Kachanovka is one of the country estates of Pyotr Rumyantsev

Pyotr Rumyantsev

Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky was one of the foremost Russian generals of the 18th century. He governed Little Russia in the name of Empress Catherine the Great from the abolition of the Cossack Hetmanate in 1764 until Catherine's death 32 years later...

, Catherine II's viceroy of Little Russia

Little Russia

Little Russia , sometimes Little or Lesser Rus’ , is a historical political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the 20th century. It is similar to the Polish term Małopolska of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...

. It stands on the bank of the Smosh River in Chernihiv Oblast

Chernihiv Oblast

Chernihiv Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Chernihiv.-Geography:The total area of the province is around 31,900 km²....

 of Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. Other Rumyantsev estates in the region include the better known Gomel Residence

Gomel Palace

The Rumyantsev-Paskevich Residence is the main place of historical importance in the city of Gomel, Belarus. The grounds of the residence stretch for 800 meters along the steep right bank of the Sozh River...

.

The Neoclassical

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 residence was erected in the 1770s to designs by Karl Blank

Karl Blank

Karl Blank was a Russian architect, notable as one of the last practitioners of Baroque architecture and the first Moscow architect to build early neoclassical buildings. His surviving, undisputed legacy consists of three baroque churches and Moscow Orphanage...

. The church, orangery, aviary, water tower and several other buildings date from the 19th century. After Nikolay Rumyantsev

Nikolay Rumyantsev

Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev was Russia's Foreign Minister and Imperial Chancellor in the run-up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia...

's death, the property passed to the Tarnovsky

Tarnowski

Tarnowski is the surname of a Polish szlachta family. Because Polish adjectives have different forms for the genders, Tarnowska is the form for a female family member.-History:...

 family. Vasily Tarnovsky was interested in the history of Ukraine and amassed a collection of weapons that had been owned by the hetman

Hetman

Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....

s of Ukraine. Among the 19th-century visitors to Kachanovka were Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...

, Taras Shevchenko

Taras Shevchenko

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...

, Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.-Early...

, and Mikhail Glinka

Mikhail Glinka

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka , was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music...

 (who worked on his opera A Life for the Tsar

A Life for the Tsar

A Life for the Tsar , as it is known in English, although its original name was Ivan Susanin is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. The original Russian libretto, based on historical events, was written by Nestor Kukolnik, Georgy Fyodorovich Rozen,...

in the summerhouse).

Although the Soviets nationalized the palace for use as a penal colony

Penal colony

A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...

 and tuberculosis hospital, the manor, including the extensive English park

English Park

English Park is a multi-use stadium in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of Canterbury United. The stadium has a capacity of 9,000 people....

and several subsidiary outbuildings, is exceptionally well preserved and has been designated a national cultural preserve since 1982.