... For impudence, queen, forgive me!
You are in mercy, as in rage,
And in the hour of light, and in the hour of trouble
Get rid of royal kindness! ...(words from a song)
The Ice House was built at the behest of Anna Ioannovna in 1740, to hold the wedding of the tsarina's favorite jester, Avdotya Buzheninova (video), who was married to Prince Mikhail Golitsin, who fell out of favor with the empress, and was appointed jester for that. 
Since Anna Ioannovna always loved to celebrate holidays on a grand scale, the courtiers did their best, developed a project for an ice building, and the craftsmen skillfully embodied it, cutting material for it directly from the frozen Neva.
Built to please the whims of the queen, the Ice House was six meters high and 17 × 5 meters in area.
According to eyewitnesses, the building was simply magnificent, carved as if from a huge piece of crystal.
Its walls were decorated with magnificent carvings; ice sculptures were installed in beautiful arched niches; instead of glass in the windows, the thinnest ice was also inserted!
The gate to the house was decorated with vases of ice flowers. "Crystal" birds flaunted on the icy branches. Nearby were ice figures of dolphins that gushed out fiery streams from burning oil, and six ice cannons capable of firing ice cannonballs.
On both sides of the house, pointed, hollow inside, pyramids were installed, inside of which large lanterns burned.
At the very entrance to the house, visitors saw a huge ice elephant with a driver sitting on his back
, and at the feet of an elephant were two beauties in oriental dresses.
The elephant was not an ordinary sculpture, but a fountain with jets of water gushing from its trunk. At night, the elephant became a powerful firework, spewing burning oil.
Also, the elephant could trumpet, or rather, the sounds were made by the musicians who climbed inside the elephant, blowing into the wind pipes.
The ice house had four rooms: a bedroom, a living room, a pantry and a toilet.
The house was filled with all the necessary interior items. From pure ice skillful craftsmen made: a carved table, a bed, sofas and armchairs, a cupboard with dishes, a clock, beautiful curtains, stools, flowers.
There were even candlesticks with candles and an ice-cold fireplace, and the wood in the fireplace was also ice-cold, but burned because they had been doused with oil.
Among other things, at the Ice House they built an ice bath,
which was drowned several times and those who wished could take a steam bath in it! 
But, in order to show the folly of the Russian Empress Anna Ioannovna, one cannot but tell a little about her and the newlyweds.
Empress Anna Ioannovna.
Anna Ioannovna ascended the Russian throne in 1730. By the way, the wedding of jesters was held just in honor of the tenth anniversary of the empress's tenure on the throne.
The name of Anna Ioannovna, the niece of Peter I, in our minds is firmly connected with the name of her favorite Biron, the Duke of Courland, a power-hungry and cunning person.
According to contemporaries, the queen was insidious, cruel and extravagant, and her appearance was assessed very unflattering.
So, for example, Princess Dolgorukova writes that the appearance of the queen was terrible and even disgusting. The empress was two meters tall, extremely thick (eight pounds), and besides - pockmarked!
Anna Ioannovna and her favorite Biron kept the whole court in fear with torture, executions, exile and extravagant amusements. 🙁
Just a few years after Peter's death, very simple during his reign The Russian royal court in splendor and splendor was no longer inferior to many European courts.
Balls, masquerades, ceremonial receptions were constantly held at the court. The queen herself, along with Biron, loved to spend time with her jesters.
Jesters entertain Tsarina Anna Ioannovna in her bedroom
Here I will also mention the unfortunate end of the wedding of Tsarina Anna Ioannovna herself.
She was married to the Duke of Courland in October 1710 by Peter the Great himself, who arranged a very bright and magnificent wedding for his niece.
But on the way to Courland, the young husband died, as if from the fact that he "went through too much."
But the fact is that Anna Ioannovna became a widow right in her wedding dress ...
Jester Avdotya.
Among the jesters of Anna Ioannovna was Avdotya Ivanovna, a Kalmyk girl, already in years and not very beautiful. But the tsarina favored her and even gave her the name Buzheninova in honor of the cracker's favorite dish.
When Avdotya told Anna Ioannovna that she would like to get married, she quickly found a jester for her suitors - and not just a simple one, but former prince!
The jester is a former prince.
Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn (1688-1778) was from a family of boyars famous back in the time of Peter the Great. Peter himself sent him to study abroad - to the Sorbonne, then Golitsyn served in the military-administrative line and rose to the rank of major.
Why was such an eminent nobleman demoted to jesters?
For the fact that the prince, after the death of his first wife in 1729, went abroad to dispel longing and there fell in love with an Italian of simple origin. Golitsyn married her and even converted to the Catholic faith.
The prince returned to Moscow with his wife and child, but tried to hide them from everyone, as well as the change of faith.
However, the Empress managed to find out everything, the marriage was annulled on her orders, and the Italian wife was sent abroad. The prince himself was demoted and appointed court jester.
From now on, the duty of the former prince was to serve kvass to the tsarina and her guests, for which Golitsyn was nicknamed "kvass".
The rest of the time the jester was ordered to sit in a basket near the royal chambers.
Jester's wedding.
The empress held the wedding of court jesters on February 6, 1740.
At the command of the empress, two people were brought to St. Petersburg from all over Russia from all the multilingual peoples inhabiting the empire - Ostyaks, Mordvins, Abkhazians, Chuvashs, Cheremis, Samoyeds, Vyatichi, Kamchadals, Kalmyks, Kirghiz and others - only about three hundred people !
The "wedding train" traveled all over the city. An elephant walked in front, on which the “young” sat in an iron cage, followed by guests on numerous fancy sledges. Moreover, camels were harnessed to one sleigh cart, deer to another, and goats and pigs to many others. 
All the guests were in national costumes and played their folk instruments.
A plentiful wedding dinner ended with dancing, where each couple showed their national dance to the queen and nobles, and they were very pleased with the amusing spectacle.
After the festive dinner, the young people were sent to the Ice Palace and put to bed, while guards were posted at the house, so that the newlyweds do not leave the bed before the appointed time.
They say that only the quick wits of Avdotya, who managed to bribe the guards and beg them for a sheepskin coat, could save the young from death.
The Ice Palace stood until the end of March...
And Tsarina Anna Ioannovna lived after the clownish wedding for only 8 months.
What happened to the newlyweds?
After the death of the Empress, Mikhail Golitsyn was relieved of his clownish duties and left with Avdotya for the family estate.
During the birth of her second son, Buzheninova died; it was said that she was never able to recover from the illness she received as a result of spending the night in the Ice House.
Mikhail Golitsyn married for the fourth time, and the bride was 45 years younger than him. In this marriage, he had 3 more daughters.
He died 90 years old, having won, as a result, a victory in the struggle for human happiness and dignity.
Ice House of Anna Ioannovna. Video
This interesting fact has exhausted itself!
But tomorrow we will find something more interesting!
With best wishes for health and prosperity,
Your dedicated guide to the world Interesting Facts,
Mozgunova Irina.
One of the most peculiar amusements of the Empress Anna Ioannovna, invented by the chamberlain A. D. Tatishchev in 1740 and associated with the amusing marriage of the court jester of the Empress, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn, and one of her accustomers, Kalmyk girl Avdotya Ivanovna, who bore the surname Buzheninova. A special masquerade commission, chaired by Cabinet Minister A.P. Volynsky, chose a place on the Neva between the Admiralty and Winter Palace[back in 1733 an ice fortress was built on the Neva; buildings made of ice, in the sense of curiosities, were also found in Western Europe]; under her supervision, the house was built, exclusively from slabs of pure ice, laid one on top of the other and poured with water for connection; it was eight fathoms long, two and a half wide, and three high. There were six ice cannons and two mortars in front of the house, and two dolphins at the main gate, burning oil spouted from their mouths. The roof of the house was decorated with statues. The interior of the house was also made of ice. High pyramids were erected on the sides of the house. approximate hours and with lanterns on the windows; Nearby were placed an ice elephant, from whose trunk a burning oil fountain beat, and an ice bath, which was heated with straw.
STUPIDITY WORTHY OF ITS CREATOR!..
Coming out of the darkness of the night with its lights, the ice house shone with a metallic luster and cast light far from itself on the Lugovaya line, outlining with it a motley semicircle of faces and legs; the square seemed to be paved with the tops of heads. Often the increased cry of the ice elephant, or the fiery fountain that spouted from its trunk, or a new funny figure on the windows forced the spectators to invade the line ordered by the suburban tenants and sotskys. Russian witticisms often rained down under the Russian stick.
