Marfino

Marfino is a former noble estate near Moscow, known for its unusual Gothic architecture. Nowadays, the Marfinsky sanatorium, owned by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, is located here.

The first mention of the estate dates back to 1585, when these lands belonged to the lords, the clerks. In 1698, the Marfino estate was bought by Prince Boris Alekseevich Golitsyn and given a new name - Bogorodskoye. Soon he built the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, and in 1728 his son accumulated so many debts that he was forced to sell the entire estate. The next owner, Pyotr Semyonovich Saltykov, who later became a field marshal, built a large stone palace with kennels, gazebos for recreation, a summer theater, a stable yard and even a greenhouse where fruits were grown. Here he played his wedding, and every summer he called the Moscow nobility to performances of artists in his theater and dog hunting.

After the death of the field marshal, the Marfino estate was deserted, and during the Patriotic War it was also looted by French troops. In 1813, the last of the Counts Saltykov died and the estate passed to his sister Orlova Anna, who transferred the estate to her father-in-law. Soon, a blacksmith shop, a carpentry shop, and even a small brick factory were built in Marfino. Subsequent owners rebuilt the palace and the park area. Construction work was completed by 1846, when the estate was owned by Viktor Panin. After the October Revolution, the Marfino estate, like most manor houses, was nationalized and in subsequent years all valuables were taken out of it to the Historical Museum. In 1944, a military hospital was located here, and later a military sanatorium was established on the lands of Marfino.

The estate is based on a two-storey palace standing on a hill. There is a large pond with a fountain and a marina below. A grand staircase leads to it, and there are gazebos, a bridge, and the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin around it. Next to the palace there is a kennel decorated with eight-columned porticoes, a stable yard and a carriage house are in dilapidated condition. Their facade is decorated, as is the main building. Scenes for such famous films as "A Friend among strangers, a stranger among his own", "The Woman who Sings", "The Master and Margarita", "Poisons, or the World History of Poisoning" and others were shot on the territory of the Marfino estate.