Adventure with the Maxims

Yesterday evening, two American Home students, both named named Maxim (neither of whom have ever been my students - they're actually former students of B), took me about 45 minutes outside of Vladimir to the abandoned estate of Count Khrapovitsky. Khrapovitsky was of the Russian nobility, and he built a gargantuan mansion in the countryside in the 19th century, as nobility tended to do... However, he based his architectural designs on medieval German castles, making this estate an oddity in Russia. After the Soviet revolution, the Khrapovitsky family fled to France, and the estate was turned into a college and during WWII it served as a hospital. At some point (I don't know when) it was ravaged by fire, and left to disintegrate in the countryside near the village of Muromtsevo. At some point, the property was purchased by some Germans who began to do some restoration work on the property. But unfortunately, they didn't get far before giving up. Not sure what, if anything, they're planning to do with the property. We arrived and found the door barred shut... but that didn't stop my companions, who were able to, shall we say, un-bar the door. We explored several floors, climbing the remains of rickety stair-cases and clambering around on broken rafters and boards placed over gaping holes in the floor. (Or in place of where the upper level floors used to be.) I should probably mention that this expedition also involved a lot of wine...

The older part of the Khrapovitsky mansion

The newer addition to the mansion

The new wing as viewed from the old wing, second floor.

In some places, the original decorations can still be seen on the walls.

Luckily the stairs were made of stone.

For the most part though, it's kind of gutted.

Church of the Holy Martyr Tsarina Alexandra
The construction of this church was also paid for by Khrapovitsky.

I like this shot.

And this one.

This "castle" was actually Khrapovitsky's stable.
It was modeled on an actual castle in (I think) Germany.

The rear of the stable.

In 2000 I went to the Russian town of Vyborg on the Finnish border.
I was told that there grew the only living cork tree in Russia.
They lied. There were many cork trees growing on the Khrapovitsky estate.

In front of the castle, there used to be two artificial pools, connected by fountains which cascaded into this natural pond. The natural pond is all that's left, although you can still make out the walls of the former artificial ponds in the brush in front of the castle.

Next to the natural pond was a pavilion for musicians.
This is all that's left of it.

After leaving the remains of the Khrapovitsky estate, we drove to what the Maxims referred to as a geyser, although it was not a geyser in the sense of Old Faithful. Instead it was a spring, which had been capped in such a way that the natural waters bubbling up created a fountain that fed a small river. Unfortunately, my pictures of the "geyser" didn't really turn out very well. Then we drove to a nice spot for swimming-n-shashlik, along a pretty spot of river. Of course, at this point it was just after 10pm, and getting a little dark and chilly... which didn't stop one of the Maxims from going in for a swim. I found a little fish which had been pushed up onto a rock by the current, and pushed him back into the water, letting him swim away.

The river area.

The waterfall, where the fish was stuck.

Afterwards, we went to something that in America I would consider a truck stop (although it was certainly much nicer than any truck stop I've ever stopped at in the States) and had shashlik and more wine. It was a fun evening, although I'm tired today. Not to mention that I seem to have come down with a head cold... sigh.