Lefortovo

Franz LeFort was born on January 2, 1656 into the family of a Geneva merchant. His life was not long, but it was tempestuous and full of merriment.

The Swiss were renowned throughout Europe as skilled mercenaries. LeFort was the sort of person who could not stay in one place for long, who was always ready to set out on a long journey. After serving in the French and Dutch armies, at the age of 20 he made his way to Russia. Here, the wandering mercenary found a home.

By the end of the 17th century, there was a standing invitation for foreign soldiers, doctors, merchants, and builders to come to Moscow. They all settled in one neighborhood – Nemetskaya sloboda (the German Settlement). Whether you were Swiss, French or English, here you became a German. (The Russian word for Germans – nemets – came from the word nemoy – or mute, incapable of speaking a “normal” human language.)

LeFort quickly mastered the local idiom. He entered military service and took part in several campaigns. And he might well have ended his life a little-known resident of the German Settlement, or made his way to other lands, if fate had not brought him together with the young Tsar Peter – the future Peter the Great.

Peter’s childhood was spent not far from the Settlement, in the village of Preobrazhenskoye. Tales of the foreigners’ unusual lifestyle intrigued the inquisitive teenager and, once he was firmly established on the throne, he made up his mind to visit the Settlement. He loved to look at the strange houses, at the oddly-dressed people, and at the women, who by Russian standards were very free in their behavior. He became a habitual visitor to the home of the merry and easygoing LeFort, and when LeFort introduced him to the German Anna Mons, Peter’s visits became even more regular, as he shunned his dour, young wife Yevdokia. Here they danced; here the women conversed freely with the men; here they drank tea and coffee and smoked tobacco. For Peter, the German Settlement became a little window onto Europe.

As a result, the career of the fun-loving LeFort, who had opened this window for Peter, reached dizzying heights. The soldier, who at that point had only acquired modest military experience, became a general and one of the tsar’s main advisors. His house in the German Settlement soon became too small for his extravagant and boisterous parties. So Peter gave LeFort a nearby piece of land where a new house – soon to be a palace – was built. If one of LeFort’s relatives is to be believed:

His Excellency built quite a beautiful hall, where 1500 people could be entertained. It is adorned with magnificent wallpaper, expensive works of sculpture, and plenty of gilding. Truly, it could be called the most marvelous of imperial halls. Our sovereign granted him fifteen large pieces of silk fabric, generously woven with gold. The accommodations are so large and throughout are outfitted so excellently that it is a thing of wonder… The furnishings are luxurious; there is much silver serving ware, weaponry, paintings, mirrors, carpets, various decorations – everything is most interesting and valuable.

But LeFort did not devote all his time to revelry. He asked the tsar for a plot of land, where he built a training ground to drill the soldiers of his regiment. Barracks were constructed nearby. This was how the place that came to be called Lefortovo first acquired some of the features still seen there today. In Peter’s day, Lefortovo was where visiting sovereigns resided and where troops were stationed. For some time after LeFort’s death in 1699, his palace was the primary residence of the tsar. Then Peter gave it to his other favorite, Alexander Menshikov (see Russian Life, Nov/Dec 2005), who renovated and expanded the building.  Later, the Empress Anna Ivanovna and then Catherine the Great built palaces here. A magnificent park with fountains, lakes, waterfalls, and statues was also created on this spot, naturally earning it the title of the “Russian Versailles.”

The area occupied by military facilities expanded further. The small barracks was renovated and enlarged; a military hospital appeared and was gradually surrounded by churches, orphanages, and homes for military widows.

With time, the expansion of Moscow brought Lefortovo within the city’s borders and the residents of the German Settlement blended with the local population. As often happens on a city’s outskirts, workers settled in this area, and textile mills and other industries emerged. In 1881, a prison appeared in the district. At first, it was intended just for petty criminals; only later, during the Soviet period, did it become one of the most notorious and terrible prisons of the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB. Among the numerous legends handed down by its prisoners there is a tale that the prison was actually built by Catherine the Great. This is difficult to verify.

The prison authority is today planning to create a museum. Such a museum would probably have to relate the horrors Lefortovo Prison saw during Stalin’s reign: the “psychic” chambers, where prisoners were confined around the clock in special cells with bright lights and walls painted black; the special tractors used to drown out the sound of gunshots; the “educational” boat excursions down the Moscow River, after which prisoners were again returned to their Lefortovo hell.

Such is the life of this district, where the haunts of Peter the Great’s youth and the “Russian Versailles” stand side-by-side with military colleges and barracks, prisons and factories – a jumble of the past and the present that is no rarity in Russia.

Today, the sight of Lefortovo Park prompts only melancholy. A renewal plan is on display, but no improvements are evident. The historic promenades are lined with garages and there is no trace of the statues that once stood here. The palaces of past tsars are either falling apart or have been taken over by the military, a sign that perhaps some of the buildings have been kept in good condition. One strolls past the façade of the Tank Officer Training Academy and tries to imagine Catherine the Great spending her summer months here.

Actually, it is hard not to feel the breath of history here. Krasnokazarmennaya (Red Barracks) Street passes the site of the Lefortovo barracks – where widows of soldiers who died during the Russo-Japanese War lived. Today, the homeless receive free meals  here. The Petrine military hospital has been transformed into the renowned Burdenko Military Hospital. The workers settlements of the 19th century have been replaced by enormous factories and technology research institutes. A restaurant named Anna Mons stands near the entrance to the park. Perhaps the young German woman dined here with her royal lover? In the park, next to a billiard hall and shashlyk house, stands a two-hundred-year-old memorial to Peter the Great. It was restored after being toppled by a violent storm in 1904. Today, the sovereign seems to serve primarily as a target for children’s snowballs. Nearby, a tram rattles in passing. Across the Yauza River, cars race along the new Third Ring Road, which has a new tunnel named for the Swiss mercenary.

Lefortovo seems to be sleeping, but it is a marvelous place to dream of the past.