Hunters for the missing treasures of the Faberge family have their own “holy trinity” - the Levashovo estate, a dovecote and a “noticeable tree” on the Finnish border.


Carl Gustavovich Faberge is a jeweler, a successor to his father’s craft. Owner of a jewelry company under the Tsarist regime. Had three sons.

In 1900, Carl Faberge acquired a dacha in Levashov, not far from Osinovaya Roshcha. The manor house of the late 19th century - in the form of an English cottage - was built according to the design of the architect Karl Schmidt. In 1907, Karl Gustovich gave the estate to his second son, Agathon Faberge. In the same year, Agathon began its reconstruction, which was led by Ivan Galnbek, who worked as an artist at the Faberge company. The renovated 2-storey house in Art Nouveau style was completely finished in 1908

By that time, Agafon Karlovich (1876-1951) was inferior to his father only in fame - he had his own jewelry production, moreover, he was known as the best appraiser of precious stones in Russia and from the age of 22 served as an expert in the Diamond Room of the Winter Palace. Light ceilings, spacious halls, bizarre outlines of the walls - in the best traditions of the then popular Art Nouveau style. And very quickly the Faberge dacha began to be called nothing less than the “small Hermitage” - the collection of ancient tapestries, antique furniture, paintings by the best European artists and, of course, jewelry masterpieces with the Faberge mark was so magnificent.


Agafon Karlovich was a jeweler not only by profession, but also by attitude. Just look at the sundial made from living trees, like the famous Pushkin dial in Mikhailovsky, or the tiled fireplace that defies the stove in the Menshikov Palace in St. Petersburg, where not a single pattern is repeated twice! And also a drawing of the parquet floor in one of the halls of the mansion, persistently suggesting the Throne Room of the Winter Palace.

The former decoration of the Faberge dacha can now be learned only from the archival documents of the Levashovsky executive committee. When on September 18, 1919 the mansion was subjected to another and more qualified search, an employee of the department for the protection, accounting and registration of monuments of art and antiquities B.N. Molas noted in a memorandum: “it is difficult to imagine to what extent the military unit living at Faberge’s dacha mutilated and mutilated all the rich and highly artistic furnishings without exception. All paintings are pierced with bayonets; all the upholstery was torn off the furniture; all inlaid and mosaic tables and especially numerous style (Louis XVI), chests of drawers, cabinets, wardrobes and bureaus are distorted; all the books are torn, that is, without bindings or illustrations, and most are torn into pieces.”

Then the “treasure hunters” discovered an isolated room behind a partition. In the presence of representatives of the district party committee and the Petrograd fortified area, it was opened. It contained a large number of precious stones, medals, vases and paintings. Later, representatives of the Defense Committee came to the house and seized the valuables without drawing up a report or taking an inventory. All things were packed into 10 boxes and taken away by bus. In addition to this, two paintings and a large iron-bound book-album were taken. Among the items taken away were a huge collection of postage stamps and over 1,700 precious stones of various sizes.

Agathon stayed in Petrograd to finish business - and was arrested as a “bourgeois contrarian” following a denunciation. As a “particularly dangerous element,” he was sent to a concentration camp, and there three times in just over a year he was taken to be shot, but each time he was “suddenly” pardoned. The secret of such loyalty was largely explained by the fact that only Agafon Karlovich could tell where Faberge’s countless treasures were hidden. At least that's what the security officers could hope for. After all, it was known that his father fled from Russia, taking with him only a small suitcase. There was nothing in it except a change of clothes.


In 1920, Agafon Karlovich was released under an amnesty and, as if as a mockery, he was assigned to evaluate large quantities of diamonds and jewelry with which the Bolsheviks intended to pay the West. Many of these treasures were marked with the Fabergé name. The once richest jeweler's property included only shoes, a tattered coat and a painting, hidden from friends for a rainy day. In December 1927, Agathon Faberge fled to Finland with his wife and son across the ice of the Gulf of Finland.

Eugene Faberge was not a supporter of the Bolsheviks, especially after they once very persistently knocked on his apartment on Bolshaya Morskaya to confiscate his father’s inheritance. By that time, the young man had installed an elevator safe in his home, where he hid bouquets of gems and boxes strewn with diamonds. The apartment was urgently rented to the Swiss embassy - security officers did not have the right to conduct a search on the inviolable territory of a friendly state. But the cache was still discovered. Although the savvy Evgeniy managed to hide a small part of the jewelry.

The fate of the confiscated art treasures is still unknown. Probably, this collection became part of the “diamond fund of the Politburo”, created in the same 1919 in the event of the overthrow of Soviet power. It is known, for example, that Yakov Sverdlov kept part of this “fund” in the form of selected diamonds at home and at work. However, all this was only a small fraction of the Faberge family's fortune.

Historians say that, having involved his wife and former shareholder of Bauer’s company in the case, Agathon chose a secret place where he buried suitcases filled with rubies. And then the versions diverge. Some believe that the wealth is hidden on the Finnish border under a noticeable tree. Fleeing from pursuit, Faberge and his wife made their way there secretly. Others say that the jewelry still rests in the soil of the Muduli estate near Riga. And the third place is the same Faberge dacha in Levashovo. In addition to the looted secret room, there appears to be or was another treasure here. At least, Agathon's brother, Eugene Faberge (1878-1960), testified about him. Until the end of his life, he insisted that he personally buried a suitcase with diamonds worth about five million royal rubles here in the park.

In the looted mansion in Levashovo, life continued after the change of eras. The Bolsheviks set up a sanatorium here for NKVD officials, and during the Siege they placed a hospital here.

