Pokrovskoe-Fili Estate

The history of the estate Pokrovskoe-Fili is closely linked with the history of the estate Kuntsevo. The fact is that both estates belonged to the boyars Miloslavskys and later were granted to the Naryshkins. The real story of the Fili goes back to the 16th century. The name to the place was given after the small stream called Khvili (Fili), a tributary of the Moskva River. The father of Ivan the Terrible, Vasily III granted Fili to the Prince Mstislavsky. That dynasty was followed by the family of Miloslavskys. And in 1689 Peter I granted his uncle, the boyar Lev Kirillovich Naryshkin, “many of estates and land” including the palace and the village of Fili and Kuntsevo. Lev Kirillovich Naryshkin immediately engaged himself in the modernization of his new possession. He built one of the first European-like estates in Russia: with a park, ponds, an orchard and the palace with a clock tower. Instead of the run-down wooden church he built a multistory stone temple of the Intercession of the Virgin in 1693-1694; the village of Fili was officially known as the village of Pokrovskoye. The Naryshkins owned Fili until he 19th century. A huge landscaped park stretching along the bend of the Moskva River was created between Kuntsevo and Fili. Now it is the woodland park Fili-Kuntsevo. In 1869 a part of the former Naryshin’s estate was bought by the manufacturer Pavel Shelaputin. Shelaputin bult his residence with a winter garden and birds there. In the second half of the 20th entury Fili became a residential area and the ancient estate Fili-Pokrovskoye practically ceased to exist except for the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin.