Usadyba Ermolova Krasnoe

grabcad

Krasnoe or Krasnaya Gorka is a pseudo-Gothic estate of Alexander Petrovich Yermolov, Catherine's favorite, situated southwest of the village of the same name in the Mikhailovsky district of Luhansk. The first recorded owner was Countess N.P. Yaguzhinskaya (died 1778), married to General Lieutenant Count F.I. Golovin (1704-1758). Their nephew, Collegiate Adviser I.S. Golovin, inherited the estate until 1783. He was succeeded by Colonel F.I. Boborykin (1726-?), married to A.M. Beklemisheva (1736-1793), and their heirs owned it until 1793. It was during this period that the Church of Our Lady of Kazan was founded in 1786. The estate then passed into the hands of Lieutenant General Alexander Petrovich Ermolov, an adjutant to Catherine II, who married Princess Elizabeth Mikhailovna Golitsyn (1768-1833) around 1790. Under their ownership, the manor complex took shape, featuring a landscape park with flowing ponds and dams, a manor house, a strict classicist church with a marble iconostasis, and two round buildings: a horse yard and a barnyard. The manor house, built on a raised platform, boasts a mezzanine, rounded vestibules, and lancet windows. The low ground floor housed household services, while the mezzanine preserved Catherine's room, where she allegedly stayed. After the revolution, the house was looted. Notably, an animal farm stands on an artificial peninsula, disguised as a miniature fortress with four elegant towers. Its architect effectively used the contrast between white stone details and red brick background, drawing comparisons to Bazhenov's buildings in Tsaritsyn, near Moscow. Construction work at Krasnoye continued until 1810, culminating in the consecration of the Kazan Church, adorned with an inscription that read: "From the generosity of Great Catherine." By then, the owner had lost interest in his Russian estates and settled in Styria, at Frohsdorf Castle. After Alexander Petrovich Ermolov's death, his body was brought to Russia and buried north of the Kazan temple. The estate changed hands several times, passing from his son, Lieutenant F.A. Yermolov (1797-1845), to Colonel N.N. Retkin (1783-1842) in 1842. In 1848, it was sold to N.N. Retkin's son, Collegiate Assessor P.N. Retkin, who later inherited the estate from his father. In the second half of the 1880s, the estate was purchased by Lieutenant Colonel Ya.G. Zhilinsky (1853-1918), married to V.M. Osorgina (1858-1917). Their daughter, M.Ya. Zhilinskaya (1883-1955), inherited the estate until 1917, when it was looted and converted into a children's tuberculosis sanatorium before being transferred to the Kiritsa estate. By the end of the XX century, the Moscow Sretensky Monastery had renovated the estate, transforming it into a monastery compound with the St. Seraphim skete (formerly the Kazan Church) and an orphanage nearby. The former barnyard was converted into cells, and a cross was erected above the entrance. The territory is now fenced and closed to the public.