Look, brother, - said one, - in the first picture, a German in a triangular hat, in a tattered coat, thin as a match, wanders with a comb and a brush in his hand, and in the last picture he has grown fat, like a boar; his cheeks are like donuts from the hearth; rides on a brown filly, on a golden saddle, and beats everyone right and left with a butt.
Eka simplicity! - another objected, - there he entered Russia on foot, and here he walks along it on horseback; there, you see, he was cleaning a horse, but here he rides on a cleaned one.
Vanka, oh Vanka! what kind of hut is this? one asked.
Bath, - was the answer ...
E! sir ten, save your broom for the front; here, in the cold, it is unsuitable to give steam ...
Go past, Mr. Sotsky; You see, we ourselves are a hundred ahead of a thousand.
Do you hear? the ice elephant is screaming!
And the stones cry out in times of trouble,” said a scribe in an important, instructive tone.
Thus, our bearded Beaumarchais, the areal censors of their time, entertained their eyes and tongues to their heart's content. It seemed that they were taking revenge on the nobility with their witticisms for their poverty and humiliation and were warming themselves from the cruel, suffocating frost.
Empress, Empress! - shouted the sots - and everything fell silent with reverent silence.
Snow creaked, squeezed by hundreds of horseshoes, he hissed from many cuts; a squadron of hussars appeared, followed by the empress's sleigh, followed by a row of carriages. Several courtiers stepped out of the ice house onto the porch and ahead of everyone at Volynskaya. When the sleigh came abreast of him, he was called to Her Majesty. She deigned to graciously question him about the arrangement of the house and laughed at the very caricatured images that often changed on the windows. The Cabinet Minister gave intricate explanations. Suddenly, at one change, someone behind the empress's sleigh cried out with a heart:
Stupidity worthy of its creator!.. Extremely stupid!..
I don't know which side the stupidity is on!..
COURT JOKE
According to the imperial command, to the “curious” wedding of Golitsyn and Buzheninova, two people of both sexes of all tribes and peoples subject to the Russian sovereign were brought to St. Petersburg from different parts of Russia. There were three hundred people in total. The masquerade commission provided each couple with local folk clothes and a musical instrument.
On February 6, 1740, on the day appointed for the celebration, after the marriage of the illustrious jester, performed in the usual manner in the church, the "riders" of different tribes were pulled from the assembly point by a long train. There were: Abkhazians, Ostyaks, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Cheremis, Vyatichi, Samoyeds, Kamchadals, Yakuts, Kirghiz, Kalmyks, Khokhols, Chukhonians and many other “multilinguals and raznochintsy”, each in their national costume and with their beautiful half. Some rode camels, others rode deer, others rode dogs, fourth rode oxen, fifth rode goats, and six -on pigs etc., “with music belonging to each kind and various toys, in a sleigh made in the likeness of sea animals and fish, and some in the form of strange birds.” The procession was opened by the “young”, showing off in a large iron cage, placed on an elephant.
The wedding train, driven by Volynsky and Tatishchev, with music and songs, passed by the palace and along all the main streets, stopped at the arena of the Duke of Courland. Here, on several long tables, a plentiful dinner was prepared, at which each couple had their own national dish and their favorite drink.
During dinner, Trediakovsky greeted the young with the following poem:
“Hello, getting married, fool and fool.
More... thot and figurine!
Now is the time for us to have some fun
Now, in every possible way, the travelers should be furious ... "
After dinner, the "multilingual" couples danced each their own national dance, to their own national music. This amusing spectacle greatly amused the Empress and the noble spectators. At the end of the ball, the motley train, preceded by the still “young”, sitting in a cage on an elephant, went to the “Ice House”, which burned with lights that effectively crushed and shimmered in its transparent walls and windows; ice dolphins and ice elephant threw streams of bright flame; The “funny” pictures in the pyramids were spinning, to the complete delight of the large audience, who greeted the newlyweds with loud cries.
The young, with various ceremonies, were laid on an ice bed, and a guard was put up to the house, out of fear that the happy couple would not think of leaving their not quite warm and comfortable bed before morning ...
