Aydin Gudarzi-Nadjafov
«Born to Glory»
The Grand Duke Nikolay Konstantinovich (1850-1918)
Excerpt from a book
Translated into English
Wilen Schwartz.
When The Tashkent Palace of Grand Duke Nikolay Konstantinovich’s was built?
In 1890, in the Annex number 25, to the popular Russian magazine "Niva" essay was published. The author enthusiastically reported (fragments): "Just look at the Tashkent what it has become now. Twenty-five years passed by... and the city has become unrecognizable... Instead of the former walled cottages, stone two-story building..., six school buildings, shops and even some of the barracks; instead of Asian trees that adorned the gardens and streets of the city, we see a lot of European; streets made wider and the main of them are paved and the rest is perfectly paved with the asphalt; long gone that fabulous mud that made travel impossible on the streets. Each year gives us one or more improvements. We have a beautiful courtyard seating; luxury Constantine Square is truly one of the best decoration of the city. The whole city is sinking in the green... in the middle high rising cross of Transfiguration Cathedral proves that it is a large Russian city”.
Three years later the Tashkent Palace of Grand Duke Nicholay Konstantinovich has became the pride of the city.
The text of the "Explanatory reference to the materials of the survey of the palace of Prince Nicholas Romanov, "prepared in 1980 by one of the organizations under the Ministry of Culture of Uz.SSR, stated: "Start date in 1883 and the end of construction in 1893".
Episode
In March 2014, during the analysis of the "Explanatory statements", managed to contact an architect who lived in Israel M.I. Burshteyn, one of the authors of the "Explanatory statement" who participated in the 1980 survey of the Tashkent Palace. According to him: "The period of completion of construction and final delivery to the palace operation varies between 1893 and 1894. In the archives of Uzbekistan, documented periods were found. Of course, many of our team, tended to refer to the date in the novel A. Svirsky "Story of my life."
But for me somehow closer data of N.A. Maev who mentioned Tashkent Grand Duke Palace in the essay "Russian Tashkent" published in the May 1894 Supplement to the magazine "Niva".
In fact, judging from the year of birth 1865, and "twenty-fourth spring" of the of the author’s life, the events he described, took place on the territory of the previously constructed Tashkent Palace of Grand Duke Nicholas Roerich during 1889.
But given A.V. Svirsky period clearly does not coincide with the period of its full construction completion i.e. in 1893, mentioned by N.A. Maev.
Episode
While working on the book and the publication in the media of its drafts, the author has traditionally received letters from the readers. Some of them coincide in opinion, so that they can be reduced to a single point: "Negative references of the writer Alexei Svirsky, whose works brought up a generation of Soviet people, is not ethic."
Of course, to deny the educational factor of works by Soviet writers, including Alexis Svirsky, is unfair. But if we talk "about incorrect mention of Svirsky," that is not a sin to continue to mention in the context of the absurdity that the writer described in the chapter "Seraphima Velskaya" of the same novel "The Story of My Life." We are talking about the author’s emotional illustration Oreanda Crimean estate in the period, when it was possessed by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich.
"The first time I'm in Oreanda”, writes Svirsky. “What I see is beyond my understanding of this best and luxury of all the estates of the southern coast of Crimea. Large Brilliant Palace, decorated with crystal and gleams white air colonnade, it seems fabulous ... "
Reading this description, one can regret the absence of the month and year, when the writer experienced this delight. However, this gap in the story is compensated in one of the next chapter "Last passenger". In this chapter author describes how a few weeks after the incident on the background of the "big shining palace" Oreanda he met "a man with a small black beard, long hair, pale-faced, with big sad eyes." Svirsky accompanies him as a "guide" in Yalta. Accompanies without specifying readers - next to him sits a Russian poet, tuberculosis patient, twenty-five years old Nadson.
After a few months, to be exact - January 31 1887, Nadson dies in Yalta. In 1887 the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich turned sixty years old. And likely, his anniversary date he celebrated modestly in a small house, located near the ruins of what is known by its mysterious fire in 1881, called grand, the white stone Palace named Oreanda.
Why did the writer Svirsky in 1886 on the spot of the ashes of estate Oreanda imagine the "big shining palace"? He did not write anything about this, as he did not in the case of the Tashkent Palace of Grand Duke Nicholay Konstantinovich.
In historical reality the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich died in his estate Pavlovskoe January 13 (25), 1892. After two and a half years in Crimea, in Livadia Palace passed away the new owner of Oreanda Emperor Alexander III. What is this last detail for? It is known historically – neither Emperor Alexander III nor his son-successor did not plan any work on the reconstruction of the "big glittering palace, decorated with crystal and gleams white air colonnade".