The main house of the Batashev estate is a federally listed architectural monument in Vyksa, Nizhny Novgorod Region (5 Lenin Street). The building forms part of the estate-and-industrial complex of the Russian entrepreneurs brothers Andrey Rodionovich and Ivan Rodionovich Batashev. It is believed to have been built in 1765–1770, presumably to a design by the Batashevs' serf architect I. Kiselnikov.[1]

Construction history and origins

Vyksa (disambiguation) arose on previously uninhabited land in the Murom forests. Its founding is associated with the brothers Andrey and Ivan Batashev, whose father, Rodion Ivanovich, owned mining plants in Tula Governorate. Following an 1754 decree by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna ordering the closure of plants within two hundred versts of Moscow, the brothers were forced to start a new enterprise in a new location — in the Kasimov, Shatsk, and Murom districts. Between 1755 and 1760, the Batashevs submitted nine applications to the Berg-Collegium for newly discovered ore deposits and organised metallurgical production in Vladimir Governorate: on 30 October 1755 the Unzha Plant on the Unzha River was put into operation, and on 15 December 1759 pig-iron production was launched at the Gusev Plant.[1] Against this backdrop, the main manor house in Vyksa was under construction during the 1760s. In 1765, simultaneously with the construction of the main manor house, work began on the Vyksa iron-ore plant and a settlement for craft serfs — for this purpose Empress Catherine II signed a special decree permitting the Batashevs to develop lands along the banks of the Vyksunka and Veletyma rivers. As early as 1766, the Upper Vyksa blast-furnace plant produced approximately 5,000 tonnes of pig iron; in total, three enterprises were then being built on the territory of what would become Vyksa, linked by a system of ponds and reservoirs covering some 280 square kilometres and reaching up to nine metres in depth.[2] The house was originally built with two storeys; after the division of the plants between the brothers in 1783, Ivan Rodionovich added a mezzanine of seven rooms for himself, and subsequently extended it across the entire house. According to the description recorded in the plan of the manor house preserved in the State Historical Archive, the first floor housed a kitchen, servants' quarters, pantries, and storerooms; the second floor contained a hall, two reception rooms, a billiard room, bedrooms, and footmen's rooms; the third floor held the living quarters and office of Ivan Rodionovich. After the death of I. R. Batashov in 1821, the house was occupied by the family of D. D. Shepelev, the de facto owner of the Vyksa plants; later, V. A. Sukhovo-Kobylin, chairman of the Guardianship Council, lived there with his family. The playwright A. V. Sukhovo-Kobylin visited the house on several occasions: in his diary entry of 1853 he noted that from January to March of that year he had been working in Vyksa on a play; scholars associate the writing of Krechinsky's Wedding with this period.[3][3][3][3]

In archival documents the building appears under various names: "manor house," "main manor house," "master's house," "big house." In the cultural-heritage object passport it is designated "The Batashev House." The name "main estate house" is used in the scholarly literature in accordance with the State Lists of Historical and Cultural Monuments of Nizhny Novgorod Region (as of 01.01.2000).[1]

Protected status and documentation

The building is a Architectural Monument of Federal Significance by virtue of two regulatory acts: Resolution No. 624 of the RSFSR Council of Ministers dated 4 December 1974, and Presidential Decree No. 176 of the Russian Federation dated 20 February 1995 "On Approving the List of Objects of Historical and Cultural Heritage of Federal (All-Russian) Significance." The protective documentation — the cultural-heritage object passport — was compiled by Moscow architect A. V. Kositsyn in 1976.[1]

Source base for research

The building's construction history has been studied on the basis of archival materials from the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod Region), the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA, Saint Petersburg), and the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA, Moscow). Also consulted were published descriptions of Vyksa from the second half of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by P. S. Pallas, P. P. Svinin, E. A. Salias, and other authors; documents and photographs from the collection of the Vyksa Steel Works museum; and materials supplied by architect O. K. Savelyeva of the design institute Spetsproektrestavratsiya, former director of the VMZ history museum G. K. Nikulina, and Nizhny Novgorod historian A. G. Kiselyov.[1]

In 2025, the DOM.RF corporation put up for auction another object belonging to the Batashev estate-and-industrial complex in Vyksa — an eighteenth-century "Hunting Lodge" with a floor area of 277.5 sq. m and a plot of 1.13 hectares; the starting bid was set at 3.98 million roubles. The new owner would be required to carry out restoration of the building, which was in unsatisfactory condition, and was invited to establish a restaurant or hotel on the premises. In the nineteenth century the Hunting Lodge was used for social events and for meetings with merchants and clients arriving in Vyksa by way of the Oka; during the Soviet period it successively housed a school, a club, and a hospital.[4]

Sources

  1. opentextnn.ru — Davydov A. I., Davydova A. A. The Main House of the Batashev Estate in the Town of Vyksa, Nizhny Novgorod Region — OPEN TEXT (archive)
  2. V gorode N — Vyksa in Nizhny Novgorod Region: history and archival photographs of the metallurgists' town — In 1765, simultaneously with the construction of the main manor house, work began on the Vyksa… (archive)
  3. wyksa.ru — The Batashev House (archive)
  4. Kommersant (Volga Region) — DOM.RF is selling the Batashev "Hunting Lodge" in Vyksa for 3.98 million roubles — In 2025, the DOM.RF corporation put up for auction another object belonging to the Batashev estate-and-industrial complex in…