Later, in 1867, a paramedic school for 300 pupils of the Orphanage and an almshouse for 100 elderly women were located there.
In the summer of 1876, A.I. Kuprin was sent to the Alexandrinsky Orphanage Department, colloquially called the Razumovsky boarding school, and stayed there until 1880, when he entered the 2nd Cadet Corps. His first literary poetic experience is associated with the boarding house.
Despite the numerous owners, the palace and park met the revolution in quite tolerable condition. But with the advent of Soviet power, the misadventures of the estate began, which even survived the capture of Moscow by Napoleon. During the Soviet era, the Institute of Physical Education and its dormitories were located here, as a result of which the ponds, filled up for sports grounds, disappeared from the park. In the 1970s, a research institute settled in the palace physical culture, there were no dormitories and noisy students, but a sauna was built in the central part.

Former ARMA plant The plant of the Society for Lighting Moscow with Fluid Gas was founded in 1865 by English entrepreneurs by order of the Moscow City Duma. Three years later, more than 3,000 lamps were lit in the city.
Along the lane, his office building and working barracks (architect Fyodor Dmitriev) have been preserved, and along the rear border of the property - the gas tanks themselves, four impressive cylindrical buildings 20 meters high and 40 meters in diameter (architect Rudolf Bernhard). The round brick buildings of four gas tanks (gas storage tanks), as well as the buildings of other workshops of the plant, have survived to this day.
During the Soviet years, the Gas Plant was an enterprise of paramount national importance and until the middle of the 20th century. provided gas to the entire capital.
In the 1950s The plant organized the production of gas equipment: stoves, meters and other equipment.
In the 1990s The plant began to produce gas shut-off valves, and the enterprise itself was renamed the ARMA plant.
In 2002, production was stopped, and the empty workshops of the plant were occupied by tenants. Gradually, the plant became a place of attraction for creative people and the secular public.

Photo 1 - I.A. Ivanov. House of Count A.K. Razumovsky on Pea Field, 1809
Photo 2 - the state of the Razumovsky estate in the early 2000s.

Zemlyanoy Val street, 29. Art Nouveau building	Zemlyanoy Val street, 5-7/1. Apartment house of merchant I.Ya. Fokin. Apartment house 1898–1901 Architect E.R. Nirnsee. Declared cultural heritage site. In 1903, the “fourth people’s canteen of the Society for the Encouragement of Diligence” was opened in Fokin’s house.	Zemlyanoy Val street, 5-7/1. Apartment house of merchant I.Ya.Fokin
Zemlyanoy Val street, 5-7/1. Apartment house of merchant I.Ya. Fokin. Facade finishing	Zemlyanoy Val street, 6. Brick residential building built in 1906. Architect P.P. Rozanov. Architecture using Art Nouveau motifs. The window openings are lined with multi-colored ceramics, which adds elegance to the house. Before the revolution, the house was owned by Alexander Motylev, a famous Moscow photographer.	Zemlyanoy Val street, 4. Brick residential building built in 1900.
Staraya Basmannaya st., 5. Former apartment building of N. Kozlov. Built in 1907. Architect K.L. Rosenkampf.	Staraya Basmannaya st., 11/2 building 1. The former management building of the Moscow-Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod-Murom railways. Both the road service department and apartments were located here. Built in 1898-99. Architect N.I. Orlov (author of the project of the old Kursk station), engineer M.A. Aladin.	Staraya Basmannaya st., 10, building 2. Former residential building of the Panteleev estate. Built in 1874
Staraya Basmannaya street, 15 building 2. The former apartment building of the Persian subject Adji-Mamed Usein Agha-Aminezarba. Residential building in Art Nouveau style with characteristic details in the form of women's heads. Built in 1902, architect V.V. Shaub.	Staraya Basmannaya street, 15 building 2. Detail of external decor.	Gorokhovsky lane, 6/1 building 2. The main house of the city estate of A.E. Alexandrov. Architectural monument of the 18th-19th centuries.
Zemlyanoy Val street, 2/50. The house was built according to the design of A.G. Turkenidze on the site of the demolished Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist (only the bell tower facing Pokrovka has survived to this day).	Kazakova str., 3 building 1. Brick residential building. Built in 1880
		Kazakova st., 8a. Former railway depot
Kazakova st., 8a. Former railway depot	Kazakova street, 8. Former Moscow Drama Theater named after N.V. Gogol. In 1925, under the Central Committee of the Railway Workers' Union, an “industry” theater was organized, called the Mobile Theater of Drama and Comedy. In 1931, it was renamed the Moscow Transport Theater (MOSTT); since 1959 it was called the Moscow Drama Theater named after N.V. Gogol. In 1943, the theater received its permanent premises on Kazakova Street. This pre-revolutionary building is a former railway depot.	Kazakova str., 13. Research part of MIIGAiK (University of Geodesy and Cartography). The history of the university began in 1779, when the Konstantinovsky Land Surveying School was opened in Moscow under the Land Survey Office. Since 1873, the institute has been located at its current address, in the former possession of the Demidovs.

