Entertainment garden of the Ostankino estate-museum in Moscow

Active work on the arrangement of the Amusement Garden began in the middle of the XVIII century under Count Peter Borisovich Sheremetev under the leadership of foreign gardeners - Karl Reinert, Johann Manstatt, Peter Raqq, contracts with whom were reissued every two or three years.

In Ostankino was called a gardener Englishman, whose name, unfortunately, is never mentioned in archival documents.

The main park-forming breeds of the Ostankino estate, like many others of this period, were linden, maple, birch, spruce. Exots in parks at the end of the XVIII century were rare. In Ostankino, not only did a cedar grove grow, there was a nursery for the cultivation of these plants.

The appearance of the park was complemented by two gazebos. One of them was crowned by Parnassus - an artificially poured slide, which diversified the boring flat landscape of this part of the then Moscow region. It was a light wooden and plastered structure, the upper part of which is decorated with elegant stucco. The gazebo was a beautiful dominant of this part of the park and one of the best species points of the ensemble.

The second arbor – the so-called “Conversation – Temple” – was on the continuation of the axis of one of the alleys of the park.

In general, the abundance of diverse park elements, some of which belonged to the gardens of classicism, others to the gardens of baroque or romanticism, was harmoniously combined on an area of only 11 hectares. It seems that the creators of the Amusement Garden partly sought to implement the idea of creating a garden of rarities, collecting the best elements from parks of different times and styles and presenting them in miniature. Most likely, this affected the personal taste of Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, who in his youth, in the early 1770s spent four years abroad. His main stops were Holland, England and France (mainly Paris and Versailles). Undoubtedly, he was impressed by the miniature Dutch gardens (that’s where his own garden), English landscape parks and the majestic classicism of Versailles.

Behind the shaft, which was surrounded by the garden (its remains are partially preserved), on the east side there were huts of the settlement, in which the Ostoman courtyards lived, and on the west there was a horse yard and a significant greenhouse farm. Under N.P. Sheremetev, there were six fruit greenhouses in Ostankino. They grew pineapples, peaches, grapes, cherries; there were also greenhouses in which strawberries were grown.

The manor provided inexhaustible opportunities for recreation and entertainment. The Amusement Garden was joined by an area that stretched north to the Kamenka River and occupied hundreds of hectares. It was engulfed by a complex system of long walk paths leading past a dug garden pond through the forest to cascades of ponds arranged along the Kamenka River. This part of the park was built as land was acquired and was called the Surplus Garden. It most fully met the requirements for landscape English parks.

Currently, the Amusement Garden occupies only 11 hectares. In the park still grow about one hundred and fifty ancient trees - linden, oaks, elms, which are 160-200 years and more.