Indeed, it is not for nothing that it is said that we do not value it, but having lost it, we regret it. A similar situation has developed in the Leningrad region in the abandoned Babolovsky park on the outskirts of the well-known Tsarskoye Selo.
In fact, the eighth wonder of the world "Tsar Bath" of the Russian Empire of the 18th century was literally consigned to oblivion, and quietly rests among the accumulated garbage in the ruins of the Red Baths of the Babolovsky Palace. What is it - the shortsightedness of historians, the indifference of officials or the banal stinginess of the administration? How is it possible that such a valuable exhibit was abandoned and not a museum artifact? Why do few people in Russia know about such a unique object?
This miracle bath is also called “Babolovskaya bowl” in another way. The weight of a huge rare vessel reaches 48 tons, so it was recognized as the largest stone vessel in the world and entered the Guinness Book of Honor. The bowl is made of a single piece of granite and is perfectly polished by the most skillful stone-cutters practically by hand. It has a diameter of 533 centimeters, an internal depth of 152 centimeters, a capacity for a liquid of about 34 thousand liters, and a volume of 23 cubic meters.
The giant masterpiece has its own background. The Russian Empress Catherine II in the seventies of the 18th century granted prince Potemkin Grigory Tavrichesky the land of Babolovsky Park in Tsarskoye Selo. Earlier, back in 1785, a miniature one-story palace summer cottage for the Romanov family was built on the territory of the park, consisting of only seven rooms. The building was visited by the august persons, especially noble ladies who did not have the opportunity to publicly swim in the reservoirs, because they, according to their highest rank, did not cease to be publicly naked. Potemkin rarely visited this place, therefore, by the time of the prince's death in 1791, the Babolovsky Palace was in desolation and rapidly decaying.
Alexander I gave a new life to the Babolovsky Palace, entrusting the reconstruction of the dilapidated building to the famous architect Vasily Stasov. The central room of the pavilion was completely rebuilt and expanded to fit the size of the Babolovskaya bath in 1823 according to his project. From the octagonal room, the bath takes on an oval shape.
First, the Tsar Bath was erected and fortified on new foundations in the center, and only then walls were erected around it and brought under the roof. Below the bath were low technical basements with a drainage system for a gravity bath, at the bottom of which there is a small round hole for water drainage. The Babolovsky Palace was connected directly with the Taitsky water pipeline. For the Babolovskaya bowl, a mechanical water supply system was provided for through galvanized pipes, both cold and heated in special furnaces located at the other end of the building.
In the 18th century in Tsarskoe Selo there was a whole water supply system known as the Taitsky water conduit, by the military engineer Friedrich Baurov. The daily productivity of the Baur canal was approximately three thousand cubic meters of water. For 16 kilometers, the water in it flowed in a watercourse and fed all the water structures of the Tsarskoye Selo parks.
The very same giant bowl was ordered much earlier by the grandson of Catherine II, Alexander I, at the beginning of 1811. On his instructions, engineer Betancourt made an order to the then famous stonecutter Sukhanov Samson, who asked for 16 thousand royal rubles for the difficult work. However, as it became clear at the end of the work, this amount was not enough to cover all the costs of sculpting the majestic "Bath of the Russian Empire", so much later the famous Sukhanov ended his days in poverty.
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At the request of this master, a monolithic piece of coarse-grained granite weighing over 160 tons, which had unique inclusions of Labrador, was delivered from the nearest Finnish island to Babolovo. The talented craftsman Sukhanov did almost jewelry work with the granite block, giving it clear, strict contours of the bowl and bringing the thickness of its walls to a minimum size of 45 centimeters, which allows it to withstand the weight of a fully filled bathtub.
Ancient domestic stone cutters worked by hand using a scarpel, gradually gouging out the desired shape of the future masterpiece day and night. According to experts' estimates, to give the stone block a bowl-like appearance, the artisans had to hit the scarpel with a mallet several tens of billions of times. It took Sukhanov with his artel of stonecutters about 7 years to make the granite look like a bowl of an ideal shape.
The finished gigantic bathtub with a total surface area of over 50 square meters was then polished inside and out for another ten years, starting in 1818. Now, thanks to its natural properties and the painstaking work of ancient domestic grinders, the bowl changes its color shades under different lighting conditions.
During World War II, the Nazis tried to take a granite bowl to Germany, but they could not find suitable equipment and transport to implement their marauding plans, so the national miracle remained in the same place. Fortunately, neither the bombing, which turned the Babolovsky Palace into ruins, nor gun shots touched it. At that time, not a single scratch remained on the Babolovskaya bowl. But today, vandals have painted the facade and sides of the unique object, without thinking about its historical significance for posterity.
According to the restorers, today, the restoration of Babolovsky Park and the palace is already determined at $ 100 million. The old brick under the "Eighth Wonder of the World" has become very fragile and will soon be unable to withstand the multi-ton load, which means that the majestic bowl will collapse and crack. Has the Russian people become spiritually poorer, and the great power technically weaker than Russia two hundred years ago, armed only with a chisel and mallet?
The granite miracle of the Babolovsky Palace has the right to stand on a par with such famous giants of Russian architecture as "Tsar Bell" and "Tsar Cannon". Accordingly, it is necessary to treat the unique historical Russian giant with due reverence.
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