What is an Ice House? Anna Ioannovna Ice House The ice house was built by order
Russian Empire after death Peter I entered a period called by historians “the era of palace coups.” The dynastic crisis, which was partly caused by the first Russian emperor himself, led to the fact that in 1730 she ascended the Russian throne Anna Ioannovna- niece of Peter the Great, daughter of his brother and co-ruler Ivan V.
Few people describe the ten-year era of Anna Ioannovna’s reign in excellent terms. Indeed, this period cannot in any way be called the heyday of the Russian state.
There were many reasons for this, among which the main one seems to be Anna Ioannovna’s complete unpreparedness for government.
Anna Ioannovna was married off at the age of 17 to Duke of Courland Friedrich Wilhelm. Family life simply did not have time to develop - the husband died less than three months after marriage.
Despite this, Peter I sent the dowager duchess to live in the domain of her late husband, in Courland. The local nobility did not favor the duchess, and Anna Ioannovna lived in very unenviable conditions, which in no way corresponded to her origin.
Therefore, when, after 20 years of such a life, Anna Ioannovna learned that she was being offered nothing less than the crown of the Russian Empress, it was a real miracle for her.
Take a walk, crazy empress...
But by no miracle could the Dowager Duchess of Courland turn into a wise and far-sighted politician capable of moving the state forward.
State policy during this period was determined by those court parties that managed to get ahead of their competitors in the struggle for influence on the empress.
Among the most influential figures of that era was Anna Ioannovna’s favorite, Courland nobleman Ernst Johann Biron, thanks to which the era itself received the name “Bironovism”.
Anna Ioannovna herself, having emerged from poverty in Courland, behaved like a true nouveau riche. State money flowed like a river for all kinds of entertainment events and the maintenance of the court, which during her reign grew several times.
The empress had a special passion for all kinds of dwarfs and hunchbacks who formed the staff of her court jesters. This hobby seemed quite strange to many, but, of course, no one dared to argue with Anna Ioannovna.
Was the Empress's favorite Kalmyk firecracker Avdotya Ivanovna. Anna Ioannovna liked her, it is believed, because of the extremely unpresentable appearance of the firecracker, against the background of which the empress herself, who did not shine with beauty, looked advantageous.
Somehow, at the end of 1739, Anna Ioannovna noticed that Avdotya Ivanovna Buzheninova (the empress gave the firecracker’s surname in honor of the Kalmyk woman’s favorite dish) was sad. Having asked what was the matter, she found out that Avdotya Ivanovna dreams of marriage. The Kalmychka at that time was about 30 years old, which by the standards of the 18th century was considered a very respectable age.
Anna Ioannovna was inspired by the idea of marrying off her favorite and having a grand party for the occasion.
Nicknamed "Kvasnik"
The empress quickly found a groom - another court jester was assigned to this role, Mikhail Alekseevich Kvasnik.
Unlike the Kalmyk woman Buzheninova, Kvasnik was a well-born nobleman who fell into terrible disgrace.
Mikhail Alekseevich belonged to the senior branch of the family princes Golitsyn being a grandson Vasily Golitsyn, favorite Princess Sophia. After Sophia's defeat in the struggle for power, two-year-old Mikhail Golitsyn, along with his grandfather and father, found himself in exile, from which he was able to return only after the death of Golitsyn Sr. in 1714.
After this, it seemed that Mikhail Golitsyn’s life was going well. He was sent by Peter I to study abroad, at the Sorbonne. Upon his return, he entered military service, which he completed with the rank of major.
In 1729, after the death of his first wife, Mikhail Golitsyn went abroad, leaving two children in Russia. There he marries a second time and converts to Catholicism.
Golitsyn took the change of faith very lightly, and in 1732 he returned to Russia without fear with his new family. Friends, having learned about Mikhail Golitsyn’s conversion to Catholicism, were horrified - the new Empress Anna Ioannovna considered such apostasy to be a grave crime. Mikhail Golitsyn was advised by his acquaintances to “keep a low profile,” which he did, secretly settling in the Moscow German Settlement.