Right in the center of Moscow, not far from the noisy Kursky railway station, is one of the most interesting buildings Moscow, the once magnificent and rich palace of the city estate of Count Alexei Kirillovich Razumovsky. The famous statesman, trustee of Moscow University, one of the founders of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, minister of public education from 1810 to 1816, lived in his Moscow residence for two years after resigning from government service. It was at this time that a unique Botanical Garden, considered one of the wonders of Moscow.
Razumovsky's estate was built in 1801-1803. architect A.A. Menelas, and then in 1842 significantly rebuilt and expanded by the architect A.G. Grigoriev. This is a typical rich city estate of the Yekaterinin era, with an extensive park with ponds, a front entrance courtyard and a central, main manor palace.

The main house is a two-story structure, with a rectangular central part, highlighted by a mezzanine floor with a large arched window, twin columns and lions on extended porticoes, and semicircular wings ending in cubic pavilions.
State rooms, living rooms and Art Gallery were located in the central part of the building, and the living rooms were in the wings. The servants lived in the lower ground floor.


The estate was typical in layout, but not quite typical in “content”. Suffice it to say that more than 4 million rubles were spent on its arrangement, a fantastic amount for those times! The halls were decorated with bronze and expensive tapestries, and decorated with Saxon and Sèvres sets specially ordered for the new house. The library of the count, a famous freemason and mystic, amazed the imagination with the abundance of medieval books.
The park at the estate was not inferior in splendor to the house - greenhouses with exotic plants, a grove of orange trees, four ponds with carp, numerous flower beds and alleys delighted the count's gaze.


However, maintaining such a rich estate cost a pretty penny. It is known that the count tried to sell the estate to the treasury in order to pay off his debts, but was refused. After the death of Alexei Kirillovich, the eldest son, Peter, inherited the estate, but from his father he adopted only a craving for splendor and extravagance, but not statesmanship. And by the time he received the inheritance, he had accumulated so many debts that the estate had to be immediately sold for next to nothing. In 1828, the Odessa merchant Yurkov became its owner, who gradually sold the unique priceless furnishings to Moscow antique salons.
The glorious Razumovsky family fell into decline as quickly as it had risen to the heights of wealth and power. Pyotr Alekseevich died in poverty in Odessa, and his father’s brilliant estate went, as they say, from one hand to another.


First, it was bought by the Board of Trustees to establish an orphanage, then it housed a school of paramedics, an almshouse, a seminary, and, from 1901, a nursing home, or more precisely, “a refuge for the Empress Maria Feodorovna for honored teachers of the Empress Maria’s institutions.”
Despite the numerous owners, the palace and park met the revolution in quite tolerable condition. But with the advent of Soviet power, the misadventures of the estate began, which even survived the capture of Moscow by Napoleon. During the Soviet era, the Institute of Physical Education and its dormitories were located here, as a result of which the ponds filled up for sports grounds disappeared from the park. In the 1970s, a research institute for physical culture moved into the palace; the dormitories and noisy students were gone, but a sauna was built in the central part. One can imagine the effect this had on the condition of the palace!

A hasty restoration began for the Moscow Olympics, but it was not completed on time, and as a result, the palace was left to the mercy of fate for many years (in fact, to this day). The looting of the building and decorative elements began, accompanied by the usual vandalism of our citizens...
In the 1990s, the authorities remembered the existence of a unique architectural monument, and...transferred it to the Tsereteli Academy of Arts in 1999! The “art” was not long in coming; soon after this there was a fire, which caused enormous damage to the building, and the new owner of the building has still not been able to achieve not only a large-scale restoration, but at least conservation and the construction of a temporary roof to replace the completely destroyed one. But in the more or less preserved stone outbuildings on the left side of the estate building, various tenants were not slow to move in.

It is probably unnecessary to say that according to the lists of the Moscow Heritage Committee, the estate of Count Razumovsky, like the adjacent park, is an object cultural heritage(OKN) of federal significance. Of course, no one cares that this unique object is literally rotting alive...


