by Olga BAZAN OVA, journalist In 2005, the Lyublino estate (from 1960 within the limits of Moscow), a monument of the Russian palace and park art of the 18th-19th cent. became a part of the Moscow State Joint Artistic Historico-Architectural and Natural Landscape Reserve-Museum. The palace of the brigadier and Councillor of State Nikolai Durasov as a model of national classicism is the main showplace of the estate, holding now an exposition devoted to the way of life, culture and traditions of the 19th century Moscow nobility. Durasov palace. стр. 93 The first information on local places, the then Yurkino village, dates back to the end of the 16th century. It passed from one owner to another and got its present name two centuries later, when it belonged to prince Pyotr Prozorovsky, whose family grew fond of a small village with a modest wooden estate and an orchard. Its heyday came early in the 19th century, when Nikolai Durasov, a possessor of a large fortune, an eccentric and hospitable person, an organizer of opulent feasts and festivities, became the estate owner. In his time in 1801-1806 there appeared an architectural ensemble, a beautiful park with summer-houses and small bridges over the pond, and a greenhouse, one of the biggest in the area near Moscow at that time and with trees bearing oranges, dates and pineapples. "An evangelic man of wealth", as he was called in society for his love of worldly pleasures, descended from an ancient noble family on his father's side and from Ural mine owners, not noble but rather prosperous people--on his mother's side. According to the then existing fashion, he made from Lyublino what we would call today a country house: he lived permanently in a Moscow mansion in Pokrovsky Boulevard and visited Lyublino together with his guests only for leisure, entertainment, balls and masquerades. It is clear that such festivities in his country estate famous "for feasts and hospitality" took place i ... Читать далее