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Home » Files » TOURS & EXCURSIONS IN CRIMEA » YALTA TOURS

CHARAX PALACE OF THE GREAT PRINCE GEORGI MICHAILOVICH ROMANOV
[ ] 20.07.2010, 16:36
 
 
 
   The plot of land occupied by the antiquity entered the territiry of "Ai-Todor", a royal eastate owned by Grand Duke Michail Nickolaevich Romanov since 1869. This family summer residence was a favorite with his children, his son Alexander (1866- 1933) initiating later when he inherited the villa, serious sdientific excavations that stated the Roman origin of the ruins and thus Charax became an archeological sensation in 1900.
  It inspired Grand Duke Georgiy (1863-1919), Alexander`s elder brother to name his newly born estate by the name of this archeological place, though it had nothing in common with the Scottish stule of the villa designed and built by the Yalta city architect N.Krasnov, 1888-1899, and a future author of the royal palace Livadia.
  The royal pedigree shows us the palse of this branch of the Romanov dynasty as regards Nickholas 2 (1868-1918), Grand Duke Michail Nickolayevich, Nicholas 1` youngest son, his children, Georgiy and Alexander, in particular, being Nicholas 2` second cuisins but one.
  The "Romanov Charax" became a witness of the final dramatic episode of the Dowager Empress Marie Fyodorovna`s stay on the Russian land, the ultimate crash of the imperial apoch, when a farewell glance at the estate from board H.M.S. Marlborough meant saying good bye  both  to the personal past and that of the great Empire once claiming to be regarded as Rome 3.

    See also "The Romanovs in the Crimea"   
 
  "Which brings us back to 1904 and Charax - the home of Grand Duke George Michailovich and his wife, Princess Marie of Greece. Poor George, in an effort to please, had purchased the ground Harax was built on, as a present for Marie. She was not smitten – on first seeing it, she burst into tears. Well, she was probably right as it was rather rocky and not the ideal place for building. But, as she said herself, "We had got hold of a rather clever and gifted architect”  Krasnov had to start by laying water pipes to the area. To do this he purchased a nearby spring, a "Hachamaliar”, from some local Tartars. And then he had to please Marie who wanted "an English cottage”. [11] To my eye, what he built was a rather humdrum middle-class English house, of "a blue-grey granite” with a red tile roof, [12] "which wouldn’t be out of place in Surbiton”, as Charlotte Zeepvat put it. I’m glad to say that the rest of the Imperial family agreed with us. Surprisingly, Krasnov did not. He saw it as one of his major achievements and compared it to William Morris’s Red House [13] George, Marie and their children loved it as well. They had Krasnov also design a church, a chapel, staff quarters, a greenhouse, stables, a kitchen, garages, a farm and a warehouse, all using the stones from the grounds. The building was completed in 1908.
  The house still stands and is now a sanatorium. It is known for its lovely grounds, which Krasnov also designed. Letters are still in existence between him and the Grand Duke about which plants he was putting where, and what they would look like when they flowered. The church and chapel still stand as well, right next to each other. The church is in Byzantine style with some local influences. The interior mosaics were done by Viennese craftsmen. And rather amazingly, in the grounds of the sanatorium, there is a museum about the history of Harax, which contains some photos taken by Krasnov of his progress when building the property. Apparently, he always made a collection of photos of his projects but this is the only known one in existence."

Caterory Name: YALTA TOURS | User: sergoyalta
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