But the world is not without “good people” - Mikhail Golitsyn was reported, and soon he appeared before the court of the angry Anna Ioannovna.
Prince Golitsyn had little choice - execution or dishonor. Mikhail Alekseevich chose dishonor. His Catholic wife was sent into exile, and he himself, having been baptized again into Orthodoxy, was assigned to the role of court jester.
Golitsyn became Anna Ioannovna’s sixth jester and, like the other five, had a personal basket in which he was supposed to hatch eggs. During feasts, he was ordered to pour and serve kvass to the guests, which is where his new nickname and surname came from - Kvasnik.
The home where hearts connect
The morally broken and crushed Kvasnik, who, according to some contemporaries, had lost his mind due to everything that happened to him, of course, could not resist marrying the “maiden Buzheninova.”
The Empress took up the matter in a big way, creating a special “Masquerade Commission”, which was to prepare the celebrations. It was ordered that no money be spared for the wedding.
It was decided to organize the celebrations in a specially built Ice House, similar to those that were erected under Peter the Great, but on a much larger scale. The plan was facilitated by the weather - the winter of 1739/40 was very severe, the temperature constantly remained below 30 degrees below zero.
The location for the house was chosen on the Neva between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace, approximately on the site of the modern Palace Bridge.
The ice was cut into large slabs, laid one on top of the other and watered with water, which immediately froze, tightly soldering the individual blocks.
The facade of the house was about 16 meters long, 5 meters wide and about 6 meters high. A gallery decorated with statues stretched around the entire roof. A porch with a carved pediment divided the building into two halves. Each had two rooms: one was a living room and a buffet, the other was a toilet and a bedroom. Six ice cannons and two mortars were placed in front of the house, which could fire real shots. Two ice dolphins were installed at the gate, throwing burning oil out of their jaws. There were pots with ice branches and leaves on the gate. Ice birds sat on the branches. On both sides of the house rose ice pyramids, inside of which hung large octagonal lanterns.
Super project of the 18th century
On the right side of the house stood a life-size ice elephant with an ice Persian on top. Two icy Persian women stood near the elephant. According to eyewitnesses, during the day the elephant released four-meter jets of water, and at night - similar jets of burning oil. Some claimed that the elephant sometimes “dispensed” alcohol.
In the Ice House itself, in one of the rooms there were two ice mirrors, a dressing table, several candlesticks, a large double bed, a stool and a fireplace with ice wood. In the second room there was an ice table, two sofas, two armchairs and a carved buffet with dishes. In the corners of this room there were two statues depicting Cupids, and on the table there was a large clock and cards. All these things were made from ice and painted with paints. Ice-cold firewood and candles were smeared with oil and burned. In addition, there was even an ice bath at the Ice House, which also functioned.
The Ice House project, apart from what it was built for, was truly unique. To bring Anna Ioannovna’s idea to life, scientists and engineers of that time had to find completely unique solutions.
The design and construction of the Ice House were directly supervised architect Pyotr Mikhailovich Eropkin, creator of the first general plan of St. Petersburg, and Academician Georg Wolfgang Kraft, a physicist and mathematician who provided all the scientific part of the project.
Wedding night on an icy bed
But even this seemed not enough to Anna Ioannovna. It was ordered to bring two representatives of all tribes and peoples living in Russia, in national clothes and with national instruments, to the celebration. By the beginning of February 1740, 300 such people had gathered in St. Petersburg.
The celebrations themselves took place in February 1740. The date most often given is February 6, although sometimes they talk about February 12 or other days.
At the head of the “wedding train” were the newlyweds, placed in an iron cage placed on an elephant. Following them rode representatives of small and large nationalities of Russia, some on camels, some on deer, some on oxen, and some on dogs...
After the wedding there was a feast and dancing in the church. Anna Ioannovna was in excellent spirits, pleased with the implementation of her own idea.
After the ball, Kvasnik and Buzheninova were taken to the Ice House and after the ceremonies they were laid on an ice bed, with a guard posted so that the newlyweds would not try to escape from their luxurious bed until the morning. And there was a reason to escape - few people would want to spend the night lying on a piece of ice in a forty-degree frost, from which no burning ice logs could save them.