Nine months after the “curious” holiday, Empress Anna Ioannovna died, bequeathing, as you know, the Russian throne to her nephew, Prince of Brunswick, John Antonovich. During the latter's infancy, the administration of the state passed into the hands of his mother, Princess Anna Leopoldovna, a kind, gentle woman who possessed beautiful spiritual qualities. Anna Leopoldovna, on the very first day of her reign, fired all the jesters, rewarding them with decent gifts. Since that time, the official title of "court jester" has been destroyed forever. Although then jesters continued to appear at court, but under a different name and not in jester's clothes. In conclusion, it remains for us to say a few words about the further fate of Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn.
In 1741 he retired to Moscow, where his Kalmyk wife soon died. From her he had two sons: Prince Alexei, who died unmarried, and Prince Andrei, who married Anna Fedorovna Khitrovo and left numerous offspring. In 1744, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich married, for the fourth time, with Agrafena Alekseevna Khvostova and had three daughters with her: Varvara and Elena (the youngest), who died as girls, and Anna, who married a retired lieutenant of the Horse Guards Fyodor Grigoryevich Karin, which, at the end of the last century, made some fame for literary works. Prince Mikhail Alekseevich died in 1778 at a ripe old age. His body was buried in the village of Bratovshchina, on the road from Moscow to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
As you know, before his death, Peter I did not leave clear instructions regarding the successor to the throne. After a series of palace intrigues and coups, the niece of the late sovereign was on the throne Anna Ioannovna. The Dowager Duchess did not expect to receive the crown of the Russian Empire. But after the happiness that suddenly fell on her, the woman, first of all, took up not the affairs of the state, but the organization of countless entertainment events. Some of these amusements turned out to be quite cruel.
Few speak flatteringly about the 10-year stay of Anna Ioannovna on the Russian throne. She went down in history not as a prudent politician, but as a crazy empress. The Empress loved to surround herself with numerous dwarfs and hunchbacks. It was believed that Anna Ioannovna did not at all shine with beauty, but against the background of freaks she looked very advantageous. Most of all, she sympathized with the Kalmyk dwarf Avdotya Ivanovna. The bow-legged, ugly joker had a sharp mind and heartily amused the empress.
One day the dwarf became sad. When the empress asked what was the matter, Avdotya replied that she was no longer young and wanted to get married. Anna Ioannovna was on fire with the idea of marrying the dwarf, so much so that she was no longer happy.
Title="(!LANG:Jesters at the Court of Empress Anna Ioannovna.
W. Jacobi, 1872 | Photo: runivers.com." border="0" vspace="5">!}
Jesters at the Court of Empress Anna Ioannovna.
W. Jacobi, 1872 | Photo: runivers.com.
Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn became a well-born groom. At that time, the prince was on the staff of the empress' jesters. He landed there due to a great disgrace. While abroad, Golitsyn married and converted to Catholicism. By changing his faith, he incurred the wrath of Anna Ioannovna. In the palace, he had his own basket, where the man "hatched" the eggs. At feasts, the prince's duties included pouring kvass for everyone, for which he was nicknamed Kvasnik.
The French historian Gazot stated his observations about Golitsyn as follows: “He amused the empress with his impenetrable stupidity. All the courtiers, as it were, considered it their duty to laugh at the unfortunate; he did not dare to offend anyone, did not even dare to say any impolite word to those who mocked him ... "
The morally destroyed prince, of course, could not object to the empress and began to dutifully prepare for the wedding with the dwarf.
Anna Ioannovna herself was so imbued with new fun that she ordered the Ice House on the Neva to be built for the wedding. The winter that year was very severe, the temperature did not rise above minus 30 degrees. The building was 16 meters long, 5 meters wide and 6 meters high. The facade was decorated with ice sculptures. The house itself had a living room, buffet, bedroom and toilet. At the gate stood ice dolphins with open mouths, from which burning oil was thrown out.
The perimeter of the ice house was decorated with ice figures of birds and animals. The most impressive creation was a life-sized ice elephant. During the day, jets of water were released from the trunk, and at night - burning oil.
For the construction of the Ice House, the best engineers of that time were involved - architect Pyotr Mikhailovich Eropkin and academician Georg Wolfgang Kraft. To carry out all the undertakings of the Empress, they had to find many unique solutions.
Anna Ioannovna ordered to bring a couple of representatives of all the nationalities of the Russian Empire to the holiday in national costumes. On February 6, 1740, 300 people from different parts of the country arrived at the jester's wedding.
