The Bykovo Estate is a truly special place: here, the grandeur of ancient architecture coexists with the tranquility of the park and an atmosphere of mystery.

The estate complex's development began in the early 18th century, when Peter the Great granted the village to the governor Illarion Vorontsov.

The next important stage is associated with Mikhail Izmailov. In 1762, the estate passed to him, and he invited the architect Vasily Bazhenov. Bazhenov laid the foundations of the ensemble: he designed the palace, laid out a park with ponds, and erected outbuildings.

Later, the estate passed to the Vorontsovs, and then to the Vorontsov-Dashkovs. In the 1840s, Ivan Illarionovich Vorontsov-Dashkov commissioned a large-scale reconstruction from the Swiss architect Bernard Simon. Simon significantly changed the appearance: he gave the building neo-Gothic, Renaissance and Rococo features, redesigned the interiors, redesigned the park, dug a new pond, reconstructed the greenhouses and even created a “Swiss Farm”.