Meyendorff Castle


Meyendorff Castle or Meindorf Castle is a Châteauesque architectural extravaganza constructed at the turn of the 20th century to Pyotr Boytsov's designs as a private residence of the Swedish-Baltic German,. Its location is between Barvikha and Odintsovo along Podushkinskoye Highway in Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast west of Moscow. The castle was built from 1874 to 1885.

History

The Meindorf family established their estate including the castle Barvikha or the castle of Baroness Meyendorf here in 1904 prior to the Russian revolution of 1917. In 1908 under the Russian ambassador to Denmark,, Baron F. M. Meyendorf became a diplomat with rank as a Russia state advisor and became the first secretary of the Russian diplomatic mission to Denmark which was a very esteemed honor because Czar Nicholas II mother, the Czarina Maria Fyodorovna, was born a Danish Princess Dagmar of Denmark.
After the outbreak of the Great War the owners of the castle left Russia for abroad.
After the October Revolution the castle was occupied by Vladimir Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. In 1935 the grounds were declared a high-profile, exclusive sanatorium. Mikhail Bulgakov, Sergey Korolyov and Yuri Gagarin were among those who vacationed at Barvikha. There is also a World War II cemetery marked by Yevgeny Vuchetich's miniature copy of his Mamayev Monument.
During Vladimir Putin's visit to the castles of the Loire valley in 2002, Jacques Chirac commented that Russia had nothing to compare with these French castles. Putin directed his staff to find a castle near Moscow and restore it. At only 20 minutes from Moscow, his staff transferred ownership of Bavikha to the as the residence of the President and remodeled the manor to the grandest in Russia when it opened for use in November 2008. The is officially called State Residence Barvikha since November 2008 but others refer to it as Meyendorf Manor or Meyendorf Castle.
In the 21st century Barvikha Castle has been designated a country residence of the President of Russia. It was there that the Meyendorff Declaration of 2008 was signed by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan ending the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

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