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# With the death of Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, Dmitry Nikolayevich, his seven-year-old son by the former serf actress Praskovya Gorbunova-Zhemchugova, who died soon after the birth, was left a complete orphan
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/so-smertiu-grafa-nikolaia-petrovicha-sheremeteva-krugloi-sirotoi-ostalsia-dmitrii-nikolaevich-ego-semiletnii-syn-ot-byvshei-krepostnoi-aktrisy-praskovi-gorbunovoi-zhemchugovoi-umershei/
- Published: 2025-12-06T06:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:27:48.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Aristocracy, Architecture, Moscow, Observations, Mores

The boy's upbringing was taken on by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, while as guardians of the little Sheremetev's person and of his fortune she appointed the State Secretary Dmitry Petrovich Troshchinsky and the Actual Privy Councillor and Senator Mikhail Ivanovich Danaurov, whose family settled in Kuskovo.

The inheritance Sheremetev left was immense, the guardians managed the estates as best they could, and of course fell greedily upon optimising and economising to their own advantage: some things were sold, others let out, as, for example, the late count's beloved Kuskovo house, known as the House of Solitude.

The house was let for 500 roubles a month. First a merchant of the first guild moved in, but left because of the damp; for the summer he was succeeded by Bestuzhev, who also moved out at the end of June; then the court actress Elizaveta Semyonovna Sandunova expressed a wish to settle in the house, steeped as it was in legends and mysteries.

But the guardians refused Sandunova, because she had recently divorced her husband, and her living at Kuskovo might attract bad company and gossip. Can you imagine? The guardians of the son of a former serf actress refused to let a house to a divorced woman, so as not to disgrace the honour of the family name? The most amusing part is that Dmitry Sheremetev's closest relative, his own aunt Varvara, had herself been in a notorious divorce, and nothing came of it: she lived with it quite calmly and felt no shame before anyone.

There is no moral to this story, I am simply telling you what vile people there can be. As for Sandunova, she had not the slightest cause to regret the refusal: very soon the Sheremetev house would have brought her a meeting with the French, who plundered and wrecked it to such a state that in the end the building simply had to be pulled down.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_18949@06-12-2025_09-00-00.jpg)