Ostankino Palace Museum (Sheremetev Estate)

The Ostankino Estate Museum is a monument of 18th-century Russian architecture within Ostankino Park, the estate-and-park complex closest to the Kremlin in Moscow and the former estate of the Counts Sheremetev. The surviving palace theatre here is the only theatre building in Russia dating from the late 18th century to have survived to this day complete with its stage, auditorium, and dressing rooms.

From 1620 to 1743 Ostankino belonged to the Cherkassky princes, who built a boyar house and a stone church here. In 1743 the only daughter of Chancellor Alexei Cherkassky, Princess Varvara, married Count Pyotr Sheremetev, and the estate became part of her dowry, remaining in the Sheremetev family's possession until 1917. Ostankino's golden age is linked to Pyotr's son, Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, who made the estate his summer residence. Inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, he conceived of building a "pantheon of the arts" here, combining a theatre, a picture gallery, and a library, and created a serf theatrical troupe of more than three hundred people.

Construction of the palace-theatre began in 1792 to designs by the architects Francesco Camporesi, Ivan Starov, and Vincenzo Brenna, while their plans were realized by the count's serf architects — Pavel Argunov, Grigory Dikushin, and Alexei Mironov. The theatre opened in July 1795 with the opera "Zelmira and Smelon, or the Capture of Izmail," and the interior decoration was completed by 1798. The serf actress Praskovya Zhemchugova, who later became Count Nikolai Sheremetev's wife, performed on the theatre's stage. The estate was visited by distinguished guests, including the Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski in 1797 and Emperor Alexander I during the coronation celebrations of 1801. After Zhemchugova's death in 1803, Nikolai Sheremetev rarely visited Ostankino, and the estate gradually fell into decline.

After 1918 the palace was nationalized, and in May 1919 it opened to visitors as a local history museum. In 1938 the institution was named the "Ostankino Palace Museum of Serf Craftsmanship," in memory of the serf architects, artists, and actors who created this ensemble. The historic name was restored in 1982, and since 1992 the estate has borne the name of the Ostankino Moscow Estate Museum. Since 1989 the palace has been undergoing a large-scale restoration, and since 2022 it has been merged with the Kuskovo Estate Museum into a single museum-reserve.