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# Do you remember the lines "A girl was singing in a church choir of all the weary in a foreign land"?
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/pomnite-stikhi-devushka-pela-v-tserkovnom-khore-o-vsekh-ustalykh-v-chuzhom-kraiu/
- Published: 2026-02-18T06:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:26:57.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Architecture, Faith, Books, Heritage, Mores

Do you remember the lines "A girl was singing in a church choir of all the weary in a foreign land"? In them Blok immortalised the Church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Tarakanovo. In his memoirs he writes of it as follows:

> Mendeleev and my grandfather, soon after the emancipation of the serfs, travelled together to the Moscow province and bought two estates in the Klin district, side by side: Mendeleev's Boblovo lies seven versts from Shakhmatovo; I was there in childhood, and in my youth I began to visit it often. The eldest daughter of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev by his second marriage, Lyubov Dmitriyevna, became my betrothed. In 1903 we were married in the church of the village of Tarakanovo, which lies between Shakhmatovo and Boblovo

Alexander Blok married Lyubov Mendeleeva on 17 August 1903 in the Church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Tarakanovo, which survives to this day.

The poet's aunt, Maria Beketova, recalls the wedding thus:

> The bouquet ordered for the bride in Moscow did not arrive in time. It had to be put together at home. Sasha and his mother picked large pink asters from the flower bed. The best man, Sergei Solovyov, solemnly drove the bouquet to the Mendeleevs' estate at Boblovo in a troika of horses hired in Klin, which had been made ready for the bride and groom. The troika was handsome, tall and light grey, the yoke decked with ribbons. The coachman was young and dapper.

> For that day it had proved possible to obtain some quite decent singers from the large village of Rogachevo. The rain had stopped, and, standing in the church by a side window, Sasha's relatives watched the wedding guests arrive. They were all Mendeleev relations, who lived close by. The church filled to capacity. And at last the troika appeared with the bride. She entered the church on the arm of her father, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, who had put on his orders for the occasion. He was deeply moved. The singers began: "Come, O dove..."

> She wore a snow-white batiste dress, elegant and with a very long train, orange blossoms, a veil. It was impossible to look at the beautiful young pair without emotion. Reverent, solemn, lovely. Even the old priest, a coarse man and ill-disposed towards the family, was touched and looked on the bride and groom with a smile.

> The rite was performed unhurriedly. When the time came to place the crowns, everyone saw not the gilded, ornate ones they were used to in town, but brightly shining silver crowns, which, by an old custom preserved in the countryside, were set directly on the head. The words "Crown them with glory and honour" rang out with particular solemnity. Dmitry Ivanovich wept with tenderness. When the wedding was over, the young couple went on for a long time kissing the icons, and no one dared disturb their extraordinary mood.

> As they came out of the church they were met by the peasants, who presented them with bread and salt and white geese, which stayed on at Shakhmatovo with the status of domestic animals. After the wedding they drove off in their smart troika to Boblovo...

> On their return to the estate the bride's old nurse showered the couple with hops. The bride was dressed not in town silks but in a white batiste dress, with orange blossoms in her hair, and the groom wore his student frock coat and a sword. During the wedding feast at the Boblovo house, peasant women in festive dress sang wedding songs in the yard, hailing the newlyweds. And in the house the guests proposed toasts to the future of Russian science.

In 1921 the church was damaged by lightning, which struck the cross and pierced the dome; the church caught fire, and its internal structures were damaged. Fortunately the fire was put out, and the church was soon restored. In 1928 it was closed. During the Great Patriotic War it was very badly destroyed. Until the 1990s the church stood derelict, in a half-ruined state. But in 2016 restoration began, and today it is in excellent condition.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_19774@18-02-2026_09-30-00.jpg)