Another ghost of the Peter and Paul Fortress is the ghost of Princess Tarakanova. It usually appears at the Trubetskoy bastion. KD Flavitsky's painting "Princess Tarakanova", written in 1864, has little to do with reality: the princess did not drown at all. However, both this picture and this legend are just another touch to the mysterious biography of the impostor, whose real name no one knows.
The future Empress Elizabeth I, daughter of Peter the Great and Empress Catherine I, was born when her parents were not yet legally married. But, despite this, Catherine wanted to see Elizabeth as her successor on the throne.
However, a quick death prevented the fulfillment of the empress's wishes: first, Peter II, the grandson of Peter and the son of Alexei Petrovich, ascended the throne, and then, when he died at the age of fourteen from smallpox, the second daughter of Tsar Ivan V (brother and co-ruler of Peter I) Anna. Her royal powers were limited, but she very quickly dispersed the Supreme Privy Council and took all power into her own hands. She ruled for ten years, leaving behind her on the throne Ivan VI, the son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna. The new sovereign was only a few months old, but Anna Ioannovna tried to do everything so that the throne would not go to the descendants of Peter. Biron reigned for a year, and then, after his arrest, Anna Leopoldovna began to rule Russia on behalf of Ivan.
Elizabeth was in disgrace all these years. And she waited. Feeling that under Anna Leopoldovna, the authority of the authorities fell almost to the limit, the 32-year-old princess on the night of November 25 (December 6), 1741, accompanied by Count M. I. Vorontsov, physician-in-law Lestok and her music teacher Schwartz, with the words: “Guys ! You know whose daughter I am, follow me! As you served my father, so serve me with your loyalty! " - raised the grenadier company of the Preobrazhensky regiment. Elizabeth found herself on the throne, Ivan Antonovich in the Peter and Paul Fortress (where he earned the nickname "Russian iron mask" and was killed at the age of twenty-four "while trying to escape"), and all the favorites of the former empress were in Siberia.
Elizabeth did not pay too much attention to government. Having proclaimed a return to Peter's transformations, she almost completely entrusted the government to her favorites - the Razumovsky brothers, Shuvalov, Vorontsov and A. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin.
And the empress herself had more important things to do: legendary metamorphosis balls, when women dressed up as men and men as women, hunting, horse riding and outfits (according to rumors, there were more than 12,000 dresses in the empress's wardrobe). And, of course, Alexey Razumovsky.
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The Empress's favorite was born on March 17, 1709 in the village of Lemeshi (today Kozelets district) of the Chernigov province. The son of a simple Ukrainian Cossack soon fled from his father to a neighboring village, where he lived with a sexton and sang in the church choir. There he was noticed in 1731 by Colonel Vishnevetsky, who recruited choristers for the Court Choir. Catherine II later wrote that Alexei was one of the most beautiful men whom she met in life, and, naturally, this did not pass by the attention of Elizabeth, whose beauty was also legendary. The singer Alexei soon became the favorite of the crown princess (for a start, he received the position of manager of her estates, and then the rank of chamber-junker and the actual disposal of the future empress's court). They got married secretly, in 1742, in the village of Perovo near Moscow. In 1744, the Empress secretly gave birth to a daughter,which was soon sent to receive education abroad. At the behest of Empress Catherine II in 1785, the heiress was forcefully brought to the Moscow Ivanovsky monastery, where she was tonsured under the name of Dosithea and where she lived until her death in 1810 in complete solitude: even church services were performed for her alone. Dosithea was engaged in charity work, reading "soulful" books and handicrafts. In the last years of her life, she took a vow of silence and was considered a saint by many. After the death of Catherine, Dosithea was visited by Metropolitan Platon and some noble persons. She was buried in front of a large crowd of people, including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars. At the behest of Empress Catherine II in 1785, the heiress was forcefully brought to the Moscow Ivanovsky monastery, where she was tonsured under the name of Dosithea and where she lived until her death in 1810 in complete solitude: even church services were performed for her alone. Dosithea was engaged in charity work, reading "soulful" books and handicrafts. In the last years of her life, she took a vow of silence and was considered a saint by many. After the death of Catherine, Dosithea was visited by Metropolitan Platon and some noble persons. She was buried in front of a large crowd of people, including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars. At the behest of Empress Catherine II in 1785, the heiress was forcefully brought to the Moscow Ivanovsky monastery, where she was