page_title: Vorontsov Palace (Alupka)
section_title: Owners and occupiers
hierarchical_section_title: Vorontsov Palace (Alupka) / Owners and occupiers
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration to Leo Tolstoy's "Hadji-Murat" by Eugene Lanceray (1913) Русский: Иллюстрация к "Хаджи-Мурату" Л. Толстого Е. Лансере (1913)
context_page_description: The Vorontsov Palace or the Alupka Palace is a historic palace situated at the foot of the Crimean Mountains near the town of Alupka in Crimea. The Vorontsov Palace is one of the oldest and largest palaces in Crimea, and is one of the most popular tourist attractions on Crimea's southern coast.
  The palace was built between 1828 and 1848 for Russian Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov for use as his personal summer residence at a cost of 9 million silver rubles. It was designed in a loose interpretation of the English Renaissance revival style by English architect Edward Blore and his assistant William Hunt. The building is a hybrid of several architectural styles, but faithful to none. Among those styles are elements of Scottish Baronial, Indo-Saracenic Revival Architecture, and Gothic Revival architecture. Blore had designed many buildings in the United Kingdom, and was later particularly well known there for completing the design of Buckingham Palace in London.
context_section_description: Count, later (1845) Prince Mikhail Vorontsov (30 May 1782 – 18 November 1856), Viceroy of New Russia, builder of the palace. He was renowned for his success in the Napoleonic wars. As the Viceroy of the Caucasus from 1844 to 1853, he supervised the conduct of the Caucasian War. Having completed the palace, Vorotsov, now suffering progressive blindness, spent little time there. His commitments to the expanding Russian Empire took him to Tiflis; there, he waged wars on the rebellious local tribes. The now elderly Vorontsov, a confirmed anglophile, was particularly distressed by the outbreak of the Crimean War, which, in England, was heavily promoted by his English nephew, Sidney Herbert. Embarrassed and distressed, he retired from public life to the privacy of Odessa.  Vorontsov died in 1856, having lived just long enough to see the signing of the Peace of Paris. Vorontsov's tomb in the Odessa Cathedral was ruined by the Soviets, but his remains survived the Soviet era and were returned to the newly rebuilt cathedral in 2005.
  Countess, later Princess Yelizaveta Vorontsova (19 September 1792 – 27 April 1880), a daughter of Count Franciszek Ksawery Branicki by Aleksandra von Engelhardt, one of the nieces and heiresses of Prince Potemkin, the founder of New Russia (who was childless). She was one of the many Polish noble women who married the Russian aristocrats during the brief period of the "Polish enchantment", when Alexander I publicly conducted an affair with Marie Czetwertyńska and his heir Konstantin was in love with her sister Joanna Wyszkowska. When exiled to the Black Sea coast after The Gabrieliad affair, Alexander Pushkin wooed Elise Vorontsova in Odessa and addressed several poems to her. Apparently resenting his advances, the countess complained to her husband, who had his young rival exiled to a northern village. After her husband's death, Yelizaveta rarely visited the Alupka Palace, preferring to live in Odessa. 
  Prince Semyon Vorontsov (23 October 1823 – 6 May 1882), the only son and heir of Prince Mikhail. He served under his father in the Caucasus with distinction and figures in Leo Tolstoy's novella Hadji Murat, as do his wife and father. On 26 August 1851 he married in Alupka, against his parents' wishes, Madame Stolypina, née Princess Trubetskaya, once famed for her radiant beauty. The couple found the cost of running the palace too high, and after making various economies they seldom visited the Crimea. After Semyon's death without issue, the widow plundered the palace of many of its entailed furnishings and paintings and settled at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne with the Duca di Montelfi, her son from a previous marriage.
  Countess Sofia Shuvalova (1825–15 August 1879), the daughter of Prince Mikhail and Princess Elizaveta. In 1844, she married Count Andrei Shuvalov, the owner of Pargolovo (not to be confused with another branch of the Shuvalov family whose family seat was the Schloss Ruhenthal in Courland). The marriage was not happy, inducing her to live separately from her husband, who died in the house of another woman in 1876. From the 1850s Sofia and her children used Alupka as a country retreat, occupying the long West Wing now named after them, the Shuvalov Wing, while her brother Prince Semyon occupied the remainder of the palace.
  Count, later (1882) Prince Pavel Vorontsov-Shuvalov (1846–1885), the son of Sofia Shuvalova and grandson of Mikhail Vorontsov, inherited the largely empty palace and the Vorontsov title on the death of his uncle in 1882. He died three years later. His wife, Yelizaveta Stolypina, née Baroness Pilar von Pilchau, outlived him by 54 years. They had no children. An imperial ukase from 7 July 1882 designated Alupka the centrepiece of the Vorontsov majorat, which was to be inherited in the right of primogeniture.
  Count Mikhail Shuvalov  (7 July 1850 – 5 January 1904) inherited the entailed estate in 1885 from his brother Count Pavel. On 12 February 1886, the Emperor authorized him to use the princely title and to style himself Prince Vorontsov-Shuvalov. He was a bachelor and
caption: A gala at Semyon Vorontsov's mansion in Tiflis, by Eugene Lanceray
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