Voxal Park

In the old days, the word " voxal " was called an amusement park or a building in which music certainly played. ^[2] The first voxal appeared on the Voxhall estate near London, hence the name. The park hosted balls, performances, concerts and festivities for the English nobility. Later, the park became public and all residents of London were allowed into it. In the eighteenth century, voxals spread throughout Europe.

In Russia, the first voxal was opened in Moscow in 1774 by an entrepreneur Melchior Groti. In the summer, "there was a public meeting for the noble, twice a week, where they gave balls and theater plays." ^[3]

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin mentioned the voxal in his poem "To Masha" in 1816:

You decorously, silently, idly by,
You will sit in the congregations
And sacrificing to the goddess of boredom,
To fly from a voxal to a masquerade. ^[four]

It is located between Vokzalnaya Street (which is why it got its name) and Smolensky Lane, next to the Tver Mosque and the Square of Chernobyl Heroes. ^[five]

It was founded in 1776 by order of Count Jacob Efimovich Sievers , who was at that time the Tver and Novgorod Governor. In 1810, the voxal was reconstructed according to the design of Carl Rossi. ^[6] In the same year, a ball was held in the park, attended by Emperor Alexander the First. The whole garden was illuminated, and fireworks were launched from the opposite bank of the Volga. ^[7]

In 1779-1785, a hospital building was built in the park according to the project of architect Friedrich Stengel. In 1817-1818 it was rebuilt as a theater. But the theater did not last long, soon the building was abandoned and was empty until 1867, when the provincial hospital was opened here. ^[6]
Among the trees of the park there is an oak, whose age is more than three hundred years. ^[one]

The hospital was located in the park until 2007, after which almost all buildings, except one, were abandoned. Currently, the territory and buildings are in unsatisfactory condition and require serious improvement work. ^[6]

The unsatisfactory condition of the buildings was shown in February 2016 in the program of Andrei Novichkov's “Offensive on the Heritage” during the inspection of the city of Tver to preserve historical and architectural monuments. The head of the Office for the Protection of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Tver Region promised the film crew that the restoration of the park will begin in 2017. Until this time, the object will be put up for auction under the program "1 ruble per 1 square meter" ^[8]

1. ↑ ^{1 2} Voksal Park (Provincial Hospital) (XVIII-XX). Park: oaks (XVI (?) - XVIII), elms, larch, linden (XIX-XX)
2. ↑ VOXAL
3. ↑ http://maskball.ru/istoriya_teatra/medoksov_voksal.html .
4. ↑ A.S. Pushkin. To Masha ("Yesterday Masha ordered me ..."). The text of the work | Komarov Library
5. ↑ Vokzalnaya street
6. ↑ ^{1 2 3} Tver risks losing “Little Peterhof” in the heart of the city
7. ↑ June 2. This day in the history of Tver
8. ↑ "Offensive on the Heritage": TV check of the city of Tver Official site of the program "Offensive on the Heritage"