The surname of the Bobrinsky family was well known in the Russian Empire, representatives of this glorious family always had a certain weight at the imperial court. All Petersburg knew that the founder of the new dynasty, Alexei Grigorievich Bobrinsky, was the illegitimate child of Empress Catherine II and Count Orlov.
According to ancient legends, the Bobrinsky surname comes from a beaver fur coat, in which a newborn baby was wrapped, which was hastily taken out of the palace to hide the birth of a bastard from Emperor Peter 3. While his not quite faithful wife was giving birth to an "illegal heir", the emperor extinguished a fire in the estate of a close servant of the Empress, Prince Shkurkin. The chronicles say that the prince, as a devoted servant of the empress, set fire to his house himself in order to distract Peter 3. It should be noted that the emperor took part in all activities in the city, including extinguishing fires, and this was one of the monarch's quirks.
With such a high patronage, the first founder of the Bobrinsky dynasty quickly reached certain heights in the political and economic arena of the empire, which affected his condition.
Petersburg guides are still very fond of telling stories about the countless treasures of the Bobrinsky family. According to historical information, the state of the Bobrinsky family was several times higher than even the savings of the imperial family. In addition, there are legends that the Empress Catherine II herself gave her son personal jewelry just before her death.
Unfortunately, the revolution took place at a time when almost all the capital of the family was invested in various projects within the country, so the descendants of Alexei Grigorievich had to hastily flee the state with empty pockets. However, there are legends that the descendants of Count Bobrinsky could not be taken out of Russia, leaving the country in a hurry, they had to hide the jewelry in a secluded place where no one could get to them.
In 1930, a strange letter came to the St. Petersburg branch of the GPU, signed by a certain Bobrinsky, a native of Russian émigrés living in France. In the letter, Mr. Bobrinsky offered the Soviet government a deal. He indicates the location of the treasure of the great-great-grandmother of Empress Catherine II, for which the government of the USSR undertakes to pay half of the value of all treasures. At this point, the USSR implemented a policy of total industrialization and the state desperately needed money for reforms. It got to the point that museum pieces and historical values were sold. In such a situation, any possibility of obtaining additional funds for reforms was scrupulously studied by the country's leadership.
Mr. Bobrinsky's letter interested the ruling nomenclature, and a station in France was involved. According to the agent's reports, representatives of the Bobrinsky surname emigrated to France in 1919 and from that moment led a rather modest lifestyle. This suggested the idea that while fleeing the country, the descendants of Catherine II could not take out the treasure. It was decided not to negotiate with the author of the letter, but to independently find the hidden treasures. Representatives of the GPU were convinced that with the help of archaeologists and historians they could independently find the treasures of the empress.
A special commission was hastily assembled, which consisted of the leading representatives of the historical science of the USSR. The main task of this commission was a detailed reconstruction of the life path of the Bobrinsky dynasty on the territory of the former Russian Empire. As conceived by the heads of the GPU, this would make it possible to determine the location of the treasure. The result of the work was simply stunning. Most of the facts indicated that the treasures should have been hidden on the territory of the family estate, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The researchers made such conclusions from the fact that 1918-1919 was the most restless in St. Petersburg, and it was extremely dangerous to transport valuables.
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It is known from the personal correspondence of Count Bobrinsky that since the end of 1917, he has been considering the possibility of leaving the country in order to save his family from the swelling flywheel of the revolution. All the same, he does not leave the hope that the Bolsheviks will not be able to stay in power for a long time. However, at the beginning of 1919, the GPU began to take an active interest in the person of the count, which became the reason for his hasty flight from the country with his family.
The researchers concluded that family values had to be always "at hand" in order to leave the territory of the USSR with them at any time. Since the Bobrinsky family since 1917 spent all the time on the territory of their ancestral estate on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, an appropriate conclusion was made. Large-scale search robots began to search on the territory of the treasure estate. However, only a few jugs with gold coins were found, which in no way looked like the huge treasure of Catherine 2. Perhaps the search would have continued further, but research work dragged on for three years. In 1933, a huge campaign began in the state to destroy the harmful elements of society, which became a fat point in a project to search for a mythical treasure.
It should be noted that modern researchers suggest that the treasures that belonged to the empress were hidden in the ancestral estate of the Bogoroditskoye of the Bobrinsky family, which is located near Kaluga in the Tula region. This very estate was granted to Alexei Grigorievich directly by his mother. According to the surviving documents, this area was a real wilderness, but the count regularly visited his estate and even invested huge amounts of money in it.
From the surviving documents it is known that during the life of Alexei Grigorievich, more than 50 thousand rubles were allocated for the construction of the estate, which at that time was a colossal amount. However, the buildings of the Bobrinsky summer residence do not impress with the monumental nature of the structures. As a result of this, the question arises: where did the huge money allocated for the construction of the estate go? The answer is pretty simple. On the preserved watercolors made in 1783 by the architect Bolotov, who was involved in the construction of the entire architectural complex. There remained projects of underground catacombs, which were supposed to be made under the estate.
Most likely, the surviving watercolor is one of the many options for underground communications that should have saved the empress's bastard in an attempt to seize the legitimate vertical of power, in the person of the recognized heirs to the throne, who wanted to deal with an unwanted relative. The task of these tunnels was to save Alexey Grigorievich from a possible pursuit, to give him the opportunity to collect the most valuable things and safely leave the estate. The question remains open whether the project was implemented or was it just the architect's fantasy?
In favor of the version that the project was implemented is the fact that the park, located on the territory of the estate, is neatly located on the site of an old guard fortress, which serves as an outpost on the outskirts of Moscow. Usually, such fortifications were equipped with a system of underground passages and grottoes that allowed defenders to evacuate if necessary. Therefore, an experienced architect only needed to correctly fit the existing catacombs into the general plan of the building.
At the moment, historians know several underground galleries near this estate. The likelihood that the treasure may be under the estate in Bogorodichnoye is quite high. The researcher still has a lot of work to do on the restoration of the grottoes and underground passages in the outskirts of the estate, so it may happen that the treasure of Empress Catherine II will be found.