Imperial residence and Soviet glass

In the reconstructed estate of the XVIII century on Elagin Island in St. Petersburg a new museum life boils, slightly masked from the uninitiated by the status of the nearby Central Park of Culture and Art.

Many people heard about the Elagin Island, but a rare tourist seeks to go there with the same determination as in the Hermitage or the Russian Museum. Firstly, this is not the center: the island is located 5 km from Nevsky. Secondly, on the cards it is listed as TsPKiO them. Kirova, but we know the Soviet Central Committee of Culture and Culture: carousels, Ferris wheel, ice cream, loud music. Meanwhile, we are talking about the amazingly preserved imperial estate of the XVIII – XIX centuries - the creation of Giacomo Quarenghi and Carlo Rossi, as well as 100 hectares of the historic English park (the fifth part is occupied by canals and ponds), centuries-old trees growing directly from the water, romantic alleys and finally, about the current progressive museum, located in an old building.

Walls

The island and the house on it, purchased at the beginning of the 19th century from Ober-Hofmeister Ivan Elagin, Sovereign Alexander I, became the residence of the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna. The architect Carl Rossi was called to rebuild the estate to suit the tastes and status of the hostess. He devoted five years to the project: he not only expanded and built up the palace, but also re-planned the park, built the Kitchen Building, the Music Pavilion, a greenhouse, stables, and put on a granite pier. In a unified style, Rossi designed the interiors of the palace, and for a long time, even after the revolution, they were considered the perfect example of an empire style. If we add to this a magnificent collection of furniture, not only not looted, but also supplemented by the requisitioned property of the former owners of the Kamenno-Ostrov cottages, it will become clear why the complex functioned as a Museum of Decorative and Applied Art (Museum of Life).

During the war, almost all of its internal splendor: typesetting parquet, sculptural stucco, columns of oselok marble, picturesque arabesques on the walls, oak doors different in all rooms, was destroyed by a direct hit by a landmine. The Elaginsky Palace was one of the first cultural sites restored in Leningrad after the war. The process lasted from 1952 to 1960, led by a famous architect, profession patriarch Mikhail Plotnikov. The restoration of our days (it should be completed in April) is designed to preserve that legendary work of 60 years ago. The surviving furniture collection in the museum is still one of the best in the city.

In 1823, the magazine Literary Leaflets called the Yelaginsky Palace “a temple of taste and magnificence”, and the island itself - a place “where Art and Nature joined forces to present all their wealth under the guise of simplicity”. Over the past two centuries, little has changed - even if you confine yourself to walking in the park and seeing the palace, you can already get a strong impression. But the complex has many other wonders.

Glass

Having the status of a museum, in 1997 the Elaginsky Palace received a fantastic gift - a collection and archive of the Leningrad Art Glass Plant (LZHS). For more than half a century, it was the most advanced glass production in the Soviet Union.

Arose LZHS through the efforts of the sculptor Vera Mukhina. Being in favor after the success of “Worker and Collective Farm Girl”, she suggested that the government set up the production of art glass. Even before the war, an experimental workshop was created, in the 1950s transformed into a whole factory. In a country where the very word “design” was forbidden, suddenly they began to produce exquisite glass items: decanters, jugs, wineglasses, vases, caskets. Mukhina demanded from the masters "rigor, simplicity, clarity, avarice." Before the war, it was precisely such purist things that Aleksei Uspensky did, whose death during the shelling of the city in November 1941 was a great loss. In the 1950s and 1960s, the works of Aknuny Astvatsaturyan, Adolf Ostroumov, Boris Smirnov, Ekaterina Yanovskaya were instantly recognizable by pure St. Petersburg laconicism - the last almost a quarter century was the main artist of the plant. They experimented with technology at the LZHS: they used a Venetian thread, made laminated glass cut through with a diamond face so that multi-colored layers remained visible. Given that crystal and glass served as the main Soviet treasures, “diamonds” were produced at LZHS ...

But in the 1990s, the plant went bankrupt and ceased to exist. His collection, more than 7 thousand storage units, was transferred to the Elaginsky Palace. In 2010, the Museum of Glass opened in the Greenhouse. It is full of masterpieces. Here you can see the rare vase "Repka" (1949) by Vera Mukhina, pre-war glass items by the famous artist Nikolai Tyrsa, a whole window of colored sulfide-zinc glass, ceremonial vases (for example, "Flower" (1955) by Lidia Smirnova), glass sculpture and much more .

The museum not only stores glass, but also studies it. Say, two years ago, the exhibition “Estonian Circle of LZHS” was held here, dedicated to the works of Leyda Jurgen, Helle Põld and Pilvi Ojamaa. And by the permanent exhibition you can trace the evolution of glassmaking in the USSR. The movement went from design to arts and crafts. By the end of the 1980s, mass production and artists were completely divorced: industry produced a boring standard, and artists made art objects for exhibitions.

The matter was not limited to the museum alone. In 2018, a glass studio was launched on Elagin Island, where young graduates of the Stieglitz Academy teach. You can sign up for a master class for both a child and an adult. Having several melting furnaces at their disposal, teachers show how to work with glass and give students a chance to exercise. After such practical exercises, visiting a museum becomes an order of magnitude more meaningful.

Interactivity

The authenticity of the surroundings is combined here with a modern museum approach, offering not only to look and reverence, but to join the beautiful through action. In the Cavalry Corps there are Creative Cottages - drawing, modeling, batik, mosaic studios. Costume balls are held in the Freylin building - crinolines and camisoles can be rented. The stable building was given for temporary exhibitions. Now there are three openings here: “Filming a Movie” and “Porcelain Tale” (until the end of 2020), “Baron Munchausen - King of Liars” (until June 30). On each of them there are genuine works of art: furniture of the 19th - early 20th centuries, genre porcelain plastic, ancient engravings. But the exposition design is the most modern: there are places to sit, lie down, watch a cartoon on the monitor, guess a quiz, draw a hero, take a selfie. At the same time, visitors see an English park in three-meter-high windows and climb high — where are stone, where cast-iron — stairs. That is, the environment still educates and obliges.

Add to this the park fun: Christmas tree, Shrovetide celebrations (the largest meadow in the park has long been called the Oil Meadow), the tulip festival in spring and the International Street Theater Festival "Elagin Park" in the summer (it will be held for the 21st time in 2020) , - and it will become clear that the Yelaginsky Palace and Park Complex is an exceptional place in St. Petersburg. It is easy to understand why tourists know little about him - Petersburgers take care of him for themselves.

Source: http://www.theartnewspaper.ru/