Brief historical reference and reconstruction of the Mikhailovsky Garden

The Mikhailovsky Garden is one of the rarest landscape architecture monuments of the 18th and the first 30 years of the 19th centuries, it is a unique mix of two different styles of landscaping art in one place, the regular style (“French”) and the landscape style (“English”). Also it is an example of a magnificent coming together of the architecture of the Mikhailovsky Palace and the natural landscape of the Mikhailovsky Garden, which was designed by the architect K.I. Rossi. The Mikhailovsky Garden may be considered one of the brightest and most typical examples of the effect of the change of park and gardening style in landscape architecture.

The Mikhailovsky Garden is an integral part of the composition of the central St. Petersburg, which includes the Summer Garden and the Mars Field. During its long life the garden has changed its layout many times following new fashion trends and owners’ tastes.

At first, on the lands of the current Summer, Mikhailovsky, and Inzhenerny Gardens there were rural settlements, and the estate and hunting lands of Captain Konau, which is shown in a layout dated 1698. In 1716–1717, architect J.-B. Leblond made a general layout of the three Summer Gardens at the order of Peter I. The First and Second Gardens were on the land of the present Summer Gardens. The third garden was where, in the 17th century, there was the palace of Catherine I. The Mikhailovsky Garden was part of the Third Summer Garden and was called The Swedish Garden.
Approved by Peter the Great himself, Leblond’s plan was in fact a project of a united grand palace and park estate.

The northeastern part, where the palace of Catherine I was situated, was the main part. The image of the palace in the layout is nearly the same as the layout of the central part of the Central Chambers of Peter I in Peterhof. Near the palace there were fir trees cut as pyramids. An alley of chestnut trees led to a big parterre with a trellis arbor and a shaped basin with a fountain and sculpture. The southwest half of the garden was first planned as a regular fruit garden. A garden of the Russian Court with plants in baskets where gooseberry and currant bushes, cherry trees, herbs, and roots were grown. There were also glasshouses, hotbeds, greenhouses, and cellars where a variety of exotic southern plants and fruit was grown. During the reign of Ann there were plots in the Swedish garden with “reserve” maple trees, i.e. a forest farm. There was also a Yagdgarten there, which is a small hunting place where hares and deer were kept in special fenced places for noble hunting.

In 1741, empress Elizabeth offered F.B. Rastrelli to design and build of a new Summer Palace on the place of the palace of Catherine I and its garden. In April 1743 F.B. Rastrelli completed his work, which consisted of a labyrinth garden decorated with sculptures and fountains. Behind the palace there was another beautiful place with two shaped ponds, a fountain, and a figured lace flower garden. The Swedish garden was somewhat changed, the land being divided into geometrical parts by a crossing of longitudinal and transversal lines, with five rectangular ponds dug in the centre. It can thus be said that the Third Summer and Swedish Gardens became another example of the Russian park and gardening art of the 18th century.

In 1800 as the construction of the Mikhailovsky Castle began, the palace of Elizabeth was demolished. The land adjoining the castle included the entire “Rastrelli” and “Swedish” Gardens. The Rastrelli Garden kept two of its shaped ponds with trees planted in a line by the perimeter. In the Swedish Garden, there remained four ponds, which were linked by an underground canal that was laid to the western shaped pond.
The Third Summer Garden began to be called the Upper Summer Garden or the Mikhailovsky Garden. The layout of the Swedish Garden and its purpose as an orchard in the western part and as a walking garden in the eastern part did not change. Unfortunately, the Mikhailovsky Castle estate did not exist like this for a long time. After the tragic events on March 11, 1801, the castle stopped existing as the emperor’s residence. The Tsar’s family moved out of it, and the park and canals gradually fell in disrepair.

 

In 1819 a new stage of the garden establishment began. In the place of the old glasshouses that adjoined the Upper Summer Gardens from the south, K.I. Rossi at the order of Nicholas I, completed one of the biggest estates. This consisted of the design of the Mikhailovsky Palace for the Great Prince Michael, the redesign of the Mikhailovsky Garden, and the redevelopment of a square in front of the southern façade of the palace. The final project of the redesign of the Mikhailovsky Palace garden was granted the high approval in April 1822. K.I. Rossi worked on this project together with architect A.A. Menelas who was ordered to begin implementing the project immediately. K.I. Rossi kept the unique water system of the Mikhailovsky Garden ponds and the Resurrection canal of the Mikhailovsky Castle and complemented it with a new underground collector, which linked the big pond to the Moyka River. A quadrangle of two rows of cut trees was planted around the Mikhailovsky Castle. A typical feature of the layout of the Mikhailovsky Garden, which K.I. Rossi included in his project, was keeping the layout of certain pieces in accordance with the projects of J.-B. Leblond and F.B. Rastrelli. K.I. Rossi made a model “English” garden where all the basic informal layout techniques of the English landscaping architecture of 1715 – 1760 were used with great expression.

