Bobrinsky

Empress Catherine II gave birth to her only official illegitimate son on April 11, 1762, several months before her ascension to the throne.

On the 5th day of his reign, Emperor Paul made his half-brother a count of the Russian Empire and promoted him to general-major.

In the 20th century, the premises suffered enormous damage from the Bolsheviks, who demolished the wings of the palace in 1929, and from the Wehrmacht, who blew up the chateau in December 1941.

After brief and uneventful career at the royal court, he retired from service and settled in Bogoroditsk, establishing one of the first Russian sugar refineries there.

Unlike many other Russian nobles, the Bobrinskys continued as prosperous businessmen after the 1861 emancipation of serfs, starting coal mining in their estates near Tula and helping to build railways all over Russia.

[3] He represented Russian nationalists in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th State Dumas, advocating speedy Russification of border regions and supporting Pyotr Stolypin's reforms.

He led the excavations of Scythian mounds near Kerch and Kiev, describing some of his findings in the monograph on Tauric Chersonesos (1905).

Unlike his relatives, he chose to remain in Moscow after the revolution and came to be recognized as one of the most prominent Soviet zoologists.

His son Nikolay Nikolayevich, a geographer, who wrote a novel on the life of the first Bobrinsky, lived in Moscow until his death in 2000.

A scholarly ethnographer, he organized three expeditions to the tribes and villagers in the Pamir Mountains, accompanied by a photographer and a linguist.