Sheremetyevsky Palace
One of the apartments on our site, #1-49, is located not far from Sheremetyevsky Palace on the Fontanka river embankment. Count Nikolay Sheremetyev, born 1751, built that palace for his wife Praskovya. She had been a singer and a talented actress in the Sheremetyev family's private theatre. She was a beautiful, intelligent and good-hearted woman, but a serf, a family servant. And marriage with a servant was still an audacious action those days.Unfortunately the young Countess died soon after giving birth to a son. She was 35. Her husband was inconsolable, the rest of his life was dedicated to charity according to his wife's last will and testament. Part of his capitol had been donated for the Poor Orphaned Brides Dowry. Several thousands of poor girls could marry this way with his help. He also founded a poorhouse in Moscow, later it became a hospital named after Dr. Sklifosofsky. The poetess Anna Akhmatova had lived for thirty years in the Fountain House as the Sheremetyevsky Palace was also called, once she saw there the ghost of the Countess Sheremetyev and wrote a poem about her. Anna Akhmatova died in that same Sklifosovsky hospital in Moscow which was also connected with Count Sheremetyev name.
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