The wedding procession was a powerful spectacle. The newlyweds were locked in a cage, which was placed on an elephant. They were followed by the rest on camels, deer, dogs. After the wedding, a feast followed, and in the evening Kvasnik and Avdotya were sent to their palace on an icy marriage bed. Guards were posted at the exit so that the young could not get out. As if in mockery in the ice prison, ice firewood, poured with oil, “burned”.
As planned, the newly-made spouses were supposed to freeze at minus forty degrees, but they managed to survive. According to legend, the dwarf bribed the guards and carried warm clothes in advance, but still in the morning they were almost frozen.
The cruel fun of Anna Ioannovna caused the strongest indignation in Russian society and abroad. The mockery of jesters was called low, and the waste of colossal funds for one's whim was called tyranny. However, the empress herself did not care much about the opinions of others.
It so happened that the clownish wedding became the last entertainment of Anna Ioannovna. Six months later, she was gone. As for the perpetrators of the "triumph", the dwarf Avdotya gave birth to Kvasnik two children. But two years after the wedding, the woman died, the consequences of hypothermia affected.
And Mikhail Golitsyn was canceled the humiliating position and returned part of the land and property. After the death of the dwarf, he married again, fully recovered from the humiliation he had experienced.
It is worth noting that the fun and other Russian sovereigns were not so harmless. For example, Peter I arranged
The reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna (1730-1740) is one of the darkest episodes in history Russian State, and its completion was marked by an event that clearly reflected the political and cultural processes that were taking place at that time - the construction of a grandiose palace complex from ice and a funny wedding ceremony held in it.
The reason for the construction was that one of Anna Ioannovna’s favorite jokers, the Kalmyk girl Avdotya Ivanovna Buzheninova, in order to further favor herself on the part of the empress, complained about her loneliness and expressed her desire to get married. The empress was amused by this complaint, but she heeded it, and the very next day she found her fiance, also from court jesters, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn, who fell out of favor with the royal court, and therefore was appointed to entertain Her Majesty.
It is worth saying a few words about Prince Golitsyn. Mikhail Alekseevich came from a noble boyar family, which, with the coming to power of Peter I, lost its position in state activity. The prince was appointed to serve in the army, and not in the guard, which had a privileged value, and with great difficulty rose to the rank of major. At the age of fifty, Golitsyn loses his wife and goes abroad. During his journey, he marries an Italian woman and converts to the Catholic faith. Returning to Russia with his new wife, the prince hides her from public eyes and is silent about the change of religion. But rumors about this still reach the royal court, at the head of which by that time was already Anna Ioannovna. Golitsyn was taken to St. Petersburg, where he was subjected to a harsh interrogation in the Secret Office. There he renounces both his new wife, who is being expelled from Russia, and his heterodoxy. The prince was demoted to court jesters for the amusement of the empress, further humiliating the dignity of both himself and his ancient family. Together with other jesters, he sat in a basket near the royal apartments, and also served kvass to the empress, for which he received the nickname "Kvasnik".
So, after the approval of Anna Ioannovna to marry the jester to the cracker, an order was announced to prepare for the wedding celebration. The courtiers began to figure out how to make the wedding more elaborate. As a result, chamberlain Alexei Danilovich Tatishchev came up with the idea of holding fun in the Ice House.
It should be noted that, unlike Peter I, Anna Ioannovna loved to hold idle events with chic, which by itself affected the depletion of the state treasury. The wedding venture was conducted for more entertainment with a serious approach. The so-called "masquerade commission" was formed, which became in charge of the preparations for the wedding. The "Commission" made a decision to build an Ice House between the Admiralty building and the Winter Palace. The famous Russian architect Pyotr Mikhailovich Eropkin completed the project of the Ice House. And the Cabinet Minister Artemy Petrovich Volynsky was appointed to monitor the progress of construction and the ceremony.
Construction of the Ice House
In January 1740, many human forces were thrown into the construction of the palace complex, the material for which was only delivered from the Neva River. Georg Wolfgang Kraft, a professor of physics, a member of the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences, in his monograph “A Genuine and Detailed Description of the Ice House”, published in 1741, speaks of the high strength of the Neva ice, which can withstand enormous pressure. The ice was cut into large square slabs, which were then subjected to architectural and decorative processing. The plates were installed one on top of the other, after watering each row of masonry. The water in this case acted like a cement mortar, firmly freezing the ice blocks to each other. In this regard, the weather was in the hands of the organizers of the celebration - the winter of 1739-1740. was very cold. At the end of construction, anyone could see the Ice House, but security was organized to ensure order.