 

In the Mikhailovsky Garden in front of the palace façade, Rossi put a big meadow (“the Shrovetide Meadow”) of an irregular oval form, which was included in the regular layout. Another typical technique of the “English” garden design is ponds with irregular shapes. This is why the architect turned geometrical basins into picturesque ponds, giving their shapes a curvy “natural” shape, and the small rectangular ponds in the garden centre were covered with earth. Another traditional element of a landscape park, a pavilion with a quay on the Moyka River, was added to the garden on the place where the foundation of the first wooden palace of Catherine I had once been.
In his redesign, K.I. Rossi kept the system of paths that were the foundation of the layout. Some of the plants were kept and picturesque groups of trees were added. There were many flower gardens and bushes with beautiful blooms in the Mikhailovsky Garden.
In 1902, the small pond in the east became shallow and was covered with earth. The western part of the garden shrunk greatly due to the construction of the Resurrection of Christ Temple (arch. I. Makarov and A. Parland). In 1922, the name of the garden was changed to the MOPR Garden (an abbreviation for the International Organization for Aid to Fighters for the Revolution). Under this “poetic” name, the former Mikhailovsky Garden gained the status of a city park. The Shrovetide Meadow was crossed by road, sites for a stage and pavilions were built, and exhibitions and playing grounds were arranged. In 1961, a municipal toilet was built in the garden, which was later followed by a tennis court. All the trees and bushes were planted without any order. The trees grew bigger and hid the garden façade of the palace and the view from the palace of the Mars Field. The features of the magnificent historical landscape were disappearing every year.
An examination in 2000 showed that the garden was in a critical condition, and a reconstruction project was carried out by the State Institute of Architecture (GIA) in St. Petersburg in 2001. The project was based on architect Rossi’s plan of 1826, and according to the project, it was planned to regain the historical value of the estate of the Mikhailovsky Palace and the Mikhailovsky Garden. The reconstruction principle was based on the keeping the regular French layout as the garden perimeter with the informal English style in the centre. According to the development concept of the Russian Museum, it is planned to turn the Mikhailovsky Garden into an open-air garden of Russian sculpture with bronze copies of the museum’s sculptures made by Russian sculptors.
The project of recreation of the Mikhailovsky Garden as in 1824 – 1826 included minimum restoration work in order to keep the precious old-aged trees. An assessment of each group of trees and each individual tree was done in order to establish certain landscapes. The reconstruction of the 9.4-hectare Mikhailovsky Garden in 2002 – 2004 included work that is similar to that which was done under K.I. Rossi and new jobs are dictated by the real life conditions of a modern garden:

1. The second pond, which had been filled in 1902, was recreated (the historical stone pavement of the pond bottom and slopes were recreated, and running water supply was brought to the pond).
2. The existing old pond was cleared of all the sludge, and the stone pavement of the pond bottom and slopes restored.
3. Land all over the garden was replaced, and new lawns were sown. Rolled lawns were made on the central meadow and the slopes of the Mikhailovsky Palace terrace, Moyka River, and pond slopes. The slopes were enforced with modern technologies.
4. The pavement design was replaced.
5. The draining system and rainwater sewage were reconstructed, and drain trays were made with the historical moss paving technology.
6. Old and bad trees were removed.
7. 200-year old trees with hollows were cured using a unique technology, which was previously unknown in Russia.
8. New tree and bush compositions were recreated and flower gardens were planted in accordance with the historical layout.
9. The lighting system was replaced, underground lighting for historical trees and Rossi’s bridge was arranged, and new garden lights were installed.
10. The garden was equipped with a modern security system.
11. A new fence between the Mikhailovsky Garden and the Russian Ethnography Museum was installed.
12. The stone riprap to the Mikhailovsky Palace from the garden site was restored.
13. A new stone riprap was made leading to the Resurrection of Christ Temple.
14. The cast iron fence and plinth along the Sadovaya Street were restored and installed.
15. The limestone plinth of the fence of the Mikhailovsky lane was restored.
16. A new cast iron fence and was installed on the plinth of the Mikhailovsky lane.
17. Three granite staircases on the Mikhailovsky Palace terrace were restored.
18. New benches, litter bins, and lawn fencing were made and installed.
19. An underground cell for the water-rating station was installed, which waters the garden and feeds the ponds from the city running water system.
20. Piping was laid and 180 jets for the arrangement of an automatic watering system were mounted.
21. Preparations were made for a new building for the garden operation service.
22. The original bearing structures of the Rossi’s cast iron bridge, which was covered with earth together with the pond in 1902, were restored

 

The reconstruction employed the most advanced materials and restoration techniques. As of today, most of the reconstruction work is completed. The work was supervised by the Committee for State Control, Use, and Protection of Monuments of History and Culture in St. Petersburg.