In my story, I repeatedly emphasized the “uniqueness” of Razumovsky’s palace. It's time to finally explain what exactly it consists of. The fact is that central part The main building is actually made of wood, treated with stone-like plaster. There are practically no wooden buildings left in the capital that survived the Moscow fire of 1812. During the capture of Moscow by Napoleon, Marshal Murat settled in the palace, thanks to which the palace was not damaged at all. However, surviving the bungling of officials and “artists” of various stripes is more difficult than a fire...
In recent years there has been a lot of talk about the “reconstruction” and “recreation” of the estate, signs of some kind of construction work have appeared, workers, wheelbarrows and signs. However, no significant changes have yet been noticeable, which, knowing the ability of our city planners to demolish historical objects under the guise of reconstruction, may even be worth rejoicing at.

The history of the estate begins from the time when on the right low bank of the Yauza at the confluence of the Kukuy stream, in an area replete with ponds and streams, lived the Danish merchant David Bahart, or, as he was called in Moscow, Gavrilo Olferev, who established trade relations between Denmark and Russia in 1635-65. At the beginning of the 18th century, the former Bakhartov court belonged to Chancellor Gavrila Ivanovich Golovkin, one of the closest dignitaries to Peter I, who led Russian foreign policy - he was the state chancellor and president of the College of Foreign Affairs. Later, the estate passed to his son Mikhail, who, after the accession of Elizabeth Petrovna to the throne in 1741, was accused of treason and exiled to Yakutia, and the estate was confiscated and transferred to the treasury. The empress herself disposed of it, giving a huge estate to her favorite and secret husband Alexei Razumovsky, who charmed the cheerful empress with his beauty and beautiful voice - he was a singer in the court chapel. He lived mostly in St. Petersburg, where he died in 1771. He had no direct heirs, and the Moscow house passed to his brother Kirill Grigorievich, a former field marshal general, Little Russian hetman and president of the Academy of Sciences.

The estate began to be developed only after his death, when it passed to the hetman’s eldest son, Count Alexei Kirillovich, who had a solid career - he was a chamberlain and a senator. In 1795, Razumovsky retired, moved to the capital of all retired dignitaries, Moscow, and lived there as a great gentleman. He owned a palace on Vozdvizhenka, built for his father, perhaps by Bazhenov himself, and small house opposite, on the corner of Sheremetevsky Lane. In 1800, Count Razumovsky decided to sell these properties and move to his father’s estate on the Yauza, where he planned to create luxurious palace and a park. A wooden palace for him was erected by A. A. Menelas in 1799-1802.

Big wooden palace stands in the depths of the front yard, bounded on the sides by two two-story brick wings and facing the red line of the street. The central part of the palace is distinguished by the rich treatment of double columns on porticoes extended forward and beautiful drawing a semicircular loggia with a coffered semi-dome and a door in the center, where two flights of stairs lead. This part of the palace was, at the request of the owner, built from oak beams placed vertically. There was a master bedroom here, because then it was believed that it was much healthier to live in a wooden rather than a stone house. The house was decorated with extraordinary luxury even for those wasteful times, and more than a million rubles were spent on it. Expensive mirrors, bronze, and gilding decorated the palace, the walls of many rooms were covered with rare tapestries, and the window sills were made of lapis lazuli, a valuable ornamental stone. Joseph de Maistre wrote about Razumovsky’s palace that it “exceeds everything that can be seen of this kind in Europe.” The palace was rivaled in luxury by a vast park with an area of ​​more than 28 acres, spread out on both banks of the Yauza, full of rare plants, with gazebos, statues, and a whole system of ponds and canals. This park, which reached the Yauza River, was famous as “a place that, with the charm of unartificial nature, would make the visitor forget that he was in the city.”

Under Alexander I, A.K. Razumovsky returned to public service, becoming the Minister of Public Education. His passion was botany, which he seriously studied, creating wonderful collections both in the Moscow estate and in his Moscow estate in Gorenki.

In the fall of 1812, during the fires during the capture of Moscow by Napoleon's army, the estate was not damaged, since it was the temporary residence of Marshal Murat and was carefully guarded.

In 1816, Count Razumovsky retired from the post of Minister of Public Education Russian Empire and moved to Moscow. His house continued to be the most remarkable house on the street. In the summer, the count gave balls and festivities in the park for the nobility. The “Guide to Moscow” of 1831 indicated that in the meadows of the park, a demonstration haymaking was organized for the count’s noble guests, at which peasants and peasant women in festive clothes mowed and collected hay, sang songs, and at the end of the haymaking and refreshments they danced and danced in circles. The too expensive maintenance of the palace and huge debts weighed down the count, and several times he asked Emperor Alexander I to buy the estate for 850 thousand rubles, of which 800 thousand were immediately spent on paying debts.