Project and plan of the Ice House. 1740
The ice house was of considerable size - about 17 meters long, more than 5 meters wide and more than 6 meters high. Kraft described ice house, as if it was made from a single piece of blue-tinted gemstone. The building was decorated with excellent carvings, in particular the pediment of the main entrance. The walls of the house were decorated with arched niches with sculptural statues. In the upper part of the house, a gallery with a parapet and three-dimensional sculpture was made. Inside, the house was divided into rooms: a living room, a buffet, a bedchamber and a toilet. The interior was as impressive as the exterior. Thin icy glass was inserted into the window openings, through which daylight penetrated into the premises. They were standing in one of the rooms. Furniture and household items - everything was made of ice. There was a bed, and a stool, and sofas, and armchairs, and carved tables with ice clocks standing on them and laid out maps, also made of ice, and a cabinet containing ice dishes, as well as candlesticks with ice cubes installed in them. candles and a fireplace with ice wood (oiled candles and firewood could even burn). The same firewood was also used to heat the ice bath, which was built not far from the house, and if desired, one could even take a steam bath in it.
The ice house was flanked on both sides by tower structures in the form of pointed pyramids with round windows, mounted on two-tiered pedestals. Decorated paper lanterns with candles were hung inside the pyramids, which were spun at night by people who were in the towers to entertain people who came to see the bright ice miracle.
Skillful craftsmen created another no less interesting ice composition - to the right of the house, the audience was greeted by an elephant with a Persian sitting on its back and two Persian women standing near it. The figure of the elephant had a well-thought-out design: during the day, the elephant could launch fountains of water, and at night, fiery oil torches. Also inside the elephant was a cavity where a man sat, making a sound with a pipe.
The entrance to the territory of the complex was decorated with ice gates decorated with ice vases with plants and birds. Near the gate, two dolphins were made of ice, which, like the elephant, splashed jets of burning oil supplied by a pumping system.
In front of the Ice House, several ice cannons and mortars were installed, from which shots were even repeatedly fired.
The ice complex was magnificent both during the day, shining and shimmering with colors in the rays of the sun, penetrating through the thickness of the ice and transforming the structures from the inside, and at night by the light of candles, colorful lanterns, torches and fireworks.
Of course, the Ice House and others made a strong impression with their scale, beauty and technique, thus becoming real works of high art. But as for the wedding celebration itself, here the picture looked much more curious and even wild.
Wedding at the Ice House.
The wedding ceremony of court jesters took place on February 6, 1740. Having married in the church, Golitsyn and Buzheninova were placed in a cage, which was fixed on the back of a real Indian elephant. The solemn procession moved to the venue of the festive dinner along the main streets of St. Petersburg. By order of the Empress, one hundred and fifty pairs of men and women of different nationalities, who lived in the then territory, took part in the ceremony. Russian Empire dressed in their national costume and with their musical instruments - Chuvash, Mordovians, Tatars, Kalmyks, Kirghiz, Samoyeds and others. Each pair rode on a sleigh made in the form of animals, birds and fish. Sleighs were harnessed by deer, camels, oxen, goats, dogs, pigs. During the feast, each couple from the wedding retinue ate their national dish, and after that they danced their folk dance to folk music.
V. I. Jacobi "Wedding in the Ice House", 1878, Russian Museum
At dinner, the jester and the cracker were greeted with poems written on this occasion by the poet Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky:
"Hello, getting married, fool and fool,
More ... - that is the figure!
Now is the time for us to have some fun
Now, in every possible way, the travelers should be furious.
………………………………………………………
Khan's son Kvasnik and Buzheninov Khanka
Someone can’t see it, their posture seems!
The fact that Golitsyyn and Buzheninova were called here "Khan's son" and "Khanka" is not accidental. During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, there was a war with Turkey (1735-1739), in which the Crimean Khan, a Turkish subject, who was considered no less an enemy than herself, came out against Russia. Ottoman Porta. Thus, in a similar appeal to jesters, who were also carried in a cage, the empress decided to ridicule the Crimean Khan.
