The park of the Stepanovskoye estate, located 8 kilometers from the Arkhangelskoye estate, was created in 1799-1812 on the family estate of Peter Petrovich Beketov, who was elevated to the commander of the Order of Malta by the decree of Paul I. In 2003, archaeologists (working under the guidance of the famous specialist in architectural archeology E. L. Khvorostova) discovered in the estate the brick foundations of a completely unique park structure. It was located on the top of Marfina Gora, the highest point of the park, and on the main planning axis of the estate connecting the village, the temple and the main house, and overlooking the Istra coast. Judging by the foundations, this "park pavilion" was built in the form of an equal-pointed Greek cross with thin and long "branches" rounded at the ends and oriented to the cardinal points. The pavilion is very large - 70x70 meters; for comparison - it was twice as long as the Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral, and approximately equal to the length of the Pashkov house together with the outbuildings, that is, it was a structure comparable in size to a good manor house.
Art critics and historians agree that the pavilion definitely served as the compositional center of the manor park: being on a high point, it set the direction of the alleys and served as the culmination of the visual impressions of the vast walking space. During the excavations, several interesting details were discovered: a white-stone heel of the arch, fragments of a brick paving of the underground floor. Judging by the presence of a coin of Paul I (they quickly went out of circulation after 1802), construction began long before 1812, but P. Beketov's report about the destruction carried out in Stepanovsky by Napoleon's soldiers does not say anything about the "Cross". Remains a mystery and the architecture of the above-ground part of the "Cross", as well as its purpose. It could be a meeting room, or it could be a roller coaster, like in Oranienbaum (but then it is twice as large as the Tsar's!). It is quite possible that now all these art history questions will remain unanswered - in the very near future the park may be built up, and a leisure center for a new cottage village will be erected on the site of the pavilion.
The protection of the archaeological site could be helped by a passport developed for the manor park by the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after A. D. S. Likhachev in 2006-2007 on the instructions of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The passport defines the boundaries of the park and the modes of its protection. However, for more than two years now, the Ministry of Culture of the Moscow Region has been postponing the examination of the passport without giving any reason and does not make a decision on the protection of the estate park within its historical boundaries.
For a long time, historians did not understand what the matter was, but then the situation cleared up. It turned out, in particular, that it was during these two years that the municipal administration managed to issue the Presidential Administration a permit to develop a project for the construction of a village on the territory of the manor park. The development project was developed by the State Unitary Enterprise NIiPI of the General Plan of Moscow - needless to say that it is not at all on the basis of a passport lying under the cloth in the ministry. In fact, the protection zones were “carved out” in the most convenient way for the developer: according to the new project, the monument is only a cascade of ponds, which automatically allows the development of the entire eastern part of the park. A little later, the press reported that this territory, ordered by the Property Management Department, would be built up by Gazprombank-Invest, a development division of Gazprombank. At the public hearing, the company presented a project for the construction of a boarding house of the Rublevo-Uspensky health-improving complex of the Presidential Administration and about 30 elite mansions.
According to this project, almost 90 hectares of the park of the late 18th - first third of the 19th century will be surrounded by a high fence and isolated from the estate. For the "cordon" fall Bykov Pond (one of the chain of the cascade) and Marfina Gora, on the top of which with the foundations of the "Cross" - in the place of which, as already mentioned, a club room with a library, a billiard room and a bar was designed.
At the past public hearings on the project of land surveying of the estate, specialists from the Institute of Heritage and VOOPIIK tried to prove that the project not only does not preserve the monument, but also has nothing to do with the declared tactful insertion of the “boarding house” into the landscape. "In fact, this is an ordinary cottage community, rudely tearing apart the unique natural and historical environment of the Moscow Region Mon Repos," says the head of the sector of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage. D. S. Likhacheva, member of the Central Council of VOOPIiK Sergey Chernov. However, art critics failed to turn the tide of the discussion. The project was supported by its numerous participants - architects, engineers, employees of Gazprombank-Invest and the General Planning Institute - and as a result, it was approved at public hearings. More precisely, something vague is going on around the discussion of this project: the discussion by the simple majority of those present leaned towards the development of the park, but the final resolution of the meeting will appear only in January, but all this is generally indifferent, because the status of the hearings is purely deliberative. However, the members of VOOPIiK are not going to give up yet: they intend to try to achieve federal status for the monuments of the Stepanovskoye estate.