After the count's death in 1822, the estate began to fall into disrepair. In 1826, during the coronation of Nicholas I, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and her court stayed there. In the summer of 1827, the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, exiled to Russia for participating in a student circle whose members dreamed of the independence of their homeland, settled in one of the wings of the estate. In 1829, the Persian prince Khozrev-Mirza and his embassy settled here to apologize for the murder of Griboyedov. Razumovsky's eldest son Peter, known for his dissipation and wasteful life, who had been living abroad for a long time, managed to accumulate so many debts that the magnificent estate soon had to be sold for next to nothing. Little remained then of the splendor of the count's estate - the beautiful garden grew, died out and looked more like a neglected forest. In 1828, a merchant from Odessa, M.E. Yurkov, became its owner, and the rich collections began to be sold for next to nothing, or even simply stolen.

In 1833, the estate was bought by the Moscow Council of Guardians (which then played the role of a land bank) to house “a shelter for the care of orphans of both sexes of officials who died of cholera.” Since then, throughout almost the entire 19th century, the former palace housed all kinds of charitable and educational institutions. In 1834, the Moscow Aleksandrovsky (Alexandrinsky) Orphanage Institute for children of both sexes was created from the orphanage, which was popularly called the “Razumovsky boarding school”. In 1842, the estate complex was expanded by A. G. Grigoriev. At the same time, the “children’s department of the Institute of Chief Officer Orphans” was opened, renamed the Alexandrinsky Orphanage Department. Later, in 1867, a paramedic school for 300 pupils of the Orphanage and an almshouse for 100 elderly women were located there. In 1876-86, there was a teacher’s seminary here, and for some time the building was rented out. In 1882, there was a juvenile department of the Alexander Orphanage here, and in 1884 - a juvenile department of the Nikolaev Orphanage Institute. Since 1901, the estate building has housed “the refuge of the Empress Maria Feodorovna for the honored teachers of the Empress Maria’s institutions.”

After the October Revolution, the property was expropriated by the Soviet government. On May 29, 1918, in the former estate of Razumovsky, by order of Lenin, the Moscow Institute of Physical Culture was opened. The building housed dormitories and classrooms for students. The ponds were filled in and stadiums and sports fields were built in their place. In December 1920, the institute received the status of a central institute - the State Central Institute of Physical Culture (SCIFK). In October 1941, the institute was transported to Sverdlovsk, where it continued its work until 1943. Upon returning to Moscow in February 1943, 280 students and 51 teachers began their studies. At the same time, the premises were renovated, sports grounds, stadium and gymnasiums. In 1945, the Department of Theory and Methodology of Skiing had an extensive museum exhibition. Gradually it grew into the Ski Museum; for more than 30 years its main curator was M. A. Agranovsky. The institute itself resumed its activities in 1946: the pedagogical and sports faculties were restored, the school of trainers resumed recruitment, and research circles were created at the departments.

In 1968, the transfer of the institute began from the estate building on Kazakova Street to a new building on Sirenevy Boulevard. However, only the main and sports buildings were finally ready for the start of classes. Department of Anatomy long time remained in the building of the former estate, where the anatomical museum was located, without which a full study of this subject would have been impossible. The move to the new building was finally completed by the mid-1970s. Afterwards, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Physical Culture (VNIIFK) became the tenant, the transformation began into a building convenient for housing VNIIFK laboratories, and a bathhouse-sauna was built in the central part of the main house for the personal use of the management. The bathhouse operated for more than 10 years, during which time the plaster flew off the facade and the brick walls began to collapse.

When preparing Moscow for the 1980 Olympics, the palace was included in the list of Olympic venues and by the end of 1979 the premises were completely vacated. Construction work began, which could not be called restoration work. They didn’t make it in time for the Olympics and work was stopped for many years. After 1980, the estate building housed various sports organizations of the USSR State Sports Committee. In the early 1990s, with the creation of various new governing structures of physical education and sports, the National Sports Foundation and its structures were located in these premises, along with VNIIFK.

Approximately from the mid-1990s, the State Committee for Sports began to be compacted in connection with the further move-in of Academy of Arts structures into the building. At the beginning of 1999, the main building of the estate was transferred to the Russian Academy of Arts by Z. K. Tsereteli. A few months later, in July 1999, a fire occurred, significantly damaging part of the main building.