At the end of dinner, the young people were again put in a cage on an elephant and, accompanied by the same wonderful wedding cortege, accompanied by the ringing of bells, a roar, lowing, barking, they were taken to the Ice House, where, having put them to bed, they left them for the night. And so that the young people would not run away ahead of time from their ice apartments, the house was ordered to be guarded. The next morning, the frozen jester and the cracker were taken away to warm themselves.
After the jester's wedding, the Ice House stood still for almost two months, and at the end of March it began to melt and fall apart. Attracting the attention of many citizens, the house overshadowed for a while all the majestic buildings of St. Petersburg. However, it survived on the pages literary works(in particular, in the novel by Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov "Ice House"), on engravings and paintings, becoming a monument, on the one hand, to the high professionalism of architects and craftsmen, and on the other, to tyranny and waste of power, and human tragedies.
The concept of "Ice House" has not been lost for centuries. Many will remember the novel by Lazhechnikov, someone has not forgotten the old film by Konstantin Eggert. This is one of the tragic collisions of the gallant age, which started the custom of powdering blood and dirt.
Among the rulers of Russia, it is difficult to find a greater admirer of buffoonish amusements than Empress Anna Ioannovna. The antics of various jesters accompanied her every day, starting from awakening.
One of the empress's favorite jokers was Dunya Buzheninova, a Kalmyk. She was considered a freak - an unusual appearance caused cackling. In addition, Dunya was smart and had acting abilities. She, like no one else, knew how to make the empress laugh. She received her surname for her gastronomic addiction: she loved boiled pork. The Empress was amused by this passion of hers.
Among the jesters of the empress, a sad elderly man stood out. He stooped, but sometimes he showed a proud stance. After all, he is a prince, a representative of one of the most famous Russian families. Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn, grandson of the all-powerful Vasily Vasilyevich.
True, in those days he lost his family surname, and his name was disparagingly - Kvasnik. The jester had such a duty - to carry around the courtiers with kvass. Cheerful entertainers loved to splash kvass in his face. What could be more comical for the masters of life than a spat upon prince?
He suffered because of the romantic history. And because of betrayal. The elderly widower Prince Golitsyn traveled through Italy and fell in love with the beautiful young Lucia. And she turned out to be a zealous Catholic and demanded that the wedding take place according to the Catholic rite. Like Count Dracula, the Russian prince betrayed the faith of his fathers. They arrived in Moscow. He hid his apostasy, lived secretly with the Italian.
But there was an informer - and Anna Ioannovna was furious. She remembered her sins less often than the sins of her subjects. Golitsyn lost his title and fortune. They put a jester's cap on him, forced him into a "stupid" service. The witty, resourceful lover of life almost lost his mind.
In the first months, the clown role was difficult for him. Where did he find humility so as not to lay hands on himself? The queen wanted not so much to laugh at the jokes and antics of the "fool" as at his humiliated position. Golitsyn was mocked daily - to the general laughter.
And then the chamberlain Tatishchev, who knew how to please the empress, came up with an unprecedented fun. Jester's wedding! Yes, not just anywhere, but in the ice palace, which was considered a wonder of the world.
The Empress grew old, fell ill, and was hardly in mental well-being.
The empress was amused by this idea: she decided to punish the apostate prince again. She wanted everything to be as messy as possible.
The winter of 1740 was frosty. Let him spend his wedding night there, in the cold, with that ugly Dunka Buzheninova. Yes, put guards there so that they would not be released from icy captivity until morning.
If they don’t die by morning, let them live later as spouses for fun. This is how piety (after all, Anna considered herself a champion of morality and a defender of Orthodoxy!) sometimes turns into not just hypocrisy, but atrocity.
The whim of the Empress was prepared on a grand scale. They arranged furniture made of ice and all kinds of little things in the ice palace - even curtains and a mattress. Everything is icy. A huge ice elephant was installed nearby, from which oil gushed at night. Inside the elephant, a special person made uterine sounds. Hundreds of "children of different nations" were brought to the palace for a clownish masquerade. And the poet Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky was ordered to compose solemn ode to the "stupid wedding" and perform it at the masquerade.
It must be said that Vasily Kirillovich was known as the court poet of the Empress, in honor of Anna he wrote several grandiloquent solemn odes - everything, as in every self-respecting European court. True, they did not give him as generous gifts as Lomonosov under Elizabeth or Petrov under Catherine. Neither Anna nor her nobles had any respect for piit. There was not enough education.