Now the Faberge dacha is one of the most unique monuments of estate architecture of the 19th century, a monument of federal significance - on the verge of collapse. All that remains of its former luxury are the marble staircase inside the huge building, the oak railings and, by some miracle, a tiled stove that survived in one of the rooms. The carriage house, stables, garage, icehouse, 2-story servants' building - all this needs urgent restoration.

On the second floor is the master's office. A small nook where you can touch both walls at once with both hands was Karl Gustavovich’s favorite room. Once upon a time, here was the heart of the house - the Faberge safe. And instead of broken concrete and mice, there were jeweler’s masterpieces on shelves in the armored walls.

A Dutch tiled stove has been preserved in the large hall. A few years ago, a woman restorer came to the dacha. The beauty of the blue tiles blinded her, and she decided to restore this miracle. Now the stove decorates the tattered wall alone.

Stained glass in the basement window, oak front door, barely visible images of golden lutes on the wall. In the 50s, a kindergarten was set up here for the offspring of the party elite, and the ornaments were covered with plaster. There is still a cross from under the Christmas tree on the floor in the living room, and a sign that says “Dining Room” is nailed to the door.


The owners of luck change frequently. After the collapse of the USSR, a new Russian bought the house, threw out the rubbish and was already planning restoration, but it went bankrupt.

Then Faberge’s granddaughter from Denmark showed up, took a dozen photographs and left. In 2007, the Faberge dacha was transferred to the Mining Institute. There will be a museum there - a branch of the Mining Institute. They want to restore the Small Hermitage from the ruins and transport the priceless collection there at the Mining Institute in three years (information 2009). By the way, in the collection of the Mining Institute there are 20 jewelry rarities, possibly from that very safe room. Animals with diamond eyes, one such figurine costs 20 thousand dollars and a snuff box made of agate and gold is 10 times more expensive.

K. Faberge and F. Birbaum.

People still suffer from gold fever in Levashovo. The old watchman guarding the half-rotten mansion has more than once chased away teenagers with metal detectors from the garden park, which, it must be said, find nothing except beer caps.

However, it is known that in the 1990s, the Faberge treasure was actually found in Moscow. It was hidden in the house of one of the former directors of the Moscow branch of the company. A tin candy box immured in the wall contained 17 valuable pieces of jewelry made of gold and precious stones.

House of Faberge Modern

Pam. arch. (region.)

1899-1900 - architect. Schmidt Karl Karlovich

The site of house No. 24 belonged to the bellmaker Christophor Foerster, who was hired by Peter I in 1720 to play bells on the clock on the spitz of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

From the middle of the 18th century. For more than 50 years, the house belonged to the Ador family, whose head was a malt manufacturer, and whose son was a goldsmith. About 20 items by I. Ador are kept in a special storeroom in the Hermitage.

In the early 1830s, the owner of the house was another jeweler, the Englishman Duvell. In 1836, the house was rebuilt by the architect P. Jacot.
In the 1830s. here was the shop of the bookseller Luke Dixon, from whom Pushkin bought foreign books, often on credit, which after his death was paid for by the guardianship.

The building of complex architecture with intricate decor is decorated with only one type of stone - red Gangut granite. But granite is processed into different textures, and therefore it has different shades. The ground floor of the building with massive columns is made in a polished texture, enhancing the rich red color of the granite. The complex-shaped columns are carved from huge blocks of granite of homogeneous structure, but in some places they show the banding characteristic of Gangut granite. Above the columns there are slabs of a particularly dark red color. The arches above the display windows are made of wedge-shaped stones, hewn from a banded (gneiss-like) variety of granite. The striped pattern of the stone radiates out from the center of the arches. The upper floors are tiled with finely-pointed slabs, which gives the granite a smoky light pink color. The window frames and other details are made in the “rock” texture and have a darker pink color.

1924: Joint Stock Company "Arkos" in London, Petrograd office; Mixed Joint Stock Company "Russian Trade Society" "Rusot"; Commission office, "Arkos", st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1924”. P. 162, 163, 196)

1925: Office of the head of rafting of the North-Western region (“Nachsplav”); North-Western Timber Industry Trust (“Sevzaplesprom”); "Arkos" Joint Stock Company in London, Leningrad office; "Rusot"; Mixed Joint Stock Company "Russian Trade Society", st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1925”. P. 283, 294, 307, 308)

In the period 1923-1925 there was no Norwegian consulate.

1926-1927: Norwegian Consulate, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. ("All Leningrad - 1926", P. 17; All Leningrad - 1927", P. 11)

1928: All-Union-Western Chamber of Commerce; Leningrad Credit and Industrial Cooperative Partnership “Handicraft”; Leningrad Society of Handicraftsmen and Craftsmen; All-Union Chemical Syndicate, Leningrad Regional Branch; "UMT" - Southern Machine-Building Trust, Leningrad Agency; "Torgsbyt" Partnership on faith, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. ("All Leningrad and the region - 1928", P. 111, 172, 205, 432, 434, 439)

1928: "RussNorwegoLes", Onega Russian-Norwegian joint stock company. society (forestry) - st. Herzen, 24 (p. 266)

1929: Handicraft, credit and fishing cooperative partnership; "Lenget" (state fat trust); « Boomsindicate » (All-Union Paper Industry Syndicate), Leningrad branch; "Khimsindicat » (All-Union Chemical Syndicate), North-Western Branch; "Torgsbyt" Partnership on faith, st. Herzen, 24. (Guide to Leningrad Leningrad - 1929, p. 62, 62, 64, 66, 70)

1929: “Artel-credit” industrial and credit cooperative partnership of production artels and

artisans, st. Herzen, 24. (Guide to Leningrad Leningrad - 1929, p. 62,)

1930: Cooperative metal group "Leningrad Emalier"; Cooperative construction group "Economstroy"; Realsnab cooperative; “Bumsindicat” All-Union Syndicate of the Paper Industry, Leningrad branch, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. ("All Leningrad and the region - 1930", P. 198, 202, 206, 449)

1931: Leningrad Regional Union of Mutual Insurance and Mutual Assistance Cash Offices of the Industrial Cooperation “Lenoblpromsoyuzkass”, and the following 3 inter-district industrial insurance cash offices: Volodarskaya, Smolninskaya and Prigorodnaya; "Lengort" - Leningrad State United Regional Office of Retail Trade, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1931”. P. 216, 386)

1932; "Insnab" Leningrad Regional Branch, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1932”. P. 231)

1933: “Insnab” All-Union office for supplying foreigners, Leningrad branch, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1933”. P. 160)

1934: “Insnab” All-Union office for supplying foreigners, Leningrad regional branch; Department store, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1934.” P. 194)

1935: “Insnab” Leningrad branch of the All-Union Office for the Supply of Foreigners; Store No. 2 of manufactured goods, st. Herzen (b. Morskaya), 24. (“All Leningrad - 1935.” P. 218)

1937: Antique and art base of the V/O “Mezhkniga-Antiques”; "International Book-Antiques" Leningrad Regional Association, Antiques and Art Base, st. Herzen, 24. (1937 - Leningrad list of subscribers", pp. 203, 272)

1939-1940: Jewelrytorg, Leningrad interregional branch, st. Herzen, 24. (“All Leningrad - 1939”, p. 74; “All Leningrad - 1940”. p. 121)

1965: "Jewelirtorg", Len. interregional k-ra - st. Herzen, 24, warehouse - Aprksin Dvor, building 23(. p. 208.)

1973: Yakhont store (jewelry) - st. Herzen, 24 (p. 266)

1973: Interregional office "Yuvelirtorg" (Ministry of Trade of the RSFSR) - st. Herzen, 24 (p. 240, p. 303)

1973: City Telephone Authority - st. Herzen, 24 (p. 253)

1973: Central telephone center - st. Herzen, 24 (p. 253)

1973: Trade organization “Yuvelirtorg” - st. Herzen, 24, tel. 12-37-36; bargain. department: 15-28-91 ([

There was a bell master Ivan Ferster. He served in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, and was accepted into service in Russia on the personal orders of Peter I. The Förster house burned down in a fire in 1736.

After the fire, Förster was unable to build a new house for a long time. In the 1740s, the site had only a foundation. After Förster's death, the estate belonged to his son, who inherited his father's profession. It was under him that the house was finally built. In 1749, it already belonged to the tailor Martyn Kryger, under whom paintings were traded here. At the same time, the house was put up for auction but was not sold. In 1755, the plot was acquired by the Chief Secretary of the Senate, Alexander Ivanovich Glebov, who at the same time married the owner of house no. on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, Maria Simonovna Choglokova. A month and a half later, she died; in her memory, a house church of Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene was built in house No. 24.

In 1760, the plot belonged to the translator, Lieutenant Franz Wernezober. Then - to adviser Marya Ivanovna Kruse, who in 1764 sold it to the haberdashery manufacturer (jeweler) Jean Pierre Ador. In 1774, a jewelry factory operated here. Its co-owner was probably the jeweler Louis-David Duval, who apparently lived here. In 1782-1884, the site belonged to the goldsmith Ador, probably the son of Jean Pierre. His name was Ivan Ivanovich. The works of Ador and Duval are now kept in the Special Storeroom of the Hermitage.

By 1797, house No. 24 was three-story, with a gate to the right. In the 1800s, it was owned by the widow Adora Anna Abramovna. In 1822 - jeweler Duval, one of the sons or grandsons of Louis David. In 1836, Mrs. Adams took over the building, and the height of the third floor was increased.

In the 1830s, Luke Dixon's bookstore operated here, extremely popular among St. Petersburg residents. It was used by A.S. Pushkin. In 1837, a relative of M. Yu. Lermontov, Alexander Vasilyevich Khvostov, lived in house No. 24, who served in the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For some time the land was owned by the merchant Feigel. In the 1840s - merchant Anna Ivanovna Potselueva, owner of many St. Petersburg houses. From 1850 to 1898, the site belonged to the Zolotov family. First - to the court councilor Pavel Sergeevich, then to the captain of the guard Vladimir Pavlovich. The house was rebuilt for P. S. Zolotov by the architect P. Jacot.

In 1898, the plot was purchased by the St. Petersburg hereditary honorary citizen, merchant of the 2nd guild, Carl Faberge, for 407,000 rubles. At that time, Carl Faberge was an appraiser and supplier to the imperial court. In 1899-1900, the building located here was completely rebuilt according to the design of Karl Karlovich Schmidt, Faberge's cousin. The lower floor was intended for a trading floor. The finishing of the façade was carried out by the company Kos and Duerr. The facade is finished with one type of red Gangut granite. The stone is processed using different techniques, which creates the impression of a variety of finishing forms.

