Natasha's Dance

almost twice as rich as any other Russian noble family, excluding the Romanovs. This extraordinary wealth was in part explained by the fact that, unlike the majority of Russian dynasties, which divided their inheritance between all the sons and sometimes even daughters, the Sheremetevs passed the lion’s share of their wealth to the first male heir. Marriage, too, was a crucial factor in the Sheremetevs’ rise to the top of the wealth league - in particular the brilliant marriage in 1743 between Pyotr Sheremetev and Varvara Cherkasskaya, the heiress of another hugely wealthy clan, through whom the Sheremetevs acquired the beautiful estate of Ostankino on the outskirts of Moscow. With the immense fortune that was spent on it in the second half of the eighteenth century by their son Nikolai Petrovich, the first great impresario of the Russian theatre, Ostankino became the jewel in the Sheremetev crown.

    The Sheremetevs spent vast sums of money on their palaces - often much more than they earned, so that by the middle of the nineteenth century they had amassed debts of several million roubles.38 Extravagant spending was a peculiar weakness of the Russian aristocracy. It derived in part from foolishness, and in part from the habits of a class whose riches had arrived through little effort and at fantastic speed. Much of this wealth was in the form of Imperial grants designed to create a superb court that would compare with Versailles or Potsdam.

    To succeed in this court-centred culture the nobleman required a fabulous lifestyle. The possession of an opulent palace, with imported works of art and furniture, lavish balls and banquets in the European style, became a vital attribute of rank and status that was likely to win favour and promotion at court.

    A large part of the Sheremetevs’ budget went on their enormous household staffs. The family retained a huge army in livery. At the Fountain House alone there were 340 servants, enough to place a chamberlain at every door; and in all their houses combined the Sheremetevs employed well in excess of a thousand staff.39 Such vast retinues were the luxury of a country with so many serfs. Even the grandest of the English households had tiny servant numbers by comparison: the Devonshires at Chatsworth, in the 1840s, had a live-in staff of just eighteen.40 Foreigners were always struck by the large number of servants in Russian palaces. Even Count Segur, the French ambassador, expressed astonishment that a private residence might have 500 staff.41 Owning lots of servants was a peculiar weakness of the Russian aristocracy - and perhaps a reason for their ultimate demise. Even middling gentry households in the provinces would retain large staffs beyond their means. Dmitry Sverbeyev, a minor civil servant from the Moscow region, recalled that in the 1800s his father kept an English carriage with 6 Danish horses, 4 coachmen, 2 postilions and 2 liveried footmen, solely for the purpose of his short annual journey to Moscow. On the family estate there were 2 chefs, a valet and an assistant, a butler and 4 doormen, a personal hairdresser and 2 tailors, half a dozen maids, 5 laundrywomen, 8 gardeners, 16 kitchen and various other staff.42 In the Selivanov household, a middling gentry family in Riazan province, the domestic regime in the 1810s continued to be set by the culture of the court, where their ancestor had once served in the 1740s. They retained an enormous staff - with eighty footmen dressed in dark green uniforms, powdered wigs and special shoes made from plaited horse- tail hair, who were required to walk backwards out of rooms.43

    In the Sheremetev household clothes were another source of huge extravagance. Nikolai Petrovich, like his father, was a dedicated follower of continental fashions and he spent the equivalent of several thousand pounds a year on imported fabrics for his clothes. An

    inventory of his wardrobe in 1806 reveals that he possessed no less than thirty-seven different types of court uniform, all sewn with gold thread and all in the dark green or dark brown cashmere or tricot colours that were fashionable at that time. There were 10 sets of single-breasted tails and 18 double-breasted; 54 frock coats; 2 white fur coats, one made of polar bear, the other of white wolf; 6 brown fur coats; 17 woollen jackets; 119 pairs of trousers (53 white, 48 black); 14 silk nightgowns; 2 dominoes made of pink taffeta for masquerades; two Venetian outfits of black taffeta lined with blue and black satin; 39 French silk kaftans embroidered in gold and silver thread; 8 velvet kaftans (one in lilac with yellow spots); 63 waistcoats; 42 neck scarves; 82 pairs of gloves; 23 tricorn hats; 9 pairs of boots; and over 60 pairs of shoes.44