tonsured under the name of Dosithea and where she lived until her death in 1810 in complete solitude: even church services were performed for her alone. Dosithea was engaged in charity work, reading "soulful" books and handicrafts. In the last years of her life, she took a vow of silence and was considered a saint by many. After the death of Catherine, Dosithea was visited by Metropolitan Platon and some noble persons. She was buried in front of a large crowd of people, including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars.even church services were performed for her alone. Dosithea was engaged in charity work, reading "soulful" books and handicrafts. In the last years of her life, she took a vow of silence and was considered a saint by many. After the death of Catherine, Dosithea was visited by Metropolitan Platon and some noble persons. She was buried in front of a large crowd of people, including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars.even church services were performed for her alone. Dosithea was engaged in charity work, reading "soulful" books and handicrafts. In the last years of her life, she took a vow of silence and was considered a saint by many. After the death of Catherine, Dosithea was visited by Metropolitan Platon and some noble persons. She was buried in front of a large crowd of people, including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars.including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars.including many noble nobles and representatives of the Razumovsky family in the Novospassky monastery, in the tomb of the Romanov boyars.
Promotional video:
Nun Dosithea.
It is not surprising that the mysterious fate of Elizabeth's daughter and the no less mysterious marriage that preceded her, the reality of which many historians still doubt, gave rise not only to many legends, but also to many impostors of both sexes who pretended to be the secret children of the Empress Elizabeth.
But the most famous became, of course, "Princess Tarakanova". By the way, she did not call herself this name and, perhaps, did not even know about her existence.
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Her Highness Ali-Emete appeared in Paris in 1772 quite suddenly and literally out of nowhere. It was later found out that they had heard about this lady a few years earlier in the German city of Kiel, from where, fleeing from creditors, she fled to Berlin, and owing debt there, she moved first to Ghent, and then to London. She introduced herself as the maiden Frank, then - Shel, then Madame Tremuille. In Paris, she also changed several names and, having been a little Sultana Ali-Emete, renamed herself Eleanor, Princess of Azov, and then completely admitted that in fact she was Princess Elizabeth of Vladimir, from a wealthy Russian family of princes of Vladimir. The "Princess" very vividly told how she was brought up by her uncle in Persia and that upon reaching adulthood she came to Europe to find her inheritance in Russia.
Count Valishevsky described the impostor as follows: “Yuna, beautiful and surprisingly graceful. Ash hair, like Elizabeth's, the color of the eyes is constantly changing - now blue, now blue-black, which gives the face a kind of mystery and dreaminess. She has noble manners - she seems to have received an excellent education. She pretends to be a Circassian woman - or rather, that's what many call her."
The English ambassador in Paris, describing her in his diary, gave her the appearance of twenty years, but after three months he characterized her as thirty. Some said that Princess Vladimirskaya was actually the daughter of a Prague innkeeper, while others argued that she came from the family of a Nuremberg baker, but all the same - a commoner. It is unlikely that this was so: clearly an extraordinary education and upbringing gave this adventurer a bird of high flight. She knew many European languages, but only with Russian she had problems. As, however, with the knowledge of Russian realities: this ultimately ruined her.
Basically, she did what all attractive adventurers do - under various pretexts, the young Princess Vladimirskaya emptied the pockets of all her Parisian admirers. If those did not have money, then the princess did not hesitate to accept a valuable gift or even just a letter of recommendation. In addition, the princess borrowed money from everyone she could. But the limit of trust is not infinite, and soon the money that she was willingly lent to the Azov principality began to demand back.
The police became interested in the beauty, and she would have ended up in a French prison if it had not been for the marshal of the German embassy, who was burnt out of unrequited love and even raised, in view of the approaching danger, to the rank of groom. He secretly took the princess abroad and hid her at the court of Prince Limburg-Shtirumsky. The lord of a small German principality, seeing the guest, immediately lost his head. The unlucky groom ended up in prison for some kind of state crime, and the princess, without thinking twice, gave herself up to the prince, distraught with love. He was generous, like any sincerely in love, - he paid off all her debts and even persuaded the French authorities to stop the persecution.