Since the fall of 2008, the Ministry of Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy has been located in the estate building Russian Federation. The Museum of Physical Culture and Sports on the estate occupies three attic rooms with total area 50 m² under office rooms. The museum moved to the estate under the firm promise of the leadership of the USSR State Sports Committee to transfer to it several halls of the central part of the Razumovsky palace after their reconstruction and repair. Nowadays the central part is still worse condition than in the 1990s. The premises on the territory of the estate, which the museum claims, in Soviet times It was a dining room and assembly hall, but is now empty.

(Russia, Moscow, Kazakova st., 18-20)

Several years ago I worked in the publishing department of the Watercolor School of People's Artist of the Russian Federation S.N. Andriyaki, in Gorokhovsky Lane. It goes without saying that the neighborhoods adjacent to the place of duty came into my field of vision. In this area of ​​the capital there is still historical buildings. In quiet streets surrounded by greenery, you can find architecturally interesting mansions and city estates. On Kazakova Street, one might say next door, the city estate of Razumovsky turned out to be a pleasant discovery.
“The estate on this site has been known since the 17th century, when it belonged to the Danish merchant David Bachart. In the 30s of the 18th century, under Counts G.I. and M.G. The Golovkins had a regular park here. Elizaveta Petrovna donated the estate to A.G. Razumovsky. In 1799—1802 gg.

for his nephew, Count A.K. Razumovsky, a new complex with a park area is being created on both banks of the Yauza (project by architect N.A. Lvov (?), management by A.A. Menelas).
On the left bank, a landscape park is located on the site where in the 1720-1730s. there was a terraced park of the estate of V.F. Saltykov, later Golovkin. Since the 1830s the estate is used by various institutions. In 1842, it was rebuilt by the architect A.G. Grigoriev for the Orphanage. In the 1920s it was occupied by the Institute of Physical Culture. The lower sports field of the institute is located on the site of a huge pond, drained back in the 19th century. The left bank part of the estate since the 1930s. used as.
children's park Architectural ensemble
located on the high right bank of the Yauza. From here the park territory descends to the river. On the upper and lower terraces, areas with old trees have been preserved. In the left bank part of the estate one can read the layout and artificial relief of the first third of the 18th century.
The main house is one of the magnificent examples of classicist architecture in Moscow.” This brief information

Razumovsky Palace on Gorokhovoy Pole (archive photos) from the book by Y. Proskurovskaya “Palace on Gorokhovoy Pole”, M., 2015:
1. Razumovsky Palace on Gorokhovoy Pole. Mezzanine plan of the main building. Copy 1830
2. General plan of the palace of Count A.K. Razumovsky. Project 1800–1801
3. Estate of A.K. Razumovsky in Moscow, plan, 1805
4. Living room in the main house
5. Living room with ceiling lamp
6. Residential apartments of the palace on Gorokhovaya Pole
7.
8. Greenhouse in the Razumovsky Palace
9.
10.
11. Church of the Ascension on the Pea Field. Photo from N.A.’s album Naydenov "Moscow. Cathedrals, monasteries and churches", 1882
12. Razumovsky Palace on Gorokhovoy Pole, facade, ~ 1917
13. Eastern wing of the Razumovsky Palace in Moscow. Photo from the 1960s.
14.
15. Fragment of the park facade with the staircase of the Razumovsky Palace on Gorokhovoy Pole
16.

If we compare St. Petersburg buildings of the same era with Moscow ones, then one cannot help but notice in the latter a certain intimacy, warmth and, as it were, even good nature, while the former give the impression of prim, official, cold, sometimes gloomy and seemingly angry. This feature of Moscow architecture is especially strongly expressed in the work of Kazakov, who knew how to bring the irresistible charm of his own soul and personal, intimate, warm feeling even into such ceremonial palaces as the Pashkov House, now the Rumyantsev Museum. For any other author, such a plan would inevitably feel cold and would not enchant with such tenderness as this true miracle of architecture, this one-of-a-kind house in Europe. Few people know, even among old-timers of Moscow, another one he created. architectural masterpiece, the palace of Count Razumovsky, which now houses a branch of the Nikolaev Orphan Institute.
M. F. Kazakov. Palace of Count Razumovsky on Gorokhovoy Pole in Moscow. (Nowadays a department of the Nikolaev Orphan Institute). - Around 1790

Its middle part, the only one remaining almost undamaged, with an amazingly unexpected entrance built in a huge niche, is simply incomparable in its wealth of ingenuity and flight of imagination. During the entire reign of Catherine and Paul, as well as in the first decade of the 19th century, not a single significant building was built in Moscow without the participation of Kazakov, who either built it himself, or made drawings from which others built, or, finally, limited himself to advice that was highly valued by his contemporaries. And studying all the buildings he built, you cannot help but be amazed at the endless variety and flexibility of his spontaneous talent. He created a school of numerous students who built all of Moscow and a significant part of Russia with buildings of the Cossack style, which inspired architects for almost a century.”

