Old postcards Ostankino

Ostankino was an estate of the Sheremetev counts, and its golden age came under Count Nikolai Sheremetev. In 1792 he began building a palace-theatre here to designs by Francesco Camporesi, Ivan Starov and Vincenzo Brenna, with the serf architects Pavel Argunov, Grigory Dikushin and Alexei Mironov. The theatre opened in 1795 and the interiors were finished by 1798. The building is made of wood, and it is the only late 18th-century theatre in Russia to survive with its stage and auditorium.

The Soviet postcards of Ostankino here form a 1968 set captioned “Ostankino Palace Museum”, shot mostly indoors: the Blue Hall, the Crimson Drawing Room, the Concert Hall, the picture gallery and one of its walls, the theatre auditorium and stage, the foyer enfilade, the passage room to the Italian Pavilion and a carved gilded floor lamp. Exterior views include the main and north façades and the Church of the Trinity, built in 1678–1683 by Pavel Potekhin; the Italian and Egyptian pavilions have cards of their own.

One card is a portrait of P. I. Kovalyova-Zhemchugova, a serf actress of the Sheremetev theatre who became the count’s wife. Anyone looking for old photos of Ostankino will find the Sheremetev estate here, not the TV tower, and above all its state rooms.