Moscow Guide
The northern suburbs
Ostankino Palace
Opening time: May– Sept Wed– Sun 11am–7pm except on very rainy days
Price: R80
Moscow's Ostankino Palace (Ostankinskiy dvorets) is inseparably linked to the story of Count Nikolai Sheremetev, his love of the theatre and Parasha Kovalyova, a serf girl on his Kuskovo estate whom he first set eyes on as she was leading a cow home from the woods. Tutored in the dramatic arts, she became a gifted opera singer with the stage name of "Zhemchugova" (from the Russian word for "pearl"), and the prima donna at Ostankino, a palace specially built for staging performances. Its grandeur and theatricality were epitomized by a reception staged for Tsar Paul in 1795. As he rode through the woods, dozens of pre-sawn trees suddenly fell aside to reveal the palace in all its glory. Remarkably, the whole palace is made of wood, disguised beneath a stucco veneer; for fear of fire, it has never been electrified or centrally heated – which is why the palace is only open five months of the year.
Guided tours in Russian (R150) run every thirty minutes, starting with an exhibition on the Sheremetev family, which owned three million acres and 300,000 serfs and preserved its fortune by bequeathing the lot to the eldest son instead of dividing it between several heirs – a custom maintained until Nikolai's grandsons agreed to take equal shares. On the left of the columned hall beyond is a portrait of Parasha, visibly pregnant with Count Nikolai's child; she died twenty days after giving birth, whereupon he revealed that they had secretly married three years earlier, after fourteen years of living together out of wedlock.