House No. 24 belonged to the Faberge firm until 1917. In addition to the trading floor, there was an accounting department, a studio of designers and sculptors, a collection of models, and workshops. On the top floor there was a 15-room apartment for the owners. According to E. Faberge:

"... the workroom and office, lined with oak panels, were especially good; the most interesting and luxurious was the library, two floors high; the boudoir was elegant" by Karl Fabergé's wife Augusta Bogdanovna [Quoted from: 1, p. 141].

The Faberge house was equipped with a unique safe, which was energized and rose to the second floor at night. This did not stop him from being robbed in 1918.

Currently, a jewelry store continues to operate in house No. 24, which belongs to completely different owners. The old oak counters are preserved in the sales area.

Unsolved secrets of the House of Faberge

Rumors and legends about priceless treasures from the “Faberge collection” are still some of the most exciting and intriguing. And today the debate continues about where to look for the jewels of the great Master, who at the beginning of the 20th century in Paris was recognized as Maitre - one of the best jewelers of our time.

What was found: Faberge treasures

Where found: in the caches of a Faberge store, Kuznetsky Most, 4; apartment building on Prechistenka, 13 and in a mansion on Solyanka, 13

Where to look: in safes in the basements of the Faberge company store on Kuznetsky Most and in the secret basements of house 6 in Bolshoi Kiselny Lane

The famous jewelry company Faberge owes its foundation to goldsmith from Livonia (Estonia), a Frenchman by birth, Gustav-Peter Faberge, but the company gained worldwide fame under his son Karl. Before the revolution, his company had stores and jewelry workshops in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa and London.

According to the great-granddaughter of the great jeweler, Tatyana Fedorovna, the name Faberge is not entirely real. In ancient times, her ancestors called themselves Fabri, then they began to write to Fabriy and only then to Faberge. Gustav, the father of the famous jeweler, having opened a workshop in St. Petersburg, changed his surname to Faberge to please French fashion. By the way, “faber” means “master” in Latin.

For a good three decades, the famous master Carl Faberge remained at the crest of popularity. Among his regular clients were the kings and queens of England, Italy, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, as well as the king of Siam. There was a special storeroom in the Winter Palace where a supply of ready-made gifts from Faberge was kept. The entire male half of the Romanov family sported cigarette cases from the court jeweler. It was considered the highest chic to have a different one every day.

Carl Faberge


One day, because of Faberge's masterpieces, an unheard-of scandal broke out in the august family: Emperor Alexander II exiled his cousin, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, to Turkestan because his own mother, a passionate collector of the works of the famous company, complained about the prince: they say that her son kept stealing her priceless exhibits.


Ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya wearing jewelry from Faberge


According to contemporaries, the Faberge firm was famous for its various enamels (up to five hundred colors and shades), unique in their technique. In 1916, the best French enamel maker Guyon, when asked by Carl Faberge’s son Alexander to teach him the enamel craft, exclaimed: “Are you crazy! Yes, we in Paris are completely unable to do what you can easily do in St. Petersburg.”

About five hundred people worked in the workshops of the famous company. Possessing subtle taste, creative imagination and knowledge of technical techniques, Carl Faberge managed to attract first-class artists and jewelers to work in his workshops. Snuff boxes, powder compacts, binoculars, lorgnettes, brooches, rings, and earrings made by Faberge were distinguished by their masterly technique and originality. However, the famous souvenirs in the form of Easter eggs with surprises inside brought the company worldwide fame.

Among the Faberge firm's clients were many famous and wealthy clients. One of the master’s regular clients was the famous ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya, as well as her influential friends and admirers. So, for nine years, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich presented her at Easter with “a huge egg made of lilies of the valley with a precious egg from Faberge tied to it.” And his son, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, ordered two gold headbands for Kshesinskaya, decorated with sapphires and diamonds, in one of which Kshesinskaya danced in the ballet “The Pharaoh’s Daughter.” According to the famous ballerina, her luxurious jewelry was also kept by Faberge.

In 1882, at the All-Russian Exhibition in Moscow, Faberge's products were awarded a gold medal, and eight years later, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Karl Gustavovich received the Order of the Legion of Honor. The phrase “Faberge products” became synonymous with luxury and an emblem of the wealth of the Russian imperial house.

The February Revolution dealt a serious blow to the business of Carl Faberge. The head of the company tried to issue an invoice to Alexander Kerensky, but he did not want to pay for the orders of the royal family. However, Faberge and his sons were in no hurry to leave Russia: they did not imagine that the loss of the status of “supplier to the court of His Imperial Majesty” was only the first signal of an impending disaster.

The collapse of Faberge’s “empire” began with the Bolsheviks coming to power: its property was seized, and jewelry stores and factories were nationalized. The famous company suspended its activities. The royal jeweler, awarded for the creation of priceless works by the Russian orders of St. Stanislav and St. Anne, the Bulgarian Commander's Order and the French Order of the Legion of Honor, gold medals of the All-Russian and World Exhibitions, had no place in the new Russia.

In 1918, Carl Faberge fled from the Bolsheviks to Riga, then to his father’s homeland in Livonia. According to eyewitnesses, the security officers “herded” the famous jeweler from the very house, so he left empty, leaving his countless treasures in Russia. In exile, the Fabergé family found themselves practically without a livelihood. In September 1920, in Switzerland, having never recovered from the shock of the Russian revolution, the great Master died in complete poverty and obscurity. His son, Evgeniy Karlovich, who took care of the family, opened a small jewelry workshop in Paris that repaired items. But the income from it was barely enough for bread and water.