In the morning, the half-dead jesters were finally released from the house, which could well have become a crypt for them.
"Enough tolerating this!"
From time immemorial, in Rus' they loved to go out on a grand scale, regardless of their means, which often surprised foreigners. However, this time the “wedding in the Ice House” amazed not only foreigners, but also the Russians themselves. The expenditure of such enormous resources and effort on such an insignificant goal outraged many. Anna Ioannovna’s undertaking was called a “disgrace,” and the mockery of Kvasnik and Buzheninova was considered humiliating even by the standards of that far from tender time.
Of course, this muted murmur worried Anna Ioannovna little, but it turned out that the “buffoon wedding” became the last noticeable event of her reign.
The ice house, thanks to the frosts, stood until the end of March 1740, and then began to gradually melt and disappeared naturally in April.
In October 1740, Anna Ioannovna died, appointing her successor Ioann Antonovich, the son of his niece Anna Leopoldovna.
Anna Leopoldovna, who became regent for her young son, was overthrown along with him as a result of another palace coup, but during her time in power she managed to do a great job - she abolished the staff of court jesters.
V. Jacobi. Jesters at the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna.
Ice mountains and ice snow fortresses were built in Russia every winter. But in 1740 they started a special—the Empress’s—fun. The Ice House will immortalize the novel of the same name by the writer Lazhechnikov. It mixes true stories and fables, but there are also accurate descriptions in German of academician Georg Kraft, who supervised the work.
The winter of 1740 was the harshest in the 18th century. Thirty-degree frosts remained until mid-March.
Ice House - a palace for a “curious wedding”
Ice house built as a palace for a “curious wedding.” U Anna Ioannovna there was a particularly close hanger-on - Avdotya Buzheninova. An elderly and ugly Kalmyk woman, who received her surname from the Empress’s favorite dish, wanted to get married. The Empress promised to find her a groom and chose 50-year-old Prince Mikhail Golitsyn, demoted to jester because of his secret wedding to a Catholic woman. A nobleman of the most distinguished family, the prince served the empress kvass and was called Golitsyn - a kvass-maker.
The idea of marrying a jester to a firecracker delighted the empress, and no expense was spared for the wedding.
The ice house was a real house: 2.5 fathoms wide, 8 fathoms long, or 5.5 x 17 m. And the height of the walls was even greater than the width - 3 fathoms, i.e. more than 6 m.
How Anna Ioannovna's Ice House was built
Geometrically correct ice cubes were cut out of the ice on the Neva and used to make walls. Then the walls were ironed with a hot iron. They turned out polished, and most importantly, transparent through and through. There were ice trees around the house. And there was even an ice bath in which they managed to take a steam bath.
The door was all tinted to resemble marble, but, as contemporaries assured, it looked “much more charming.” The color passed through the ice, and the painted huge ice slabs seemed magically transparent.
Wedding procession
Guests for the sweaty wedding were brought from all over the country: two representatives from each tribe inhabiting the Russian Empire.
The wedding procession was led by the young people: they rode in a cage standing on the back of an elephant. Behind them are Ukrainians on vases, Finns on ponies, Tatars for some reason on pigs, Yakuts on dogs, Kalmyks on camels - a total of 150 pairs of national minorities.
Miracles of Anna Ioannovna's Ice House
Hello, having gotten married, you are a fool and a fool, Still a figurine!
Now is the time to have some brazen fun, Now is the time to rage in every possible way.
From an ode by Vasily Tredyakovsky
Wonderful divas were waiting for them in front of the Ice House. To the right stood a huge, life-size ice elephant. It was fire-breathing: fountains of burning oil erupted from its trunk. The elephant also blew a trumpet: there was a trumpeter sitting inside. In front of the entrance there were also ice cannons - short-barreled mortars. They were actually loaded and they fired. There were also fire-breathing dolphins and fish.
