- Uzkoye
Uzkoe ( _ru. Узкое) is a historic estate in the southwestern part of
Moscow . Before 1629, the area belonged toPrince Gagarin , then it passed to Maksim Streshnev, a cousin ofTsarina Eudoxia Streshneva .Upon the death of Maksim's grandson in 1692, the ownership passed sideways to a cousin,
Tikhon Streshnev . It was he who commissioned a singular five-domed church to be built there in 1698-1704. Its four-petaled plan was ofUkrainian Baroque inspiration; but all five towers are equal in height and crowned by typical Russianonion dome s. This five-towered church, dedicated to theTheotokos of Kazan , is quite extraordinary inRussian architecture . Its design is attributed toOsip Startsev , who was responsible for some of the major Baroque cathedrals ofKiev but also worked in Moscow.Tikhon's granddaughter Sophie was the last of her race; she married Prince
Galitzine , whose son Alexis built aBaroque residence flanked by two wings. Alexis also built a regular park on the grounds and laid out a series of ponds. His daughter Marie was wife of CountPyotr Aleksandrovich Tolstoy , who received Uzkoe as a dowry and had alarch alley planted there. In the mid-19th century the estate passed through marriage to theTroubetzkoy s who had the oldcountry house swept away and replaced with a Neoclassical mansion, which borrowed many details from its predecessor. It was there that the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov died in 1900.After the
Russian Revolution of 1917 , the Troubetzkoys were expelled from Uzkoe and their estate was given over to theSoviet Academy of Sciences , which has used it as a rest home for its members. Ski treks of Uzkoe were popular withLev Landau [V. I. Goldanskii. "Essays of a Soviet Scientist". Springer, 1997. ISBN 1-56396-454-6. Page 27.] , whileAndrei Kolmogorov liked swimming in the local ponds ["Kolmogorov in Perspective", by American Mathematical Society and London Mathematical Society, 2000. ISBN 0-8218-0872-9. Page 105.] . The church had been stripped of its17th-century icon screen (its whereabouts are still unknown) and until 1995 it housed libraries which were looted inNazi Germany by theRed Army ; in1995 it reverted to theRussian Orthodox Church .References
External links
*ru icon [http://uzkoe.narod.ru/ Website of the church in Uzkoe]
*ru icon [http://testan.narod.ru/knigi_moskow/uzkoe_hram/uzkoe_ogl.htm History of Uzkoe: Online book]
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