It would seem, what else could an adventurer wish for?.. But in her veins, apparently, too hot blood was boiling, money and position were not the most important thing for her in life. The adventurer tried to escape from the ardently in love prince, referring to the fact that urgent matters await her in the Azov principality. But he immediately promised to abdicate and follow her even to the ends of the earth. Realizing that a more serious pretext was needed to part with the prince, the adventurer decided to break his heart - she got herself a lover and arranged so that the prince would find them. But this only convinced the aristocrat that he paid too little attention to his beloved: the prince immediately offered the fatal beauty his hand and heart. And, accordingly, the title of Princess Limburg-Shtirumskaya. But she was not ready to exchange all the glory, money and all the men of the world for a "shabby" principality. And she used her main trump card: she confessed to the prince that she was not really the Princess of Vladimir, but the daughter of Empress Elizabeth, a pretender to the Russian throne, who was exiled to Siberia, but kidnapped from there by good people and raised in Azov, but right now must go to reclaim the hereditary kingdom. The prince believed, melted and released his beloved, having previously drawn up an official document, according to which she, in the event of his premature death, received the title of Princess Limburg-Shtirumskaya.having previously drawn up an official document, according to which she, in the event of his premature death, received the title of Princess Limburg-Shtirumskaya.having previously drawn up an official document, according to which she, in the event of his premature death, received the title of Princess Limburg-Shtirumskaya.
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The newly-born heiress to the throne at the beginning of 1774 left for Poland, where she called herself (without even bothering to understand the twists and turns of Russian history), the sister of Emelyan Pugachev, who posed as Peter III, and the daughter of Elizabeth.
But even this simple legend worked for the gullible European public, and the "heiress" received money to restore the throne and in the hope of a future monarchical favor (especially the latter argued that everything had already been agreed with the Vatican and the Ottomans).
Russia then was in fact in a difficult situation: from the outside it was tormented by the Ottomans and Poles, from the inside - by Pugachev, and the impostor herself believed that she could easily take the Russian throne. To become a Russian empress would be a worthy ending to her adventures!
She decided to go to Venice, and from there to Constantinople (in order to really negotiate with the Ottomans), but the ship on which she was following was thrown out by the storm near Ragusa. Here she lived all 1774, beginning to send letters to the Sultan and "manifestos" - the elder brother of the favorite of the Empress Alexei Orlov-Chesmensky, Count Panin and other influential persons, in which she confessed her royal origin, that up to nine years was brought up by her mother, and then by the Persian shah, with the intention of taking the throne with the help of Pugachev … She attached a forged copy of Elizabeth's will to her letters, which spoke of the impostor's rights to the throne.
Since the morganatic marriage of the empress in Russia was not a secret to anyone, Catherine II (who herself came to power through a coup and remembered the series of coups that preceded her reign) was seriously worried. And then she ordered Orlov to deliver the "tramp" to St. Petersburg.
The count responded to the impostor's letter and came to her in Rome (moreover, to assure his loyalty, he paid her numerous debts). A romance broke out. Orlov was 38 years old, he was of great stature, possessed extraordinary strength and was considered one of the most beautiful people of his time. Once he invited the "future empress" to look at the maneuvers of the Russian squadron, and as soon as the one, absolutely enchanted by Orlov, stepped on a Russian ship (by law this is the territory of Russia), she was immediately arrested, and the ship sailed to St. Petersburg in full sail.
Count Orlov was considered one of the most beautiful men of his time.
They said that Orlov himself was in love with the impostor, but the feelings of a patriot overpowered the feelings of a lover in him. Perhaps the fact that the Orlovs were out of favor at that time also played a role.
But fate is sometimes insidious: the hero of Chesma was not saved by this "feat" - less than a year later he was dismissed and all his life felt guilty for his betrayal.