Among all this bacchanalia, the first poet of the then Russia, Vasily Tredyakovsky, reads the appropriate ode in honor of the newlyweds:
Ice House Interior
But I see this whole thing as the height of extravagance. Is it permissible to humiliate and mock humanity in such a shameful way?
Count Panin
The house had an ice living room, an ice bedroom, and an ice pantry. All furniture and utensils were made of ice and painted to match the color of the real ones. There was an ice clock on the icy mantelpiece. The wood in the fireplace was also ice-cold, but it burned because it was smeared with crude oil.
After the celebrations, the newlyweds were left in an icy bedroom on an icy bed under guard, who released them only in the morning, barely alive.
Ice House - unsurpassed fun of Russian autocrats
In its own way, the Ice House will remain unsurpassed. Nothing like this will ever happen again either in Russia or in Europe. Fabulous barbarism, wild fun, the most cruel fun and the most luxurious holiday of the Russian Empire during the time of our most dissolute empress.
The Ice House is a palace made of ice, built in St. Petersburg in the last year of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, in the bitter winter of 1740; a kind of synonym for tsarist omnipotence, despotism, tyranny, waste of public funds. The palace was opened on February 6, 1740.Regarding the construction of the Ice House, Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy Georg Kraft wrote that “the construction of a house is a useful discovery in the field of knowledge (because) until then little attention was paid to ice as a “suitable material” and so little “ice work” was done discoveries." Perhaps the only positive review
History of the Ice House
The idea of creating a real, full-length palace made of ice was submitted to the cabinet minister of Empress Anna Ioannovna A.P. Volynsky by V.N. Tatishchev, a Russian historian, geographer, statesman and architect P.M. Eropkin. The ice house was supposed to be built for a court holiday - a funny clownish wedding.
The palace was built between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace: “The purest ice, like large square slabs, was cut up, architectural decorations were removed, measured with compasses and a ruler, one ice slab was placed on another with levers, and each row was watered with water, which immediately froze and instead of strong cement served. Thus, in a short time a house was built, which was eight fathoms long, two and a half fathoms wide, and three fathoms high including the roof.”
“The architecture of the house was quite elegant. All around the roof there was a through gallery, decorated with pillars and statues; a porch with a carved frontispiece led to a vestibule that divided the building into two large rooms; The entryway was illuminated by four, and each room by five, windows with glass made of the thinnest ice. The window and door jambs and wall pilasters were painted with green marble-like paint. Behind the ice-cold glass stood “funny paintings” painted on canvas, illuminated at night from the inside by many candles. Six three-pound ice cannons and two two-pound mortars were placed in front of the house, from which they fired more than once.
At the gate, also made of ice, there were two ice dolphins, throwing fire from burning oil out of their jaws using pumps. There were pots with ice branches and leaves on the gate. Ice birds sat on the icy branches. On the sides of the house, on pedestals with frontispieces, pointed quadrangular pyramids rose.
The interior decoration of the house was consistent with its original appearance. In one room there was a toilet, two mirrors, several shandals, a mantel clock, a large double bed, a stool and a fireplace with ice-cold wood. In another room there were a carved table, two sofas, two armchairs and a carved stand, which contained turned teaware, glasses, glasses and dishes. In the corners of this room there were two statues depicting Cupids, and on the table there was a large clock and cards with stamps. All these things, without exception, were very skillfully made from ice and painted with natural paints. Ice-cold firewood and candles were smeared with oil and burned.”
Roman by I. Lazhechnikov “Ice House”
Yuri Nagibin's story “Kvasnik and Buzheninov”
The story was published in 1988 in the collection “Following the exploits of the Petrovs...” by the publishing house “Young Guard”, the collection “Tale 86” by the publishing house “Sovremennik” in 1987, in the collection “Trip to the Islands” by the publishing house “Young Guard” in 1987
How Anna Ioannovna shocked the public
V. Jacobi “Ice House” (1878). © / Public Domain
In February 1740, the Russian Empress held wedding celebrations that became a symbol of her ten-year reign.