Count A.K. RAZUMOVSKY, 1748-1822, eldest son of Count Kirill Grigorievich from his marriage to Ekaterina Ivanovna Naryshkina, born September 12, 1748; the hetman tried to give his sons a solid and versatile education, and the education of Count A.K. Razumovsky was completed by a long traveling abroad, during which he listened to lectures in Strasbourg and visited Italy and England. Enlisted at birth for military service, he was promoted to captain by Peter III and renamed chamber cadet; in 1775, Razumovsky was granted full chamberlain status, but already in 1778 he retired and lived as a private citizen in his magnificent village near Moscow. Gorenki. On June 28, 1786, he was promoted to privy councilor and appointed senator, but his pride, offended by Catherine’s refusal to appoint him president of the College of Commerce, again prompted him in 1795 to retire into private life. Alexander I appointed Razumovsky on November 2, 1807, a trustee of Moscow University, with promotion to actual Privy Councillors, and on April 11, 1810, the Minister of Public Education. Razumovsky, however, soon became tired of the new activity and on May 26, 1812, asked for leave, much to the displeasure of Alexander I. The Emperor’s coolness and eye disease prompted Razumovsky in 1814 to ask for resignation, to which the Emperor agreed “beyond his will.” Razumovsky spent the last years of his life in Little Russia, in Pochep, where he died on April 5, 1822. His remains, after the sale of Pochep to Count Kleinmichel, were transferred to the Spassky Novgorod-Seversky Monastery; over the grave of Count A.K. Razumovsky has a tomb with an inscription in which he is given the title “poor helper, patron of sciences.” From marriage to Countess V.P. Sheremeteva, Razumovsky had 2 sons and 2 daughters, and from the daughter of his bereitor, M. M. Sobolevskaya, he had 5 “pupils” and 5 “pupils” who received the surname “Perovsky”.
Count A.K. Razumovsky was a man of difficult character, stern, gloomy and unsociable. These qualities were supplemented by others, determined by the aristocratic environment in which the game of happiness placed the Razumovskys. This, as Wiegel put it, “stuffed with French literature,” the shepherd’s grandson considered himself a “Russian Montmorency” and looked with excessive pride at mere mortals who were not rewarded by “fits of happiness.” He did not trust people, he simply did not like to see them, preferring to sit in his office, however, despite his distrust of people, he was always under someone’s influence: he was a Voltairean, a Freemason, and a friend of the Jesuits. Razumovsky was not insensitive to “honor and praise”; at the age of 25, he was not averse to taking some post that corresponded to his merits, such as the president of the Chambers - or Manufacturers - Collegium, and lost his temper when he met only “the constant grief at the Court”, consoling themselves with the fact that in the higher spheres “they value only bodily advantages as dignity. But at the same time, he was characterized by, in the words of his father, “damned laziness” and he soon became bored with official activities. He was considered an expert in botany, and his garden in Gorenki and greenhouses were recognized as the “miracle of Russia.” But this capricious amateur planted his gardens only to kill idle time, and was not capable of serious scientific work, like his brother, mineralogist gr. Grigory. As Vigel put it, Razumovsky “made the same use out of his knowledge as out of wealth, he enjoyed them without any benefit to others.” In addition, he was also obsessed with the passion of producing expensive and unnecessary buildings. Selling for 400,000 rubles. a comfortable house on Vozdvizhenka, he spent a million rubles on the construction of a palace on Gorokhovoy Pole. Insane extravagance, combined with ransom scams, ruined his enormous fortune, and in the last years of his life he besieged Alexander I with requests to buy his house on Gorokhovoye Pole for the treasury. As a minister, he left behind, as Wiegel put it, “no memory.” Under him, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was opened, many circulars were published, but the minister personally only owned the opening ceremony of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum and the rules for monitoring the temperature in the premises of this institution, written in his own hand...

(From a portrait of Guttenbrunn, 1801; located in the Museum of Emperor Alexander III)