Mon Repos or Monrepos (russian: Монрепо́, from the French for "my rest") is an extensive

English landscape park The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

in the northern part of the rocky island of Linnasaari (Tverdysh, Slottsholmen) outside

Vyborg Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus ne ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The park lies along the shoreline of the Zashchitnaya inlet of

Vyborg Bay Vyborg Bay (, , ) is a deep inlet running northeastward near the eastern end of Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea. The city of Vyborg is located near the head of the gulf. The Monrepos Park is considered a jewel of the bay and a major draw f ...

and occupies about of land. The manor of Monrepos was established by Baron

Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay Ludwig Heinrich Freiherr von Nicolay (russian: Андре́й Льво́вич Никола́и, translit=Andréj L'vovič Nikolái; 25 December 1737, in Strasbourg, in Monrepos north of Vyborg) was a German poet of the Enlightenment. He serve ...

who bought this parcel of land in 1788. The estate was considered a jewel of

Old Finland Old Finland ( fi, Vanha Suomi; rus, Ста́рая Финля́ндия, r=Staraya Finlyandiya; sv, Gamla Finland) is a name used for the areas that Imperial Russia, Russia gained from Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700–1721) and in ...

and belonged to his descendants until the Soviet takeover in 1944. The core of the baronial estate consists of the Neoclassical main house (designed by Giuseppe Antonio Martinelli) (today derelict) and the library house. The seaside park is strewn with glacially deposited boulders, scenic cliffs and wooden pavilions. It is considered a landmark in the evolution of the Romantic taste for landscape gardening. The mausoleum of Baron Nicolay was designed by Pietro Gonzago and frescoed by Johann Jacob Mettenleiter. Ludwig Heinrich's only son and successor, Baron Paul von Nicolay, was the Russian ambassador in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

from 1816 to 1847. His wife Alexandrine Simplicie de Broglie (the 2nd Duke's granddaughter) commissioned from

Charles Heathcote Tatham Charles Heathcote Tatham (8 February 1772 in Westminster, London – 10 April 1842 in London), was an English architect of the early nineteenth century. Early life He was born in Duke Street, Westminster, the youngest of five sons of Ralph Tath ...

an obelisk commemorating her brothers slain in the

Napoleonic wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

Auguste de Montferrand Auguste de Montferrand (; January 23, 1786 – July 10, 1858) was a French classicist architect who worked primarily in Russia. His two best known works are the Saint Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg. Early ...

, Andreas Shtakenshneider and Gotthelf Borup also designed pavilions and statuary for Monrepos. The park is noted for its rocks, mostly from the old Wiborgite

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

(which is named after Vyborg), and for some glacial formations of up to high. Some 50 species of plants can be found, some of them being rare. Its fauna is diverse as well.

External links

*
Official site of Mon Repos park
{{Coord , 60, 44, 10, N, 028, 42, 45, E, type:landmark_region:RU, display=title Parks in Russia Museums in Vyborg Auguste de Montferrand buildings and structures Historic house museums in Russia Continental gardens in the English Landscape Garden style Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Leningrad Oblast

Further reading

External links