Miracle for the poor widow
After the death of Peter I, the Russian Empire entered a period called by historians “the era of palace coups.” The dynastic crisis, which was partly caused by the first Russian emperor himself, led to the fact that in 1730 Anna Ioannovna, the niece of Peter the Great, the daughter of his brother and co-ruler Ivan V, ascended the Russian throne.
Few people describe the ten-year era of Anna Ioannovna’s reign in excellent terms. Indeed, this period cannot in any way be called the heyday of the Russian state.
There were many reasons for this, among which the main one seems to be Anna Ioannovna’s complete unpreparedness for government.
Anna Ioannovna was married at the age of 17 to the Duke of Courland, Friedrich Wilhelm. Family life simply did not have time to develop - the husband died less than three months after marriage.
Despite this, Peter I sent the dowager duchess to live in the domain of her late husband, in Courland. The local nobility did not favor the duchess, and Anna Ioannovna lived in very unenviable conditions, which in no way corresponded to her origin.
Therefore, when, after 20 years of such a life, Anna Ioannovna learned that she was being offered nothing less than the crown of the Russian Empress, it was a real miracle for her.
Take a walk, crazy empress...
But by no miracle could the Dowager Duchess of Courland turn into a wise and far-sighted politician capable of moving the state forward.
State policy during this period was determined by those court parties that managed to get ahead of their competitors in the struggle for influence on the empress.
Among the most influential figures of that era was Anna Ioannovna’s favorite, the Courland nobleman Ernst Johann Biron, thanks to which the era itself received the name “Bironovism.”
Anna Ioannovna herself, having emerged from poverty in Courland, behaved like a true nouveau riche. State money flowed like a river for all kinds of entertainment events and the maintenance of the court, which during her reign grew several times.
The empress had a special passion for all kinds of dwarfs and hunchbacks who formed the staff of her court jesters. This hobby seemed quite strange to many, but, of course, no one dared to argue with Anna Ioannovna.
The empress's favorite was the Kalmyk firecracker Avdotya Ivanovna. Anna Ioannovna liked her, it is believed, because of the extremely unpresentable appearance of the firecracker, against the background of which the empress herself, who did not shine with beauty, looked advantageous.
Somehow, at the end of 1739, Anna Ioannovna noticed that Avdotya Ivanovna Buzheninova (the empress gave the firecracker’s surname in honor of the Kalmyk woman’s favorite dish) was sad. Having asked what was the matter, she found out that Avdotya Ivanovna dreams of marriage. The Kalmychka at that time was about 30 years old, which by the standards of the 18th century was considered a very respectable age.
Anna Ioannovna was inspired by the idea of marrying off her favorite and having a grand party for the occasion.
Anna Ioannovna
Nicknamed "Kvasnik"
The empress quickly found a groom - another court jester, Mikhail Alexandrovich Kvasnik, was assigned to this role.
Unlike the Kalmyk woman Buzheninova, Kvasnik was a well-born nobleman who fell into terrible disgrace.
Mikhail Alexandrovich belonged to the senior branch of the family of princes Golitsyn, being the grandson of Vasily Golitsyn, the favorite of Princess Sophia. After Sophia's defeat in the struggle for power, two-year-old Mikhail Golitsyn, along with his grandfather and father, found himself in exile, from which he was able to return only after the death of Golitsyn Sr. in 1714.
After this, it seemed that Mikhail Golitsyn’s life was going well. He was sent by Peter I to study abroad, at the Sorbonne. Upon his return, he entered military service, which he completed with the rank of major.
In 1729, after the death of his first wife, Mikhail Golitsyn went abroad, leaving two children in Russia. There he marries a second time and converts to Catholicism.
Golitsyn took the change of faith very lightly, and in 1732 he returned to Russia without fear with his new family. Friends, having learned about Mikhail Golitsyn's conversion to Catholicism, were horrified - the new Empress Anna Ioannovna considered such apostasy to be a grave crime. Mikhail Golitsyn was advised by his acquaintances to “keep a low profile,” which he did, secretly settling in the Moscow German Settlement.
But the world is not without “good people” - Mikhail Golitsyn was reported, and soon he appeared before the court of the angry Anna Ioannovna.
