Gruzino

Gruzino stands on the Volkhov, downstream from Novgorod. Its riverbank estate became the seat of Alexei Arakcheev, the powerful soldier and statesman to whom Emperor Paul I granted the property in 1796. The estate included a number of neighbouring villages as well as the village of Gruzino itself.

Beginning in 1799 Arakcheev rebuilt the centre of the estate, laying out a park and commissioning a palace and other buildings. A stone cathedral of St Andrew replaced the old wooden church in 1806. The carefully ordered estate attracted the attention of Alexander I, who visited in 1810; its organisation influenced ideas associated with the military settlements of his later reign. Behind the imposing buildings lay the labour and obligations of the people who lived on Arakcheev’s lands.