The Tsarskoye Selo colony Fridental was founded by immigrants from the duchy of Berg ruined by the war. On colonists elected deputy Abram Kemper’s petition submitted to Alexander I in 1816, a plot of land of the square 28 dessiatinas ( 1 sessiatina = approx. 2 3/4 acres ) was granted for establishing a petty textile manufacture. Now this area is bordered by Moscow Road, Sophia Boulevard, Zhukovsko-Volynskaya Street and Zheleznodordzhnaya Street. V.I. Geste laid out the settlement on an estate layout. He placed houses in line from Sophia Boulevard to the cross with Moscow Road which was changed on this plot.
On V.P. Stasov’s project during 1819-1825 seven small wooden houses, two families of workers- weavers lived in each of them, were built using the state money. The each house in the center was divided into two halves, so cold half-house. In a half-house there were living rooms with barns for owners and a large workshop with a room for workers. Originally colonists engaged in producing silk, cotton, wool and linen goods, especially ribbons and tapes, worked in gardens, but later summer cottage renting business became the most popular. After a time on homestead lands separate wings were built for placing “workshops” which were gradually rebuilt and let out to summer residents.
In all thirteen families settled down in the colony, their heirs lived here until World War I. Families of the Verners, Vebers, Kremers, Kellermanns, Ostermanns and Mundingers, lived in identical houses with triangular pediments, were neighbours of the colonists deputy Abram Kemper from one side. From the other side there were just like these houses of the Kumbruch and of the dyer Meyer, further the house of Kissel and Schmitz. The last, seventh house belonged to the Mudingers and the leather-dresser Vidmeyer and his heirs.
Abram Kemper’s house with expressive façade created by Stasov was completed, in contrast to neighbours, with a mezzanine. A half of the house belonged to his family and the second half was intended for common needs: an office, shop, school for children. However the colonist society considered more profitable to lease the public half-house. The famous Russian poet Count A.A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov (1848-1913) lived here for a long time. In 1915 this half-house, as exception, was handed in the life personal use to the poet’s widow O.A. Golenishcheva-Kutuzova according to the Emperor’s order. This building as a monument of the Tsarskoye Selo old times was taken in the charge of “The Society of Defense and Preservation of Old Times Monuments” for adapting it for a museum or charity foundation, for example an alms-house, for perpetuation of the memory of Emperor Alexander I and his wife. World War I prevented from creating a museum and then this idea was forgotten. At a later time the house of A. Kemper and A.A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov was used as communal flats. It was survived during WWII. In 1954-1955 it was overhauled and restored.
Bad using during the last years brought to a fire and the protected by the state and society monument of the Tsarskoye Selo Old Times cultural heritage of the regional significance, connected with Alexander I’s work, has burnt to the ground in a result of it. It would be likely to read that the measures for it restoring are assumed. Alexander I, Emperor
Hastie Vasily Ivanovich (William)
Kemper, Abram
Stasov Vasily Petrovich