Prince Golitsyn had little choice - execution or dishonor. Mikhail Alexandrovich chose dishonor. His Catholic wife was sent into exile, and he himself, having been baptized again into Orthodoxy, was assigned to the role of court jester.
Golitsyn became Anna Ioannovna’s sixth jester and, like the other five, had a personal basket in which he was supposed to hatch eggs. During feasts, he was ordered to pour and serve kvass to the guests, which is where his new nickname and surname came from - Kvasnik.
The home where hearts connect
The morally broken and crushed Kvasnik, who, according to some contemporaries, had lost his mind due to everything that happened to him, of course, could not resist marrying the “maiden Buzheninova.”
The Empress took up the matter in a big way, creating a special “Masquerade Commission”, which was to prepare the celebrations. It was ordered that no money be spared for the wedding.
It was decided to organize the celebrations in a specially built Ice House, similar to those that were erected under Peter the Great, but on a much larger scale. The plan was facilitated by the weather - the winter of 1739/40 was very severe, the temperature constantly remained below 30 degrees below zero.
The location for the house was chosen on the Neva between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace, approximately on the site of the modern Palace Bridge.
The ice was cut into large slabs, laid one on top of the other and watered with water, which immediately froze, tightly soldering the individual blocks.
The facade of the house was about 16 meters long, 5 meters wide and about 6 meters high. A gallery decorated with statues stretched around the entire roof. A porch with a carved pediment divided the building into two halves. Each had two rooms: one was a living room and a buffet, the other was a toilet and a bedroom. Six ice cannons and two mortars were placed in front of the house, which could fire real shots. Two ice dolphins were installed at the gate, throwing burning oil out of their jaws. There were pots with ice branches and leaves on the gate. Ice birds sat on the branches. On both sides of the house rose ice pyramids, inside of which hung large octagonal lanterns.
Super project of the 18th century
On the right side of the house stood a life-size ice elephant with an ice Persian on top. Two icy Persian women stood near the elephant. According to eyewitnesses, during the day the elephant released four-meter jets of water, and at night - similar jets of burning oil. Some claimed that the elephant sometimes “dispensed” alcohol.
In the Ice House itself, in one of the rooms there were two ice mirrors, a dressing table, several candlesticks, a large double bed, a stool and a fireplace with ice wood. In the second room there was an ice table, two sofas, two armchairs and a carved buffet with dishes. In the corners of this room there were two statues depicting Cupids, and on the table there was a large clock and cards. All these things were made from ice and painted with paints. Ice-cold firewood and candles were smeared with oil and burned. In addition, there was even an ice bath at the Ice House, which also functioned.
The Ice House project, apart from what it was built for, was truly unique. To bring Anna Ioannovna’s idea to life, scientists and engineers of that time had to find completely unique solutions.
The design and construction of the Ice House was directly supervised by the architect Pyotr Mikhailovich Eropkin, the creator of the first master plan of St. Petersburg, and academician Georg Wolfgang Kraft, a physicist and mathematician who provided the entire scientific part of the project.
Wedding night on an icy bed
But even this seemed not enough to Anna Ioannovna. It was ordered to bring two representatives of all tribes and peoples living in Russia, in national clothes and with national instruments, to the celebration. By the beginning of February 1740, 300 such people had gathered in St. Petersburg.
The celebrations themselves took place in February 1740. The date most often given is February 6, although sometimes they talk about February 12 or other days.
At the head of the “wedding train” were the newlyweds, placed in an iron cage placed on an elephant. Following them rode representatives of small and large nationalities of Russia, some on camels, some on deer, some on oxen, and some on dogs...
After the wedding there was a feast and dancing in the church. Anna Ioannovna was in excellent spirits, pleased with the implementation of her own idea.
After the ball, Kvasnik and Buzheninova were taken to the Ice House and after the ceremonies they were laid on an ice bed, with a guard posted so that the newlyweds would not try to escape from their luxurious bed until the morning. And there was a reason to escape - few people would want to spend the night lying on a piece of ice in a forty-degree frost, from which no burning ice logs could save them.