Trediakovsky immediately found this "pre-comic" enterprise disgusting. Cabinet Minister Artemy Volynsky took up the matter. He immediately began to beat Trediakovsky - in public. When the poet complained about Volynsky went to Biron, he was completely arrested. The guards were ordered to beat Trediakovsky with a stick. Dozens of blows for a trifling offense - even at that time an exorbitant punishment.
They demanded from Trediakovsky verses more outrageous, rougher. He resisted, tried to dodge, but still gave up. A year later, he will be given 360 rubles for injury and dishonor - by order of Biron.
On February 17, the cruel fun began. After the wedding (the real one), the young people were taken to the ice house on an elephant, in a cage. Behind them rode on reindeer, goats and pigs a jocular retinue: Cheremis, Kalmyks, Mordovians, Samoyeds ... There were also Russian men - Tver coachmen, who amused the noble audience with bird whistles. Music boomed. Under the drunken cackle of the jesters, they were taken to the ice dungeon: sixteen meters by five.
And then Trediakovsky came out. He squeezed obscene lines out of himself - such that the empress's entourage liked. With motherhood.
Hello, getting married, fool and fool,
More<…>daughter, tota and figure!
Now it's time for you to have some fun
Now, in every possible way, the travelers should be furious:
Kvasnin the Fool and Buzheninova<…>
Agreed lovingly, but their love is disgusting.
Well, Mordovians, well, Chuvashs, well, Samoyeds!
Start the fun, young grandfathers,
Balalaikas, beeps, horns and bagpipes!
Collect and you haulers markets,
Ploshnitsy, drag and nasty<…>!
Oh, I see how you are now for!
Thunder, buzz, strum, jump,
Run, shout, dance!
Fistula, spring, fistula, red!
You can't have best time,
The khan's son harnessed himself, took the khan's tribe:
Khan's son Kvasnin, Buzheninova Khanka,
Someone is not visible, their posture seems to be.
O couple, o old!
They will not live, but churn sugar;
And when he gets tired, another plowman will be,
She doesn’t have two curiosities,
She also knows ten for hello.
Therefore, it is proper for the newlyweds to greet now,
So that they may live in goodness all their time,
They would sleep, lie, drink, eat.
Hello, getting married, fool and fool,
More<…>daughter, tota and figurine.
This pleased the well-fed gentlemen, who fell into a rage, into a sadistic drunkenness. And Trediakovsky, like a beaten dog, returned to the dungeon.
And then… The Lord had mercy on the unfortunate, confused man. He did not send them mortal torment. And the point is not only that the quick-witted Avdotya bribed the guards and carried a sheepskin coat into the ice house, which did not let them freeze. And, maybe, and mash in store. They survived. But the main thing is something else. And it's almost like a Christmas miracle.
Buzheninova really fell in love with him - and Kvasnik began to come to life. His humor returned. Health returned - almost valiant. The jesters have kids. Golitsyn's reprises were continually retold by wits. Here, some court lady said to him: “I think I saw you somewhere.” “Well, madam, I go there very often,” the gray-haired jester immediately answered.
A few months later, Anna Ioannovna died. The new ruler, Anna Leopoldovna, stopped the barbaric tradition of keeping jesters at court and set Golitsyn free.
The old man threw off his stupid cap, returned his surname. From the "clown" wife did not refuse. They got married! Buzheninova lived like a princess. Golitsyn looked at her with love and gratitude. A simple Kalmyk woman was much more beautiful than queens and well-born nobles, whom he had seen a lot in his lifetime.
The Golitsyns lived in harmony. True, the night spent in the cold affected the well-being of Avdotya Buzheninova. She was weakening. Shortly after the birth of her second son, she died before she was thirty-three.
He again became a widower. He lived for a long time - to a ripe old age, until the tenth decade. Perhaps, like none of the Golitsyns. Married again. Joking again. He recalled the times of Anna in nightmares and skillfully drove these memories away from himself.
There are no clownish weddings,
They are not fried in ice baths ... -
Derzhavin wrote about Catherine's time, cursing the heartless era of Empress Anna. Wild customs of the distant past - we say soothingly. And let's take a closer look at ourselves: are we so far from barbarism? Not some book heroes of the century before last, but you and me.