Carl Faberge's son Agathon, who remained after the October Revolution in Russia, was immediately arrested, he was taken to be shot three times, but each time he was left alive at the last moment. As a result, the hunted and exhausted Agathon revealed a family secret: part of the unique jewelry was found at Faberge’s dacha in a built-in safe, the other part was found in the former apartment of Carl Faberge on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg. According to art historians, this was only a small fraction of the famous jeweler's fortune.


High-profile finds

Significant valuables were stored in the armored basements of the Moscow Faberge store, which was located on Kuznetsky Most, in building 4. The Bolsheviks seized the property in the store and in May 1919 began to export the priceless goods. According to the inventory, 240 kilograms of silver and 2,400 items were seized from two fireproof safes: gold and silver dishes, candlesticks, boxes, sculptures, jewelry, as well as items that Faberge clients and employees of the Moscow branch had deposited.



After the February Revolution, when raids and robberies began, regular clients, knowing Faberge’s impeccable honesty, began to bring their jewelry to his company for safekeeping. In Petrograd, Faberge had one of the best safes in Russia - an “armored” armored elevator room; at night she was raised to the level of the second floor and kept under electric current. It was rumored that even members of the royal family kept their personal jewelry with Faberge. As a result, in the Petrograd house of the court jeweler on Bolshaya Morskaya, 24 (where the store, workshops and apartments of Karl and Evgeny were located) valuables worth 7.5 million rubles accumulated.

After the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the protection of the property of foreigners, Carl Faberge rented out his house to the Swiss mission, demanding instead of paying rent to store suitcases and a suitcase with jewelry and documents. At the end of October it became known that a raid was being prepared on the mission. The suitcases and suitcase were transported to the Norwegian embassy, ​​which was attacked a day later: the entire archive and priceless treasures of the company disappeared without a trace. According to the great-granddaughter of Karl Gustavovich, Tatyana Fedorovna Faberge, the cost of the items in the bag was 1,603,614 gold rubles. The inventory of the stolen items was 20 pages.

The Bolsheviks, as well as revolutionary sailors, anarchists and simply St. Petersburg bandits, were suspected of stealing the jewelry. Until now, the exact data on the disappearance of the mysterious bag are unknown. There is even a version that Carl Faberge put the security officers on the wrong trail, pretending that the jewelry was hidden in suitcases and a bag, but in fact he entrusted them to reliable people for safekeeping, so that they would hide the valuables in a safe place.

Leaving Russia forever, Karl Gustavovich instructed his sons Evgeniy and Alexander who remained in Russia to complete the affairs of the company. They had to sell the largest items and convert rubles into foreign currency, as well as save the most unique jewelry. Having filled boxes of monpensiers, tea and chocolate with jewelry, the sons, together with their most devoted friends, hid most of the treasures in numerous hiding places among themselves, relatives and friends.

In 1927, Evgeniy Karlovich compiled a list “Where our things are hidden in Russia,” in which secret codes indicated the names of the custodians, the location of the valuables, their name and quantity. For example: “Cabin libra, board. M.K.” meant that the library’s cache contained jewelry (platinum with diamonds) belonging to the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya. "Cab. – flowers, figures – 35, 36, 37, 38.” We are talking about the second cache in the library, where flowers and figurines made of precious and semi-precious stones were hidden. The numbers are the package numbers; there were about eighty of them in total.

Later, Evgeniy Karlovich tried to get the hidden valuables. Some of these valuables were later returned to the family, but many of them disappeared: they were confiscated by the Bolsheviks, taken abroad, or simply stolen. Thus, the family’s treasures were placed in thirty places in Petrograd alone; Sixteen of them are crossed out on the list - against each there are the notes “stolen”, “lost”, “found by the Cheka”.

Only by miracle, the director of the Moscow branch of the House of Faberge, Marchetti, managed to sell a small part of them for currency, which he later, having carried across the fronts and borders, handed over to the famous Master. The trace of the remaining jewels was lost.


High-profile finds

In 1990, during the reconstruction of building 13 on Solyanka Street in Moscow, workers came across a cache located in the ceilings between the floors. In the cache, in two tin boxes for “malt confections”, lay untouched gold and platinum jewelry with diamonds, pearls and sapphires – all with Faberge’s hallmarks. Initially, the treasure was valued at 360 thousand rubles, but its true value was established only after the jewelry was examined in the museum. The Armory Chamber procured thirteen items from the treasure, and the other part ended up in Gokhran.


“This find can be considered truly rare,” says Tatyana Muntyan, curator of the collection of Faberge and Russian jewelers of the late 19th – early 20th centuries at the Moscow Kremlin Museums. – Before her, there were very few Faberge jewelry in museums around the world. Why so few of them have survived is understandable: in the 1920-1930s, confiscated jewelry was depersonalized at Gokhran - the stones were taken out, the precious metal was melted down into ingots.” The unique jewelry found at Solyanka immediately began to enjoy unprecedented popularity and was exhibited at many foreign exhibitions.

As it turned out later, the house on Solyanka belonged to the co-director of the Moscow branch of the Faberge trading house, Vladimir Stepanovich Averkiev, who, unable to withstand terrible torture, died in 1929 in the basements of the Lubyanka.


In house 13 on Solyanka Street, workers stumbled upon a cache of Faberge products.


“I, Averkiev and Lee know about the things distributed to reliable people in Moscow,” former director of the Partnership’s board Andrei Marchetti wrote to Eugene Faberge. In 1923, when the Cheka began arresting employees of the Moscow branch, Marchetti managed to travel to Europe, Averkiev died in the Lubyanka dungeons, and his pupil, the Chinese boy Li, mysteriously disappeared. Faberge believed that the valuables entrusted to Averkiev were seized by OGPU officers during his arrest. But, as time has shown, the jewelry has survived to this day.

