Summer house in Neskuchny garden
Yesterday we went to the Neskuchny Garden to see the Summer (Tea) House of Orlov-Chesmensky. It's good that he survived for the past two centuries.
How many eminent guests sat at the tea table in its halls, how many elegant shoes stepped on the carpets of its oak twisted stairs.
No, no, yes, and a scarlet shawl with a multi-colored border of the finest wool will flash on a high balcony under Corinthian capital, and then the quiet voice of the aging Count Orlov-Chesmensky will be heard: “Ninushka, come here, my dear, dance Russian for the guests.” Or imagined?
You will see the parquet floor of one of the ballrooms through the wooden rhombus of the window, and suddenly it will again seem like a lovely creature in a light blue crepe dress will fly into the hall, bouquets of small roses on both sides of the dress, the same in the hair, on the back of the head there are three tiny curls, large pearls around the neck. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I, his " White Rose". She knew how to slide on the floor, "her movements, like a swan of desert waters, resembled a smooth move," our loving poet remarked.
The boring garden is associated with the name of Count Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov. It was he who bought the estate after the death of Demidov and rebuilt the house-palace to his own taste. When the count died in 1796, according to the will, the estate passed to his 11-year-old niece Anna Orlova-Chesmenskaya and her father, the count, as the guardian of the minor.
But with the accession of Emperor Paul I in the same year, 1796, Anna and her father went abroad and lived there for five years, until 1801.
Apparently, having returned, the count built this Summer (tea) house on the steep bank of the river, and nearby - also the Bath house with a pond in front of it, in order to drink fragrant tea in the Tea house after baths from healing springs.
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna fell in love with the Neskuchny Garden when she visited there in the year of her wedding with Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich.
The royal family acquired the estate in 1832 - the 47-year-old pious Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya decided to move to a small manor near the Yuryevsky Monastery, the rector of which was Archimandrite Fotiy, her confessor.
After Neskuchnoye was bought out by the imperial family, noisy fun and magnificent gatherings stopped here, but the emperor and his family often came to Neskuchny Garden.
In 1890-1905, the Neskuchny Garden became the summer residence of the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov.
And another woman reigned in the Summer House - Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, "feminine charm incarnate."
“She had magnificent jewelry, Uncle Serge, who admired her beauty, always found reasons to give her gifts. In addition, she had a gift for wearing clothes. Of course, everything suited her, because she was tall, slender, incredibly graceful and no blush could compare with the color of her face. There was something like a lily in her, her purity was absolute, it was impossible to take your eyes off her, and every time we said goodbye to her, we were looking forward to seeing her again.
Even 3 years ago, when we were doing an inventory of green spaces in the Neskuchny Garden, I noticed a fenced area with a building on which a sign "Russian Academy of Sciences" hung.
The place is very atmospheric. The architecture of the last century, the old Volga standing in the parking lot, huge shrubs with a trunk of about 25 cm in diameter and - not a soul. There is a feeling that time has frozen.
A photo a_dedushkin . Alexandrinsky (Neskuchny) Palace.
Photo of 1884 from Naydenov's albums.
The estate, created by P. A. Demidov, the son of a Ural breeder and a famous amateur gardener, arose in the middle of the 18th century. In 1756, the main house was built - U-shaped chambers in terms of plan. A balcony on columns was placed between the risalits of the garden facade. Demidov over the course of a number of years acquired land in the name of his wife from several Moscow owners. In 1754, a yard with the house of F. I. Soimonov, a famous navigator and cartographer, was bought to these possessions. This rounded out the site, and the estate occupied the entire space lying between "the moat and the road that travel from the Church of the Rees-Position to the Moscow River." The "petition of the nobleman P. A. Demidov and his wife Matryona Antipova" dated April 10, 1756 that they want to build "stone chambers" has been preserved. There is also a resolution: "it is allowed to be built according to the attached plan of the architect Yakovlev." The courtyard in front of the house was surrounded by stone services and an iron fence cast at the Demidov factories. Behind the house on the banks of the Moskva River, a terraced garden was arranged with overseas flowers and trees. Near the Demidov estate there was a large property of the manufacturer F. I. Serikov, in 1786 its southern part passed to F. G. Orlov. After Demidov's death, his property and Serikov's property were acquired by the Vyazemskys, and seven years later by F. G. Orlov. In 1796, after his death, the entire territory was inherited by the young daughter of his brother, A.G. Orlov-Chesmensky. The main house was the Demidov Chambers, rebuilt in 1804 in somewhat crushed forms of mature classicism. The portico on the central risalit of the main facade is peculiar: four pairs of Corinthian columns carry a decorative wall cut through by arches, into which the windows of the third floor open. In front of the flat side risalits, strongly protruding semicircular balconies on low columns are placed.
