Tsarskoye Selo as a monument to the era of Nicholas II

Views entering the city of Pushkin (former Tsarskoye Selo) from St. Petersburg attract an unusual complex of buildings in the Russian national style. First of all, pleases the eye white-stone, with sparkling gold dome church.

This is the Fedorovsky Cathedral and the Fedorovsky town. Alas, these monuments of the most important era in the history of the country are still little known to ordinary tourists. They, first of all, rush to the lush Baroque ensemble of the Catherine Palace with its famous Amber Room.

However, to visit the Fedorovsky town and the cathedral, as well as the Alexander Palace will be interesting for everyone. Just not everyone knows about it.

The last residence of the Russian emperors was here, in Tsarskoye Selo. Since 1905, the family of Nicholas II lived in the Alexander Palace. When the democratically minded elite of the army and aristocracy forced the emperor to abdicate, this palace became the place of house arrest of the “citizen Romanov”. The arrest ended on August 1, 1917, when the last Russian emperor and his family left the Alexander Palace for good and went into exile in Tobolsk, which ended in a shooting in the basement of the Ipatiev House.

Now in the Alexander Palace there is a museum exhibition dedicated to the life of the imperial couple in the pre-revolutionary period.

Alexander Palace

The birth of a terminally ill heir made a real tragedy in the life of the Romanovs, sharpened to the extreme the mystical and religious mood of the Empress. Alexandra Fedorovna spent many hours in church, in prayers. The curious glances and excitement of the crowd during the presence of the royal family in the temple annoyed and distracted her conversation with God. He needed his own family temple, where there were no strangers. Such a temple - Fedorovsky Cathedral - and was built in 1912. The upper, terrestrial part of it is consecrated in the name of the Fedorovsk Icon of the Mother of God, a family icon of the Romanov dynasty. But the Empress herself prayed all alone in the lower, “cave” church of the cathedral, which is dedicated to Seraphim of Sarov. “Our cozy cave church,” Nicholas II called it.

Fedorovsky Cathedral

Fedorovsky Cathedral is built in the so-called neo-Russian or pseudo-Russian style, which arose at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, and resembles Russian temples of the 16th-17th centuries. Architectural styles, like many other things in life, stem from their specific ideology, worldview. Neo-Russian style had in its origins the rise of Russian national consciousness, interest in the glorious and beautiful past of Russia. In this vein and at this time worked V. Vasnetsov, V. Polenov, M. Nesterov, I. Bilibin. And the project of the Fedorovsky Cathedral was created by a young architect V. Pokrovsky, the construction was completed in 1912.

In the same neo-Russian style, the Fedorovsky town near the cathedral was built. These are the houses originally intended for the post and employees of the cathedral. Beautiful stone carvings on the walls and window casings; high roofs and tent tops of the towers evoke images of ancient temples or, perhaps, illustrations by I. Bilibin to Russian fairy tales.

Corner of the Fedorovsky town

Near the imperial residence was its own, imperial, station. From the railway line, an offshoot was made, leading closer to the Alexander Palace. At the moment, only the skeleton has survived from the station, which is very sad.

In the best of times, the emperor was solemnly welcomed on the platform, and in the worst (which came shortly after the construction of the station) ambulance trains arrived here. With the beginning of the First World War, infirmaries were located in Tsarskoye Selo, a hospital was deployed in the Fedorovsky town. 20 sanitary trains operated here, and S. Yesenin served as an orderly on one of them.

Emperor's station

In the infirmary of the Fedorovsky town, concerts were given for the wounded, which were also attended by members of the imperial family. In his "Autobiography" Yesenin indicated that he "once read poems to the Empress." After reading my poems, she said that my poems were beautiful, but very sad. I told her that was the whole of Russia. He referred to poverty, climate and so on.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that in Tsarskoye Selo, a huge number of places have been preserved, one way or another connected with the fate of the last emperor, with the way in the highest circles the plan for the destruction of historical Russia, the so-called “conspiracy of the princes” ripened. After all, the “princes” built their dachas closer to the imperial dacha. In their lush mansions, political passions were boiling, intrigues and plans for the revolutionary transformation of the country were being prepared. But this is a separate conversation and another tour of Tsarskoye Selo.

Author: Yermakova Elena Alexandrovna
Personal page of the author: http://www.personalguide.ru/guids/529/632/