Visiting the French Gardens at Kuskovo

My sister and I have been making the rounds of all the manors around Moscow for the past couple of years. This year we decided to visit Kuskovo, a little green paradise in eastern Moscow. One of its main attractions is the only French formal garden left in Moscow.

The French garden at Kuskovo

A formal French garden is characterized by symmetry and order; it's nature brought under human control. This type of garden was particularly popular in the 17th century. In the 18th century the English landscape garden emerged which is all about the picturesque and creating the illusion of wild, untamed nature.              

French garden on the left, all order. English garden on the right, all wilderness. Source

Well, you get the picture.

Kuskovo was the summer estate of the very wealthy and powerful Sheremetev family. They owned large chunks of land around Moscow (their name may be familiar to you from the Sheremetyevo Airport, where they owned a village and its inhabitants), owned a large number of people and were patrons of the arts and theater. I very much recommend reading about them - TV shows like the White Queen will look pretty tame in comparison to their lives.

Kuskovo manor and church, view from the pond 

Apart from the palace, which is just a very large manor house beautifully decorated, the park has a grotto, a hermitage, the Dutch house, the Italian house, the Swiss house, the menageries for the waterfowl, the remnants of a summer theater, and two orangeries.  

The Grotto

The Italian house

The orangery 

The hermitage

After a tour of the park, it is essential to take a little rest in the shade with a good book.

Barely visible roof of the Swiss house

The Dutch house in the background

There was also an English landscape garden, wild and romantic.
 

And some semi-wild cats everywhere.

After getting enough fresh air and sunshine, we decided to take a turn around the manor house.

The dinning room

The tiled oven in the reception room, typical of Russian interior design of this period  

The reception room

The dancing room

While we were there, we got to see the French Elegance exhibition. Different rooms of the manor housed a collection of dresses and outfits, recreations of the the French 18th century fashions.

My favorite gown was in the dinning room.

 More outfits from the dinning room.

A beautiful formal gown from the reception room.

I found this replica of the famous Madame de Pompadour dress delightful.

Some less formal fashions and wigs from the dressing room.

And finally, in the last room of the manor house there was a small exhibition of shell art from the grotto. The grotto is undergoing some restoration work, so they moved some of the pieces from there into the main house. I did not know that you can make such beautiful art with shells. Now I do!

   
Well, that's all from the beautiful Kuskovo. Until next time!

Outfit notes:
Dress - originally Lindex, thrifted
Wrap - KappAhl
Belt - thrifted
Bag - borrowed from Mom
Hat - farmers market in Porvoo
Shoes - Keds from Shooz

All images by my sister Maria K. 

Moscow Goes Vintage - Flea Market at the Museum of Moscow History

I'm back after a long summer break with some fun pics to share with you. As always, I spent part of the summer in Moscow and had the pleasure of attending a couple really great events.

One of them was the Flea Market at the Museum of History of Moscow (unfortunately their page is only in Russian, so I'm linking to their wiki). Moscow doesn't seem to be as big on vintage and second hand as, say, Helsinki, but it's clearly getting there. It was very crowded.

My sister's friends have a vintage photo studio ШИПР (pronounced 'shipr') and they often attend events like this one with their old-timey camera.

And they don't just take your picture, you can also get to see how it's developed. Hint, it involves dipping the photo paper into many different liquids.    

But the results are quite stunning. 

I have to say, I love the look and feel of the photo. Unfortunately,the camera is very sensitive to movement. The slight blur on our skirts is a tiniest gust of wind. 

Since I got all dressed up just to take this photo, I will do the obligatory outfit run-down. (Every other blogger is  doing it, so I want to do it, too)   

  

Dress: '90s masquerading as '40s 

Shoes: borrowed from my grandma

Earrings & necklace: '60s vintage (a gift from my grandma)

My partner in this photo is a lovely statue of an early 20th century flaneur. The gentleman is very sharp dresser and quite clearly out and about to see and be seen. I feel like we make a very good pair.  

There were a lot of lovely dresses at the market, but I couldn't find anything that would really be my style (nothing within my price range, at least). But I did find a few things: 

 

A book on household management from 1958 proved to be a treasure trove of recipes, dress patterns and useful advice about cleaning fabrics, embroidering and gardening. I tried a recipe for beef stroganoff and love, love, LOVED  it!     

My other find was this cute little box of cake mascara, probably from the 1960s. I really want to start collecting vintage make-up and this is the first item for my collection. 

