Moscow

Lefortovo Park and monument-gozebo to Peter I

A country retreat of Fyodor Golovin (1650–1706), one of the closest associates of Peter I, was set up on the left bank of the Yauza River, opposite the German Settlement in the very early 18th century.

During the Regency of Tsarevna Sophia, okolnichy Fyodor Golovin was sent to the Amur region to settle a border conflict with China where he entered into the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 which determined the border between the two countries.  Upon his return, he was appointed as a Siberian vicegerent. In the Azov campaign of 1696, Golovin commanded the vanguard of galleys.  The following year, he traveled to Western Europe as part of a diplomatic mission known in history as the “Grand Embassy”.  In 1699, he was promoted to become General Admiral. At various times he headed the Ambassadorial, Naval, and Yamskoy Prikazes (Offices), the Armory, the Golden and Silver Chambers, and the Mint.  Fyodor Golovin was the first cavalier of the order of Alexander Nevsky (1699), the first General Field Marshal of Russia (1700), Count of the Holy Roman Empire (1702), the founder of the Golovins count line. He died in 1706 and was buried in the family vault in the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Simonov Monastery (his grave has been lost).

The main house of Golovin’s city estate was located on the bank of the Golovinsky (Upper) Pond, and a regular park was laid out nearby.  The estate was used to receive foreign diplomats and host assemblies.  The wedding of Count Ivan Golovin and Anna, the daughter of Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev, which took place there in January 1703, was attended by Peter I. On February 5, 1704, the Tsar received there the envoy of the French King Louis XIV, Jean Casimir Baluze.

In the early 1720s, Peter I bought the estate from Fyodor Golovin’s children and commissioned its reconstruction to his personal physician of Dutch origin Nicolaas Bidloo who headed the Main Military Hospital adjacent to the estate. The reconstruction of the estate was based on a drawing made by Peter himself and involved laying out a new garden with canals, ponds, a grotto, greenhouses, artificial islands, fountains, bridges and cascades.

In December 1723, Peter expressed his intention to spend the next spring in Lefortovo and Bidloo built chambers for the Tsar. The reconstruction work at the estate was in general completed in 1724. In 1727, after the neighboring palace of His Highness Prince Alexander Menshikov had been seized by the state, the left-bank part of its park was annexed to the Golovinsky Garden.

In 1805, a white stone semi-rotunda gazebo was built in memory of the Emperor by architect Matvei Kazakov on the bank of the pond.  Eight columns are carrying a dome under which there is a granite stele with a bust of the Emperor and the chiseled words reportedly said by Peter in November 1724 in connection with a plan to build a canal to connect the two Russian capitals.  The Tsar hoped that at some point he would be able to go ashore in the Golovinsky Garden in Moscow after leaving Saint Petersburg by water.  The story of the gazebo itself is set forth on a white marble plaque mounted on its gable.

Empress Elizabeth Petrovna built a new Golovinsky Palace which included the old house of Golovin.  The Palace was destroyed by fire in 1767. Under Catherine II, the existing Catherine Palace was built nearby (at 5/5 Krasnokursantsky Driveway), and the site of the burned out Golovinsky Palace (1 and 3 Krasnokazarmennaya Street) was used for outbuildings.

In 1826, the Golovinsky Garden was opened to the public. What has survived here from the time of Peter the Great are the ponds (Golovinsky, Krestovy (Cross), Bolshoi (Big), and Ovalny (Oval)). Since the end of the 19th century, the name of the Golovinsky Garden was changed to the Lefortovo Park after the historical district in which it is located.

The restoration of the Lefortovo Park, a monument of gardening art of federal significance, began in 1999 on the occasion of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of Lefortovo. The water system and park structures have been rehabilitated. The Park is part of the Moscow State Integrated Art and Historical Architectural and Natural Landscape Museum-Reserve.