Alexander Bezborodko

14 March] 1747 – 6 April 1799) was the chancellor of the Russian Empire from 1797 to 1799,[1] and the chief architect of Catherine the Great's foreign policy after the death of Nikita Panin.

Upon finishing his education, he entered the public service as a clerk in the office of Peter Rumyantsev, then the governor-general of Little Russia, whom he accompanied to the Turkish War in 1768.

He thus had the opportunity of impressing the empress with his brilliant gifts, the most remarkable of which were exquisite manners, a marvellous memory and a clear and pregnant style.

On his return from a delicate mission to Copenhagen, he presented to the empress "a memorial on political affairs" which comprised the first plan of a partition of Turkey between Russia and Austria.

He wrote all the most important despatches to the Russian ministers abroad, concluded and subscribed all treaties, and performed all the functions of a secretary of state.

On the sudden death of Potemkin, he was despatched to Jassy to prevent the peace congress there from breaking up, and succeeded, in the face of all but insuperable difficulties, in concluding a treaty exceedingly advantageous to Russia (9 January 1792).

The empress reassured him by fresh honors and distinctions on the occasion of the solemn celebration of the peace of Jassy (2 September 1793), when she publicly presented him with a golden olive-branch encrusted with brilliants.

He reformed the post-office, improved the banking system of Russia, regulated the finances, constructed roads, and united the Uniate and Orthodox churches.

On the death of Catherine, Emperor Paul entrusted Bezborodko with the examination of the late empress's private papers, and shortly afterwards made him a prince of the Russian Empire, with a correspondingly splendid apanage.

But the emperor's growing aversion to this pacific policy induced the astute old minister to attempt to "seek safety in moral and physical repose."

Paul, however, refused to accept his resignation and would have sent him abroad for the benefit of his health, had not a sudden stroke of paralysis prevented Bezborodko from taking advantage of his master's kindness.

In 1974 owing to a drastic state of the entire structure its major repair was started and the museum has returned to the building only thirty years later, in 2003.

It is a central three-storey building with round turrets in the corners, joined with arched galleries to two symmetrical side wings.