I got so inspired by my exposure to all this Soviet vintage, I felt I wanted one more thing. So I got a bottle of Moscou Rouge (aka Krasnaya Moskva) perfume. I am so in love with its scent. It very, very strong and so it has to be dealt out with a lot of care, but it has a strange otherworldly mystique to it. It reminds me of something past and half-forgotten. If you like vintage scents, I can't recommend it enough.             

Treasures from Aleksei Bakhrushin Theatre Museum

While in Moscow some weeks ago, I took the time to do something I have always wanted to do. I visited A. A. Bakhrushin Theatre Museum. Aleksei Bakhrushin was a businessman and philanthropist who amassed a pretty remarkable collection of theatrical memorabilia. His house, a lovely brick building in faux-Slavic style, and collection were later turned into a museum dedicated to the history of theater in Russia.      

A.A.Bakhrushin Theatre Museum

Some great vintage theater posters. The top three are forThe Scarlet Flower, The Firebird and The Stone Flower. The two below are for Snowmaiden and Şüräle. And the two below that are Koschei and The Sleeping Beauty.    

One of the main halls of the museum housed an exhibition Study of Garden dedicated to flowers, nature and gardens in theater, opera and ballet. They had a lovely collection of prints and I killed my camera's battery in this room trying to capture all of them.  

Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide 

Fanny Elssler as Florinda in the dance La Cachucha by Achille Devéria
Le Diable boiteux by Gide, directed by Coralli
The Paris Opera, Paris, 1836  

The Pearl costume sketch by K. F. Valts
The Miraculous Pearl by Riccardo Drigo
Bolshoi Theater, Moscow, 1890s

The Pearl has to be my favorite costume sketch. I am simply entranced by the mechanics of that skirt. How does it stay up? Does it make it difficult to dance? Shouldn't it be called 'The Clam', not 'The Pearl'?

François costume sketch by A. I. Charlemagne
The Queen of Ice by Marius Petipa
Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, 1865

Bettli costume sketch by A. I. Charlemagne
The Queen of Ice by Marius Petipa
Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, 1865 

Camellias costume sketch by A. I. Charlemagne
The Queen of Ice by Marius Petipa
Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, 1865 

Bellflower costume sketch by A. I. Charlemagne
The Queen of Ice by Marius Petipa
Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, 1865

Bird woman costume sketch by F. L. Sollogub
Unknown Play, 1880s 

Water fairy costume sketch by F. O. Schechtel
The Golden Apples by Edmond Audran, directed by M. V. Lentovskiy
The New Theater (Maly Theater), Moscow, 1884

The second wicked stepsister costume sketch by O. N. Polikarpova
The Scarlet Flower, directed by E. Medvedev
Collection of The Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts, 2010  

The merchant costume sketch by O. N. Polikarpova
The Scarlet Flower, directed by E. Medvedev
Collection of The Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts, 2010 

The Scarlet Flower is the Russian version of the Beauty and the Beast story. And, incidentally, my favorite fairy tale. So I was especially excited by these fun and colorful costumes. I think these were made for an opera. I only wish I could have seen the show itself.        

Fancy spyglasses that double as key chains, snuff boxes and perfume bottles

During the 19th century theater boom in Russia novelty spyglasses became very popular. They were usually richly decorated with ivory, mother of pearl and rhinestones.          

A cast of Marie Taglioni’s foot and her dancing shoe

Marie Taglioni was a renowned Italian-Swedish ballet dancer who is probably most remembered for her role in La Sylphide which was created for her. Taglioni was very popular during her stay in Russia, so much so that a cast of her foot was made to show how neat and petite it was - Victorians clearly prized narrowness and smallness in feet. 

Modern recreations of 18th century male stage costumes, paper, 2011

Modern recreations of 18th century female stage costumes, paper, 2011

There were several rooms dedicated to different periods in theater history. The two costumes above are from the 18th century room. These masque costumes were quite impressive, considering they are made out of paper. I wish they had a few more of them.   

A model of an 18th century stage

The model above was great in its detail, but really too far to take a good look at. I do love the staircase and the hall with the columns that seem to be mashed together from two very different productions.

A model of the Maly Theater, Moscow 

I was told by one of the ladies working at the museum that this model has a pretty fun history. Originally, they thought that the model was simply one of the Maly Theater building from the outside. But once, when it had to be moved, it cracked and fell apart into two pieces. They thought that it broke, but it turned out that it just had a secret lever that opened it up to reveal a detailed model of the inside of the theater.  

I certainly wish my camera hadn't died as quickly. There were a few very nice costumes, not to mention many, many, many more prints and illustrations. I certainly intend to make another trip to this museum next time I'm in Moscow.

You can see the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum website here (unfortunately, only in Russian)