Having learned about the found treasure, the builders, with the “tacit” consent of officials, began to intensively “reconstruct” the mansion, dismantling it to the ground. The mansion, which can be seen today on Solyanka, 13, is nothing more than a “remake”. And it’s unlikely that Faberge’s undiscovered caches should be looked for here.

The Solyanka treasure was not the only Faberge “burial” in Moscow. In the early 1980s, during a major overhaul of an apartment building on Prechistenka (No. 13), workers came across a cache located between the roof and ceilings. Since 1912, the third son of Carl Faberge, Alexander, lived in this luxurious house on the top floor. From the windows of his huge apartment there was a magnificent view of the Kremlin, the alleys of the Arbat and the Novodevichy Convent.


During the renovation of apartment building 13 on Prechistenka, a cache of priceless Faberge products was discovered


When, after the revolution, the new authorities began to densify the “bourgeois” apartments, he settled with his old friends - artists who were part of the “Jack of Diamonds” association. In the 1920s, there was a rumor among artists that Alexander Faberge, before leaving Russia, hid a legendary treasure in his huge apartment, which occupied the entire top floor. Artists and other residents of the apartment have been searching for these treasures for many years.


High-profile finds

The search in hot pursuit was unsuccessful: the treasure was found only 60 years later! A safe filled with “silver items” and expensive jewelry from the Faberge company was found by workers, who immediately rushed to report the discovery to the nearby Leninsky District Executive Committee. Subsequently, they received the required 25 percent.


According to the researchers, in Faberge’s cache there were jewelry not made of silver, but of platinum, since silver items, being in such conditions for sixty years, would certainly oxidize. Builders and employees of the district executive committee, inexperienced in jewelry, mistook them for silver. Faberge and his craftsmen often used platinum and platinum-containing alloys in jewelry, which were not branded until 1926, since they did not belong to the category of precious metals.

After these incidents, treasure hunters began to look in the archives for the addresses of the apartments of other Carl Faberge employees... but attempts to find the missing treasures of the court jeweler were in vain.

The People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade of the USSR actively sold requisitioned works of art, including Faberge products, at auctions in Germany in the 20-30s. They were diligently bought from Gokhran, second-hand stores and secondhand by Armand Hammer. Then there was no information about the missing Faberge treasures for more than 70 years. And suddenly, in 1989, a precious item from the “lost” Faberge series appeared at a Sotheby’s auction - a golden miniature armchair in the style of Louis XV, which was bought by Forbes magazine for 70 thousand dollars. According to documents from the Faberge family archive, it was established that the chair was seized from a Moscow company store.

In subsequent years, “fresh” items from the “Moscow collection” began to regularly appear at auctions - jade knobs for canes, silver cigarette boxes and inkwells, figurines of animals, which indicates the continuous export of jewelry from the workshop from Russia. Historian Taisiya Belousova, who analyzed the list of Faberge jewelry, believes that from 1993 to 1996 alone, about 30 items were sold in Europe that were either stolen from Gokhran at different times or transferred for sale. Someday we will find out the names of those who organized the Faberge sale in the 90s, if by that time the Gokhran storerooms are not completely empty.

Faberge's heirs believe that the security officers failed to completely “clean up” the basements of the Moscow branch of the company. It is possible that some of the unique items, precious metals and stones remained in disguised safes in the basements of their company store on Kuznetsky Most. Now this building houses the Elki-Palki restaurant. Another part of the treasures may be located in the secret cellars of house 6 on Bolshoy Kiselny Lane, where the Faberge factory was located, and possibly in the mysterious underground labyrinths of Khitrovka. The mystery of the missing treasures remains unsolved.

Twelve chairs by Kisa Vorobyaninov

What was found: the treasures of N. D. Stakheev

Where found: Stakheev’s mansion, Novaya Basmannaya, 14

What to look for: “rainy day walls” of the former owners of the mansion


The former Stakheev mansion on Novaya Basmannaya is often called the house of Kisa Vorobyaninov


This luxurious mansion on Novaya Basmannaya is often called the house of Kisa Vorobyaninov or the house of twelve chairs. It was built by a gold miner, the richest millionaire merchant, a hereditary honorary citizen, and commercial advisor Nikolai Dmitrievich Stakheev. There were inexplicable disgraces, everyday tragedies, and almost mystical stories in his life.

According to legend, the ancestor of N.D. Stakheev was from the Novgorod land, from there he left with others during the reign of John III to the free lands, to the Kama, where he founded the village of Trekhsvyatskoye, which was later renamed the city of Elabuga. The Stakheev brothers began their trading activities more than 150 years ago and went from merchants of the third guild to the largest Russian monopolists, whose contribution to the economy and culture of the country, according to historians, is no less than the contribution of such illustrious families as the Morozovs, Ryabushinskys, Bakhrushins, Mamontovs .

It was difficult to find a city in Russia where the name of the Stakheevs was not known: they had gold mines in Western Siberia, oil fields, huge private shipping companies, plants and factories, mills and hundreds of shops throughout Russia. The entire grain market of the Kama region was in their hands, their firms carried out extensive trade with England, France, Germany, Holland and other countries. They were the first in Russia to start selling Ford cars. The shares of the Stakheev trading house were held by Emperor Nicholas II; almost all cities of Russia had their stores.