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In May 1775, the unlucky applicant was taken straight from the port to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where Chancellor Golitsyn himself began interrogating her. The impostor told him that she never knew either her nationality or her real name, but was brought up in Holstein, in the city of Kiel, in the house of a certain Frau, either Peretta, or Peran - she does not remember exactly. Then she was taken through Livonia to Russia, as it turned out - by order of Peter III. Here her origins were revealed to her and they tried to poison her, but she fled with a servant and some peasant to Persia, to Baghdad, where she met an influential Turkish prince, who promised to help her restore her rights. But soon confusion broke out in Persia, and she was forced to flee back to Europe.
The impostor continued to insist on this version, pointing out, however, that she did not intend to seize the throne and generally wished Russia only good. She wrote two letters to Golitsyn and one to Catherine, signing Elizabeth, and this infuriated the Empress: “Prince! - she wrote to Golitsyn. - Deign to convey to the well-known person that, if she wants to alleviate her fate, let her stop breaking the comedy and throw arrogance out of her head, for, judging by her letters to you, boldly signed with the name of Elizabeth, she still has not come to her senses. Tell her to tell her that no one doubts for a moment that she is a notorious adventurer and that you strongly advise her to moderate her tone and honestly confess who advised her to take on this role, where she was born and when she began to engage in fraud. See her and tell her again to stop breaking the comedy. What a wretch! Judging by what she wrote to me, her insolence knows no bounds at all, and I'm already starting to think if everything is in order with her mind."
But it was too late to "stop breaking the comedy": the adventurer had long been sick with tuberculosis, attacks of which happened to her in Italy, and in damp Petersburg, after an exhausting swim, during the first interrogation she was already spitting up blood. And on December 3, 1775, Princess Tarakanova, without admitting anything, gave up her ghost. (The painting by KD Flavitsky, where the princess is shown dying during a flood, is incorrect: the flood was "late" by two years.)
During the burial of the unlucky princess, no rituals were performed, the place of her burial is unknown. But many believe that Princess Tarakanova was buried in the same place where she sat: in the Alekseevsky ravelin. The Decembrists imprisoned there several decades later mentioned that they were shown a small mound in the garden, an unmarked grave, in which the bones of the legendary impostor allegedly rested.
But for some reason impressionable Petersburgers see the ghost of Princess Tarakanova at the Trubetskoy bastion. He supposedly appears only in rainy damp weather. She stands with her face turned to the wall and cries.
Trubetskoy Bastion of Petropavlovka. The ghost of the princess appears somewhere here.
Maxim K., who often walks with his children on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress, said that he once saw this ghost: “It was late autumn and, despite the relatively early time, it was already completely dark. We were walking around the fortress when my youngest son, who had run ahead, returned and said that “some aunt is crying there”. I walked faster and soon saw a female figure near the wall and heard sobbing. It was rather dark, and it was impossible to see her clearly. But I noticed that the woman was dressed in an unusual way, in something old. I decided that maybe some kind of filming was being held here - not far from Lenfilm - and this is just an actress upset about something. But when I went to her, the figure disappeared, dissolved, as if it had just passed through the wall! Moreover, female crying was still heard for some time. My sons got scaredthey saw it too, and began to ask me to leave here as quickly as possible. I agreed, because I, who never believed in ghosts, felt uneasy."
Eyewitnesses say that sometimes they see the figure of the princess on Angliyskaya Embankment and Galernaya Street, where once stood a house that Catherine gave to Count Alexei Orlov. (Orlov's house was located on the site of the current house number 20 along the English Embankment and house number 19 along Galernaya). This house was quickly sold to him, and then - rebuilt. Apparently, this is why the ghost of the princess cannot find him and sometimes turns to passers-by, asking them something in French. Usually the ghost of the princess is dressed in a gray road dress, a hat with a veil, and torn gloves. In his hands is a white bloody handkerchief.
According to some reports, while in the fortress, the impostor gave birth to a child from the count, who was baptized by the Prosecutor General Prince Vyazemsky and the wife of the commandant of the fortress Chernyshev. The boy was given the surname Chesmensky and named Alexander.
Alexander Alekseevich Chesmensky served in the Horse Guards and died young.
Orlov himself never saw his son.