The Presidential Library tells about the famous founders and guests of Tsarskoye Selo

The Presidential Library’s collections contain many materials that tell about the history of the main residence of the imperial dynasty - Tsarskoye Selo.

The territory of the village of Saritsa, located 25 km from St. Petersburg, after the conquest by the Swedes, turned into the Saritshof estate, which was also called the Sarskaya manor. After the Northern War, these lands again became Russian. The Sarskaya manor was presented by Peter I, first to Prince Alexander Menshikov, and then unsubscribed to the possession of Marta Skavronskaya, the future wife of the sovereign, Ekaterina Alekseevna.

June 24 (July 5), 1710 is considered to be the official date of foundation of Tsarskoye Selo. Since that time, the events taking place in Tsarskoye Selo have become an important part of Russian history.

Peter's daughter Elizabeth, who preferred baroque to all artistic styles, turned Tsarskoye Selo into a luxurious imperial residence, which later became known as the Russian Versailles. The daughter of Emperor Paul Ekaterina Pavlovna, Emperors Nicholas I and Nicholas II were born in Tsarskoye Selo. The Alexander Palace for a long time became the favorite residence of the last Russian Tsar where the family lived from 1904.

Tsarskoye Selo entered Russian history not only as an imperial residence, but also thanks to the creation of a privileged higher educational institution for the nobles of the Russian Empire - the Imperial Lyceum. The Presidential Library’s portal provides the Decree on the Lyceum (1810), signed by Emperor Alexander I. The purpose of the creation of the Lyceum was formulated in the decree: the education of young people “intended for important parts of the public service”. The lyceum gave Russia a whole galaxy of famous statesmen. Among them are diplomat Alexander Gorchakov, captain Alexander Gnedich, director of the St. Petersburg Public Library Baron Modest Korf and many others. The Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum played a special role in the development of Russian literature. In Yakov Grot's book Pushkin, his lyceum comrades and mentors (1887), which is available in the Presidential Library, the author tells about the atmosphere of the "new school" which favored the development of poetic talent: "Tsarskoe Selo combined the double charm of fresh historical memories and picturesque beauties of the area. The most important occupation for lyceum students was reading. “Reading nourishes the soul, forms, develops abilities. For this reason, we try to have all the magazines: Pantheon, Vestnik Evropy, Russkiy Vestnik, etc. We also want to enjoy the bright day of our literature...”. The lyceum gave Russian literature such people as Alexander Pushkin, Anton Delvig, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, Ivan Pushchin, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Innokenty Annensky. The latter was one of its directors.  

Gavriil Derzhavin and Vasily Zhukovsky came to serve at the court at different times in Tsarskoye Selo. Nikolai Gogol, who lived at that time in Pavlovsk, came to Tsarskoye Selo on visits to Zhukovsky and Pushkin. “Almost every evening we gathered: Zhukovsky, Pushkin and I”, - writes Gogol in November 1831.

Mikhail Lermontov in 1834-1837 served in the Life Guards Hussar Regiment, quartered in Tsarskoye Selo. Burdened by the monotony of military service, one day he appeared at the solemn divorce of the guard with a short, almost toy, saber, which caused laughter in the ranks and an immediate punishment - fifteen days in a guardhouse.

Court and military life in Tsarskoye Selo happily coexisted with the dacha. With the construction of the palace in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, Peter I essentially laid the foundation for dacha, country life. The “great dacha resettlement” was observed especially intensively in the 19th century. Nikolai Karamzin, the founder of Russian sentimentalism, the creator of the History of the Russian State, lived at a dacha in Tsarskoye Selo. Tsarskoye Selo dacha life touched the composer Mikhail Glinka, the poet Fyodor Tyutchev. In the 20th century, Tsarskoye Selo was a place for poetry gatherings. Mandelstam, in his 1912 poem “Let’s Go to Tsarskoye Selo” called for leaving Petersburg, which embodies the pompous “kingdom of etiquette”, and heading there, to “barracks, parks and palaces” where “mono-thinking generals while away their tired lives” where “uhlans smile, jumping on a strong saddle. Tsarskoye Selo for Mandelstam is a world of freedom, fun, feasts and adventures.

Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova lived in a small wooden house in Tsarskoye Selo. Meetings of the "Workshop of Poets" were held here. The house was decorated with animal skins, stuffed animals stood everywhere, the walls were covered with "Abyssinian paintings". The bookshelves stored books by "selected modernists". Here, in Tsarskoye Selo, Sergei Yesenin came to visit Gumilyov and Akhmatova. Two years later, he served as an orderly on the Tsarskoye Selo military hospital train.

By the way, Akhmatova was afraid to live in this house - she constantly felt someone's invisible presence in it ("Tell me, what lived in this house besides us?"), And it seemed to her that under someone's "heavy steps the steps of the dark staircase groaned, as if plaintively begging for mercy.

This fear seemed to be a harbinger of future historical dramas. On a December night in 1916, in the Alexander Park, in the place where the maid of honor of the Empress Anna Vyrubova was building the church of St. Seraphim of Sarov, the "secret priest" of the royal family, Grigory Rasputin, was buried.

In March 1917, in his beloved Alexander Palace, Emperor Nicholas and his family were taken into custody. “Open the gates to the former tsar”, this is how the guard officer met the royal family. Soon the parks and palaces were nationalized, the royal property was confiscated. The electronic reading room of the Presidential Library contains a set of postcards "The Last House of the Last Emperor of Russia", which features rare photographs and the interior of the rooms of the Alexander Palace, shows the things of the family of Nicholas II associated with the last period of his life.

Since 1918, Tsarskoye Selo became known as Detskoye Selo. In 1937, in connection with the 100th anniversary of the death of Alexander Pushkin, the city was renamed Pushkin. However, space has the ability to invisibly store the experience of the past. It is this experience that is the "safety certificate" of the history of the state. “How long has Catherine’s glory thundered here, / And was the Russian state the first?” asked the poet Alexander Voeikov (1779–1839) two hundred years ago. “Now we do not sigh either about the time of Peter the Great, or about the happy days of Catherine the Great”, - the poet continues, hoping that the real glory of Tsarskoye Selo - the “house of the Gods” - will be brought by the “new” time, not yet fully explored.