In the morning, the half-dead jesters were finally released from the house, which could well have become a crypt for them.
"Enough tolerating this!"
From time immemorial, in Rus' they loved to go out on a grand scale, regardless of their means, which often surprised foreigners. However, this time the “wedding in the Ice House” amazed not only foreigners, but also the Russians themselves. The expenditure of such enormous resources and effort on such an insignificant goal outraged many. Anna Ioannovna’s undertaking was called a “disgrace,” and the mockery of Kvasnik and Buzheninova was considered humiliating even by the standards of that far from tender time.
Of course, this muted murmur worried Anna Ioannovna little, but it turned out that the “buffoon wedding” became the last noticeable event of her reign.
The ice house, thanks to the frosts, stood until the end of March 1740, and then began to gradually melt and disappeared naturally in April.
In October 1740, Anna Ioannovna died, appointing Ivan Antonovich, the son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna, as her successor.
Anna Leopoldovna, who became regent for her young son, was overthrown along with him as a result of another palace coup, but during her time in power she managed to do a great thing - she abolished the staff of court jesters.
V. Jacobi. Jesters at the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna.
One of the most original amusements of Empress Anna Ioannovna, invented by chamberlain A.D. Tatishchev in 1740 and associated with the amusing marriage of the empress’s court jester, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn, and one of her hangers-on, Kalmyk Avdotya Ivanovna, who bore the surname Buzheninova. A special masquerade commission, chaired by Cabinet Minister A.P. Volynsky, chose a place on the Neva between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace for the construction of the “Ice House” [back in 1733, an ice fortress was built on the Neva; buildings made of ice, in the sense of curiosities, were also found in Western Europe]; under her supervision, a house was built exclusively from slabs of pure ice, laid one on top of the other and watered with water for connection; it was eight fathoms in length, two and a half in width and three in height. In front of the house there were six ice cannons and two mortars, at the main gate there were two dolphins, from whose mouths burning oil was gushing. The roof of the house was decorated with statues. The interior of the house was also made of ice. On the sides of the house were erected high pyramids with approximately clocks and lanterns on the windows; Nearby there was an ice elephant, from whose trunk a burning oil fountain was gushing, and an ice bath, which was heated with straw.
STUPIDITY WORTHY OF ITS CREATOR!..
Emerging from the darkness of the night with its lights, the ice house shone with a metallic sheen and cast its light far away onto the Meadow Line, outlining a motley semicircle of faces and legs; the square seemed paved with the tops of heads. Often the amplified cry of an ice elephant, or a fiery fountain gushing from its trunk, or a new funny figure on the windows forced spectators to invade the line ordered by the suburban tens and sots. Russian witticisms were often sprinkled under the Russian stick.
Look, brother,” one said, “in the first picture a German in a three-cornered hat, in a tattered caftan, thin as a match, wanders with a comb and a brush in his hand, and in the last picture he has grown fat, like a hog; his cheeks are like crumpets from the hearth; rides on a brown filly, on a golden saddle cloth, and hits everyone right and left with his butt.
What simplicity! - objected another, - there he entered Rus' on foot, and here he walks through it on horseback; there, you see, he was cleaning the horse, but here he is riding a cleaned one.
Vanka, oh Vanka! what kind of hut is this? - asked one.
Bathhouse, was the answer...
Eh! Master Tenant, save your broom for the front; Here, in the cold, it’s not a good idea to steam...
Go past, Mr. Sotsky; you see, we ourselves stand ahead of thousands.
Do you hear? The ice elephant is screaming!
And the stones cry out in times of trouble,” said some scribe in an important, instructive tone.
Thus, our bearded Beaumarchais, the area censors of their time, amused their eyes and tongues to their heart's content. It seemed that they were avenging their poverty and humiliation on the nobility with their witticisms and were warming themselves from the cruel, suffocating frost.
Empress, empress! - the sots shouted - and everything fell silent in reverent silence.