Large stone dogs sit on the sides of the entrance.
In 1832, A. A. Orlova sold the huge estate to the Palace Department. It was called the Neskuchny Garden. The main house was Orlova's house, called the Alexandrinsky Palace after the wife of Nicholas I, for whom the estate was arranged.
AT Soviet time first the Museum of Furniture, and then the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences) was located here. 
Fountain (sk. I. Vitali, 1834). Originally located on Lubyanka Square. In the 1930s moved here, to the building of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. 
Around the fountain there is a beautiful, well-groomed flower garden.
(The only plant that could not be identified. Can anyone tell me?)
On the sides of the palace behind a dense wall of lilacs hidden from sight two green corners. 
On the right is a monument to the fallen in the Second World War
On the left - a former reservoir, at the bottom of which the filiform speedwell fades, and a neglected, overgrown flower garden.
And on each grows a huge, beautiful Scumpius.
Gorgeous and very unusual plant. Such "fluffy" she stands until the fall.
Balcony on semi-columns.
The back yard is more run down. There you can see black locusts with their textured bark, lilac bushes 5-6 meters high (at the base the diameter is such that they can already look more like trees), collapsed spherical arborvitae (apparently dwarf. They are already over a meter in diameter)) and mock orange bushes crown overgrown so that under them can easily stand in full height a person with a height of 170 cm. (In the photo, the bush is "cleaned", a growing shrub nearby resembles a large lair).
This beautiful building flickers in the back of the courtyard when you drive along Leninsky Prospekt. Luxurious gate with the inscription " Russian Academy Sciences "block access, and I included the palace in the list, but experts suggested: on weekdays, you can safely approach the palace.
The palace has a long and interesting history.
In the middle of the 18th century, the Demidovs acquired lands in the area of the Kaluga tract, and in 1756 a palace was erected. In 1804, it was rebuilt by new owners - the Orlovs, and in 1832 the estate (which covered the lands of the current Gorky Park and Neskuchny Garden) was acquired by the palace department for the imperial family. Nicholas I presented the palace to his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and named it Alexandrinsky. The palace was renovated, a main entrance was laid from Kaluga Street to the palace. The entrance to the park is decorated with pylons with allegorical sculptures; according to some sources, they symbolize abundance, according to others - the seasons and were made by Ivan (Giovanni) Vitali.
AT mid-nineteenth century, the park was publicly accessible during the absence royal family in Moscow. However, in the 1890s, the Moscow governor-general, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II, settled in the Alexandrinsky Palace; he closed access to the park.
And after the revolution, a museum of furniture craftsmanship was created in the palace, colorfully described by Ilf and Petrov (the heroes of the immortal novel were looking for chairs here):
These were rooms furnished with Pavlovian Empire style, mahogany and Karelian birch - austere, marvelous and warlike furniture. Two square cupboards, glass doors criss-crossed with spears, stood opposite the desk. The table was empty. To sit down for him was like sitting down for Theater Square, and big theater with a colonnade and four bronze horses dragging Apollo to the premiere of The Red Poppy, would have seemed like an ink utensil on the table... left hand low semicircular windows ran from the floor. Through them, under her feet, Liza saw a huge white double-height hall with columns. In the hall, too, there was furniture and visitors wandered around.
And in 1934, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences moved to the palace, which occupies it to this day (not counting the 22-story skyscraper built nearby).
And then into the courtyard from Lubyanka Square (from the place where long years stood "Iron Felix"), Ivan Vitali's Nikolsky Fountain was moved: four figures of boys, personifying the Russian rivers Volga, Dnieper, Don and Neva, who supported a large bowl of red granite. Vitali worked on the fountain in 1829-1835, so he can rightfully share the glory of the oldest fountain in Moscow with.
Somewhere I read that the fountain does not work. It's not true, it works, and how ...
We pass the fountain, go to the palace.
Ah, what balconies, what lattices 
The entrance to the palace is guarded by such dogs; they, like the fountain, were moved - from the Lower Presnensky Pond, now defunct (it was located in the White House area) 
Buildings preserved from the first half of XIX century 