At the same time, they were major philanthropists. With their funds, dozens of institutions were built: churches, chapels, shopping arcades, almshouses, shelters for the elderly, and even the building of the City Duma! Only in their native Yelabuga, thanks to the Stakheevs, a real school, an almshouse, a water supply system, and electric lighting were built. According to contemporaries, one of the Stakheevs, Dmitry Ivanovich, being the mayor of the city, refused to receive a salary for this position, directing the money due to him to the needs of the city. According to the most conservative estimates, they gave a million rubles annually to charitable causes for forty years. It was a colossal amount!

Nikolai Dmitrievich received a large inheritance from his father, about 5 million rubles, and a profitable family business. Possessing a tenacious mind and talent as an entrepreneur, in a short time he managed to increase the by no means small inheritance he inherited from his father by almost 8 times.

Having moved to live in Moscow, he began to buy old mansions in Moscow on the best streets and build multi-story apartment buildings, which brought him big profits.

At the end of the 1890s, N.D. Stakheev bought a vast estate on Novaya Basmannaya Street and commissioned the architect Mikhail Fedorovich Bugrovsky to build a luxurious mansion in its place, corresponding to his position and wealth. It was rumored that the construction of this building cost Stakheev one million rubles.

Fenced off from the street by a beautiful openwork fence with wrought-iron gates, the mansion immediately became one of Moscow's landmarks. Behind the house there was a vast garden with carved verandas and gazebos. Fantastic flowers and unprecedented exotic plants grew everywhere.

A unique palace with a suite of halls and unique interior decoration captured the imagination of contemporaries. Its bizarre forms awakened the imagination, evoking medieval ballads about valiant knights, noble robbers and mysterious maidens. On the lawn in front of the house there is a fountain “Goddess of the Night”, still in use, with a cast-iron female figure holding an electric lantern, made in a Parisian workshop at the end of the 19th century.


Main staircase


Interior details


The house was imbued with eclecticism. There was a joke going around Moscow that when asked by an architect in what style to build a luxurious mansion, Stakheev allegedly replied: “Build it all, there’s enough money for everything!” Perhaps that is why the facades of the exquisite house and the two-story hall with a white marble staircase were decorated in the “Greek style,” and the state apartments were decorated in Gothic, Baroque and Moorish styles.

The external unusualness of the mansion is nothing compared to the amazing interior decoration. Gothic vaults, carved oak panels, fancy window frames, abundant wooden carvings, luxurious offices and boudoirs, a dark oak dining room, inlaid parquet floors, original silk wallpaper on the walls, marble and stucco decoration, unique stained glass and paintings - everything was new and fabulously beautiful. .



Fantastic guardians of a fairytale palace


From the entrance, a white marble staircase leads to a hall designed in Greek style and decorated with columns and pilasters made of artificial pink marble. Near the columns there are tall floor lamps with decorations in the form of sphinxes. In the niches of the walls there are lamps in the form of torches. A fine example of the style is the "Gothic" dining room with abundant and exquisite wood carvings on the walls and coffered ceilings. The “Moorish” smoking room impresses with the beauty of the intricacy of oriental ornaments on the walls and ceiling.


Fancy stained glass


The eastern wing of the building was intended to house an art gallery. Nikolai Dmitrievich was a passionate collector. He apparently inherited his love for art from his mother, Alexandra Ivanovna, the sister of the wonderful artist Ilya Ivanovich Shishkin. Stakheev’s art gallery contained works by his uncle, a landscape painter, as well as works by L. O. Pasternak.

According to contemporaries, N.D. Stakheev lived in grand style and “squandered his capital without pity or regret.” He traveled a lot, becoming a regular at the casinos in Monte Carlo. According to contemporaries, each of his visits to Monte Carlo was always accompanied by an increase in the price of casino shares, since he played big and usually lost. As a result of such a “rubbish life,” he separated from his wife, leaving her a luxurious mansion as compensation. It is known that O. Ya. Stakheeva rented it out to S. T. Morozov’s widow, Zinaida Grigorievna, for 25 thousand rubles a year, when she sold her famous mansion on Spiridonovka after the tragic death of her husband.

According to family legends, the reason for the sale of the Morozov mansion was panic: every night footsteps and coughing were heard from the office of the deceased husband, and things were mysteriously moving. The walls of the house that was once dear to her seemed stuffy and cramped. Everywhere, even in the cemetery, she saw the ghost of the unfortunate Savva. At midnight, his characteristic shuffling gait could be heard around the house. The new owners of the house, the Ryabushinskys, also complained more than once that they were haunted by the “spirit of Savva’s suicide.” Esotericists believe that the ghost will disappear when the cause of death of the famous philanthropist is established.

After the untimely death of her husband, Zinaida Grigorievna remained a rich widow and two years later she got married, marrying Major General of His Imperial Majesty’s retinue Anatoly Anatolyevich Reinbot, the mayor of Moscow. The hands of the newlyweds were joined not so much by the god of love as by the god of calculation and vanity: the ambitious millionaire widow received nobility and the opportunity to be accepted in high society, Rainbot received a solution to all her financial problems. Despite her merchant pedigree, Zinaida Morozova always felt like a high society lady. The world in which she lived contributed to this: it was a luxurious scenery against which she played the main role.

In May 1912, Reinboth submitted a petition to the Moscow Deputy Noble Assembly with a request to include his wife in the genealogical book of the Moscow province and issue her documents on the nobility. Since 1914, Zinaida Grigorievna received the right to bear the surname Rezvaya. With the outbreak of the First World War, some citizens who bore German surnames wanted to change them to Russian ones. Rainbot also submitted a petition to the highest name to assign him the surname of his grandmother, née Rezva, which was granted.

