Marfino Estate
Marfino Estate is an old noble manor located north of Moscow, 25 km from the Moscow Ring Road. The buildings and landscape park are located on the high bank of the Ucha River. Two churches, as well as a large palace and a wonderful bridge with features of classicism and pseudo-gothic harmoniously complement each other, so guests of the Marfino estate have the impression that they have fallen into a fairy tale.
Video: Marfino Manor
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The history of the palace and estate complex goes back more than three centuries. The external appearance of the estate reflected the capabilities and tastes of its distinguished owners and talented architects. In former times, Marfino was known for brilliant receptions and spectacular theatrical performances. Many celebrities and prominent statesmen visited the estate. The estate went through several periods of prosperity and forever entered the history of domestic architecture. Pseudo-Gothic appearance of the buildings received in the XIX century, when the estate was managed by Countess Sophia Vladimirovna Panina.
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Marfino Palace and Park can be seen in the frames of many domestic films. The picturesque buildings were filmed in the feature film based on Turgenev’s novel “The Nest of the Nobility”, the popular TV series “The Master and Margarita”, the action film “The Crusader”, as well as in the movies “The Woman Who Sings”, “The Glass of Water” and others.
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These days, the popularity of the Marfino estate is growing. It is located near the capital, so Muscovites and guests of the city is not a big problem to come here. Traveling to the estate allows you to get acquainted with the bright pages of Russian history and relax in a wonderful park on the shore of a large reservoir. To get to Marfino, you need to have a passport or ID card and issue a pass at the entrance to the Central Military Clinical Sanatorium, which nowadays occupies the territory of the ancient estate.
.How the estate was built and developed
In the middle of the 16th century, the lands where Marfino was built belonged to the boyar and associate of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible – Vasily Petrovich Golovin. After him the estate changed owners, and at the end of the XVII century it was bought by the statesman Boris Alexeyevich Golitsyn.
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Marfino Estate in our days
The main entrance to the old estate is an unusual bridge decorated with a red-brick wall with turrets and loopholes. It leads to the palace, a beautiful green park and two temples.
The main building or palace stands on a hill and dominates the other buildings. In former times, spacious squares were arranged in front of palaces, but the owners of the Marfino estate did not follow this tradition. Right in front of the main building there is a large pond around which all the other buildings of the estate are located. From the center of the palace to the pier decorated with stone griffins one can go down a wide staircase. The water surface visually increases the scale of the estate, it seems bigger than it really is and opens not in parts, but as a whole.
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The palace building was recently restored and now houses one of the buildings of the military sanatorium. On the territory of Marfino stand two beautiful churches. The Nativity church was built by Vladimir Ivanovich Belozerov, a serf architect of the Golitsyns. The building is made of large bricks and faced with limestone blocks. It is completed by a high drum with a small chapter. The second temple, consecrated in honor of Peter and Paul, is active. Regular services are held in it. It is crowned with an octagonal drum and looks rather ascetic.
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From the Saltykovs in the Marfino estate have preserved elegant pavilions. One of them bears the name of “Musical Pavilion.” The open semicircular structure has a strict Tuscan colonnade, which is completed by a semi-dome vault. Another pavilion “Milovida” is located on the hillside descending to the pond. It is built in the form of a two-tiered rotunda. The first tier of the picturesque building is made as an octahedron with arches, and the second is made in the form of an eight-column pavilion with a dome.
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Park
The Marfino estate has preserved a regular park with alleys and group plantings. Here you can see several old Siberian larches, whose trunk diameter reaches 1 meter, as well as magnificent alleys of spruces and thuys. White poplars, maples, chubushnik, hawthorn, cherry, mountain ash and honeysuckle grow in the park. Especially beautiful in Marfinsky Park in autumn, when trees and shrubs are painted yellow and plantings become almost transparent.
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How to get there
The old estate is located in the village of Marfino, near the 39th km of the Dmitrov highway. By car from Moscow you need to drive 20 km along the Dmitrov highway (highway A-104), then turn right and drive to the estate Marfino another 3 km.
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Those who get there on their own, from Savelovsky railway station go to the station “Katuar” (50 minutes), and from there to Marfino take a shuttle bus number 37. Buses run at an interval of half an hour. The second option: go to the estate from the Altufievskaya metro station by shuttle bus No. 419 or No. 420.
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