The snow, pressed with hundreds of horseshoes, creaked, it hissed from many cuts; A squadron of hussars appeared and then the empress’s sleigh, followed by a number of carriages. Several courtiers stepped out from the ice house onto the porch and Volynskaya was ahead of everyone. When the sleigh caught up with him, he was called to Her Majesty. She deigned to kindly ask him about the arrangement of the house and laughed at the very cartoonish images that often changed on the windows. The Cabinet Minister gave intricate explanations. Suddenly, at one change, someone behind the empress’s sleigh cried out with his heart:
Stupidity worthy of its creator!.. Extremely stupid!..
I don’t know whose side is stupid!..
COURT Jester
By personal order of the highest, for the “curious” wedding of Golitsyn and Buzheninova, two people of both sexes of all tribes and peoples subject to the Russian empress were brought to St. Petersburg, from different parts of Russia. There were three hundred people in total. The masquerade commission provided each couple with local folk clothing and a musical instrument.
On February 6, 1740, on the day appointed for the celebration, after the wedding of the illustrious jester, celebrated in the usual manner in the church, “travelers” of different tribes pulled out from the assembly point in a long train. There were: Abkhazians, Ostyaks, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Cheremis, Vyatichi, Samoyeds, Kamchadals, Yakuts, Kyrgyz, Kalmyks, crests, Chukhons and many other “multilinguals and commoners,” each in his own national costume and with his fair half. Some rode on camels, others on deer, others on dogs, fourth on oxen, fifth on goats, sixth on pigs, etc., “with music belonging to each family and various toys, in sleighs made on the likeness of beasts and fish of the sea, and some in the form of strange birds.” The procession was opened by the “young ones”, who showed off in a large iron cage placed on an elephant.
The wedding train, driven by Volynsky and Tatishchev, with music and songs, drove past the palace and along all the main streets, and stopped at the arena of the Duke of Courland. Here, on several long tables, an abundant lunch was prepared, at which each couple had their own folk dish and their favorite drink.
During lunch, Trediyakovsky greeted the newlyweds with the following poem:
“Hello, married, fool and fool.
Also... that one and the figurine!
Now is the time for us to have some fun,
Now the commuters should be furious in every possible way...”
After dinner, the “multilingual” couples each danced their own national dance, to their own national music. This amusing spectacle greatly amused the empress and the noble spectators. At the end of the ball, the motley train, preceded by the still “young”, seated in a cage on an elephant, went to the “Ice House”, which burned with lights that spectacularly crushed and shimmered in its transparent walls and windows; ice dolphins and an ice elephant threw streams of bright flame; “funny” pictures were spinning in the pyramids, to the complete delight of the large public, who greeted the newlyweds with loud screams.
The newlyweds, with various ceremonies, were laid on an ice bed, and a guard was posted at the house, out of fear that the happy couple would not decide to leave their not entirely warm and comfortable bed before the morning...
Nine months after the “curious” holiday, Empress Anna Ioannovna died, bequeathing, as we know, the Russian throne to her nephew, Prince of Brunswick, Ivan Antonovich. During the latter’s early childhood, control of the state passed into the hands of his mother, Princess Anna Leopoldovna, a kind, gentle woman with excellent spiritual qualities. Anna Leopoldovna, on the very first day of her reign, fired all the jesters, rewarding them with decent gifts. From that time on, the official title of “court jester” was destroyed forever. Although later jesters continued to appear at court, but under a different name and not in jester clothes. In conclusion, it remains for us to say a few words about the further fate of Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn.
In 1741 he retired to Moscow, where his Kalmyk wife soon died. From her he had two sons: Prince Alexei, who died single, and Prince Andrei, who married Anna Fedorovna Khitrovo and left numerous offspring. In 1744, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich married for the fourth time to Agrafena Alekseevna Khvostova and had three daughters with her: Varvara and Elena (the youngest), who died as girls, and Anna, who married the retired lieutenant of the horse guards Fyodor Grigorievich Karin, who, at the end of the last century, gained some fame for his literary works. Prince Mikhail Alekseevich died in 1778 at a ripe old age. His body was buried in the village of Bratovshchina, on the road from Moscow to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.