The center of the museum-reserve of A.A.Block is the resurgent estate ‘Shakchmatovo’ which is located not far from Solnechnogorsk, in 82 km from Moscow. The estate was bought by a professor of botanic, the rector of St.-Petersburg university A.N.Beketov in 1874. A.N.Beketov was the grandfather of the great Russian poet Alexander Block.
    The estate purchased by the Beketovs, was

at a time a part of a big barony of nobility, known since the middle of the 18 century. Not far from it there were the old estates of the Tatishevs, the Batyushkovs, the Fonvizins. Shakchmatovo was purchased according the advise of the friend of the family D.I.Mendeleev, who dwelled in that area nine years earlier in the estate of Boblovo, close to Shakchmatovo.

Shakchmatovo. The remains of the entrance alley

Shakchmatovo. The 90-s of the 20 century

    The estate was not big, it occupied 2.45 hectares. The most part of the property (120 hectares all in all) was occupied by woods. The entrance birch alley led to the house. The building of the estate was constructed at the beginning of the last century from wonderful deal and treated by boards of gray clothing and green iron roof. Later this house was repainted, but color combination was the favorite.
   

    The house was decorated by wide Italian window white jalousie and a garden terrace with columns. The lower glasses of the windows were red, blue, yellow.

And the grey house, and in the attic
The Venezia window,
The glasses - red and yellow and blue,
As though it should be so.

Shakchmatovo. The blooming dog roses

The outbuilding of A.F.Kublitsky-Piottukch. 1900. Watercolor

    It was possible to drive to the house along the wide yard, overgrown by grass and a thicket of dog-rose. In his autobiographical poem ‘Retribution’ A.A.Block wrote: ‘The yard met the wayfarer by the wall of sweet god-roses’. At the entrance to the estate there was a small outbuilding with roofed gallery, there were only four rooms with one stone stove between them. The outbuilding didn’t have any decorations or architectural peculiarities, except the attic

The dead anility is going around.
The road sank in the green woods,
I am sawing sitting above,
I am sawing an attic window.

    Around the outbuilding there was a small garden, where there were a lot of flourishing roses.

The remains of the garden in Shakchmatovo

A pond in Shakchmatovo

    The garden of the Shakchmatovo estate is very special. It has a lot of wandering paths, unexpected turns and rounds. The lime alley dividing park into two parts is its main bulk. The age-old fir-trees, birches, pine-trees, limes and poplars are arranges in small woods and alleys. The house and the outbuilding were all in the flowers and sweet odor of lilac, dog-roses and

jasmine. A lot of flowers were blooming in the garden in summer time.
    Behind the garden, in the gill there was a pound. You may go to the pound along the path leading through the ‘turgenevskaya gate’. The gate was in a far, secluded part of the garden, not seen from the house and one can easily imagine some romantic meeting or secrete dates.

Tea party under the lime trees

    In dry weather the inhabitants of the estate had their morning tea, breakfast and lunch at the big green table covered by a white table cloth, which was under the limes. The samovar was boiling, and the women used to prepare jam over there.

    Now the garden of the ‘old landowners’ Russian estate’ is blooming as in the old days: lilac blooms in May, the bushes of dog roses is covered by scarlet flowers. And the most valuable treasure of the estate is, as it always was, the vast Russian scope.

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