    Entertaining was a costly business, too. The Sheremetev household was itself a minor court. The two main Moscow houses - Ostankino and the Kuskovo estate - were famous for their lavish entertainments, with concerts, operas, fireworks and balls for several thousand guests. There was no limit to the Sheremetevs’ hospitality. At the Fountain House, where the Russian noble custom of opening one’s doors at mealtimes was observed with unstinting generosity, there were often fifty lunch and dinner guests. The writer Ivan Krylov, who dined there frequently, recalled that there was one guest who had eaten there for years without anybody ever knowing who he was. The phrase ‘on the Sheremetev account’ entered into the language meaning ‘free of charge’.45

    Nearly everything in the Sheremetev household was imported from Europe. Even basic items found abundantly in Russia (oak wood, paper, grain, mushrooms, cheese and butter) were preferable, though more expensive, if from abroad. Information about Peter Sheremetev’s foreign purchases between 1770 and 1788 has been preserved in the archives. He bought from foreign merchants in St Petersburg, or through agents especially commissioned to import goods for him. Clothes, jewels and fabrics came directly from Paris, usually from the tailor to Versailles; wines came from Bordeaux. Chocolate, tobacco, groceries, coffee, sweets and dairy products came from Amsterdam; beer, dogs and carriages from England. Here is one of Sheremetev’s shopping lists:

kaftan of downy material

    camisole sewn with gold and pearls

kaftan and trousers made of silk in puce plus yellow camisole

kaftan made of red cotton with blue on both sides

    blue silk camisole sewn with gold

kaftan and trousers in fabric with camisole in raspberry silk sewn

    with gold and silver kaftan and trousers in chocolate colour with green velour camisole black velvet frock coat tails in black velvet with speckles tails with 24 silver buttons 2 pique camisoles sewn with gold and silver 7 arshins* of French silk for camisoles 24 pairs of lace cuffs for nightshirts

    12 arshins of black material for trousers and 3 arsbins of black velvet various ribbons

    150 pounds of superior tobacco 60 pounds of ordinary tobacco 36 tins of pomade 6 dozen bottles of capillary syrup golden snuffbox 2 barrels of lentils 2 pounds of vanilla 60 pounds of truffles in oil 200 pounds of Italian macaroni 240 pounds of parmesan 150 bottles of anchovies 12 pounds of coffee from Martinique 24 pounds of black pepper 20 pounds of white pepper 6 pounds of cardamom 80 pounds of raisins 160 pounds of currants 12 bottles of English dry mustard various kinds of ham and bacon, sausages

    * One arshin is 71 centimetres.

    moulds for blancmange

    600 bottles of white burgundy

    600 bottles of red burgundy

    200 bottles of sparkling champagne

    100 bottles of non-sparkling champagne

    100 bottles of pink champagne.46

    If Boris Sheremetev was the last of the old boyars, his son Pyotr was perhaps the first, and certainly the grandest, of Russia’s European gentlemen. Nothing demonstrated more clearly that a nobleman had made the transition from Muscovite boyar to Russian aristocrat than the construction of a palace in the European style. Under its grand roof the palace brought together all the European arts. With its salon and its ballroom, it was like a theatre for members of the aristocracy to play out their airs and graces and European ways. But it was not just a building or a social space. The palace was conceived as a civilizing force. It was an oasis of European culture in the desert of the Russian peasant soil, and its architecture, its paintings and its books, its serf orchestras and operas, its landscaped parks and model farms, were meant to serve as a means of public enlightenment. In this sense the palace was a reflection of Petersburg itself.

    Fountain House, like Russia, was originally made of wood, a single-storey dacha hurriedly erected by Boris Sheremetev in his final years. Pyotr rebuilt and enlarged the house in stone during the 1740s - the beginning of the craze for palace building in St Petersburg, after the Empress Elizabeth had ordered the construction of her own great Imperial residences there: the Summer Palace on the Fontanka river (1741-4), the Great Palace at Tsarskoe Selo (1749-52), and the Winter Palace (1754-62) which we know today. All these baroque masterpieces were built by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who had come to Russia at the age of sixteen. Rastrelli perfected the synthesis of the Italian and Russian baroque styles which is so characteristic of St Petersburg. That essential style - distinguished from its European counterparts by the vastness of its scale, the exuberance of its forms and the boldness of its colours - was stamped on the Fountain