T. A. Aksakova called this marriage, which complicated Morozova’s life, ridiculous. Yu. A. Bakhrushin wrote in “Memoirs”: “This transformation had little effect on the fate of Zinaida Grigorievna in the Moscow high society. Being a widow, she appeared little in society, and now, thanks to her marriage, having lagged behind her own people and not bothered strangers, she almost completely broke with the Moscow merchants, and she could only be seen at theater premieres.”

Having created a new family, Zinaida Grigorievna rents Stakheev’s luxurious house, which corresponds to her new position. Everything in this mansion suited her tastes and habits. As evidence, they cite her favorite Gothic hall, as if it had “moved” along with its owner from her former famous palace on Spiridonovka.

Zinaida Grigorievna's new husband did not live up to her hopes. In 1907, the activities of the Moscow mayor were subjected to Senate verification. And although he managed to gain great popularity in Moscow, having achieved undoubted success in maintaining law and order, Rainbot was accused of embezzlement and bribery, abuse of power and using his official position to prosecute people he did not like. Under him, bribes became a completely legal phenomenon. If the owners of gambling houses or shopping arcades delayed payment, the secretary called and reminded: “General Rainbot asked me to tell you that he still lives on Tverskoy Boulevard.”

A scandalous resignation and a long trial followed. According to investigators, an entire system of extortion was created in Moscow, headed by General Reinbot himself. For example, he loudly announced the liquidation of “visit houses” in the city, but immediately stopped the persecution when the owners of these establishments contributed ten thousand rubles to the police charity fund. The same thing happened with the organizers of clubs where illegal gambling was carried out - as soon as they gave money “to charity,” the police stopped bothering them.

Based on the results of the inspection, Rainbot and his former assistant, Colonel Korotky, were brought before the court, which issued a rather harsh sentence: “Deprived of all special rights and benefits, imprisoned in a correctional prison department for 1 year.” At the request of Zinaida Morozova and the best lawyers she hired, the former mayor was pardoned by the highest order. However, during the investigation it became clear that he had numerous mistresses. The proud woman's pride was dealt a severe blow, and she showed her husband the door. In 1916, on the initiative of Zinaida Grigorievna, the couple separated.

After the revolution, Morozova-Reinbot miraculously escaped repression, but lost all her estates and valuables. She lived by selling things left over from her past life. Her beloved Gorki estate was nationalized and transferred to the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin. Having lost everything, Zinaida Grigorievna continued to raise her children and then her grandson with amazing dignity. The former “Princess Dream” died in poverty in 1947 in Ilyinsky, where she was buried.


The estate of Z. I. Morozova is better known as Gorki Leninskie


Of the four Morozov children, the fate of none of them worked out: the eldest, Timofey, was shot in 1921, daughter Maria ended her days in a psychiatric hospital, Elena went abroad with her husband and painfully experienced a break with her family in exile, the youngest son Savvushka after the death of his mother was arrested and sent “to the ends of the earth.” Returning from exile, he took the soil from the destroyed rural churchyard where his mother was buried and transferred it to the Morozov burial vault at the Old Believer Rogozhskoye cemetery, so that at least now she would be closer to her beloved husband.


High-profile finds

Researchers believe that it was N.D. Stakheev who became the prototype of the unforgettable Ippolit Matveevich, one of the main characters in the famous novel by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov “The Twelve Chairs”. Here is an excerpt from an article from the Moscow Heritage magazine No. 9, 2009.


Chairs from the Gothic hall of the mansion.

Who knows, maybe Stakheev’s jewelry is also hidden in one of them


“Stakheev was the prototype of Kisa Vorobyaninov. Before the First World War, he left with his family for France. I played a lot in the casino in Monte Carlo. After 1918, when Stakheev’s entire fortune was nationalized, he returned to Moscow to pick up silver and some other valuables from the cache of his house on Basmannaya, but was detained by the GPU. During interrogation, Stakheev offered Dzerzhinsky a deal: he says where the valuables are hidden in the house, and he is given a pension or given the opportunity to leave. Dzerzhinsky accepted the conditions of the former industrialist. They said that Stakheev received a pension until the end of his days, and with part of the “found” treasures, the House of Culture for Railway Workers was built on what is now Komsomolskaya Square. There were rumors in Moscow that Stakheev’s treasures were found in one of the 12 chairs of a luxurious set from his famous palace.”


Journalists of the railway newspaper “Gudok” E. Petrov and I. Ilf learned about this story. They said that the authors of “The Twelve Chairs” interviewed Nikolai Dmitrievich, which, unfortunately, was not completely included in the final version of the novel. The pieces destroyed by censorship told about the childhood of the leader of the nobility and his millions in casino losses.

After the revolution of 1917, Ippolit Matveevich moved to the small district town of N and worked in the registry office, where he managed the desk for registering deaths and marriages. He lived with his mother-in-law, Claudia Ivanovna Petukhova. Before her death, the mother-in-law confessed to Ippolit Matveyevich that she had hidden her pre-revolutionary family jewelry in one of the twelve chairs of the set made by the master Gambs. The search for treasure is the plot of the beloved novel “The 12 Chairs.”


Curious facts

In 2009, a monument to this colorful hero was erected in the city garden of Odessa.

He holds out his hand with his hat, giving competition to the local beggars. The monument is very reminiscent of the actor Sergei Filippov, who played the “father of Russian democracy” in the comedy by Leonid Gaidai.