One of the most popular attractions in the New World is the Prince Golitsyn House Museum, the man who started a new history of this unique corner of the earth. It was in this house, where the museum opened its doors to all those wishing to touch the history of the region, about a hundred years ago lived Lev Sergeyevich Golitsyn.
The house, located today on Shalyapinskaya Street, is not far from the main architectural landmark of the New World, the «House of Visitors» — a building resembling an ancient knight’s castle. The prince built it for the factory workers, while he and his family lived in a more modest dwelling.
The Golitsyn House is a small white building under red tiles, like the other buildings of the former Golitsyns’ estate, surrounded by tall pines and cypresses. In the seven halls of the exposition the guests of the museum can get acquainted with the personality of the legendary founder of champagne winemaking in the Russian Empire, with his life and hobbies.
Lev Golitsyn was in love with this land at first sight. He bought the estate in Paradise from the father of his first wife Nadezhda Kherkheulidze. For 37 years of his life in the New World he grew more than 600 varieties of grapes, created the first Russian champagne not inferior in quality to French champagne, built a large factory of champagne wines, established the first industrial production of high quality champagne wines in the Russian Empire. But all these achievements are not the end of his patrimony.
Prince Golitsyn was a man of broad outlook and fine taste, a collector. He collected a huge enoteca (wine collection), which he kept in a grotto in the mountain Koba-Kaya. It included only the best wines of various brands from different countries of the world. In addition, Golitsyn was fond of collecting literature and gathered an extensive library and a large collection of art objects. Unfortunately, a considerable part of the Prince’s collections was lost due to the looting of the estate in the 20s. The restored part of the Prince’s collections, household items, documents and other interesting exhibits related to the life of Lev Sergeyevich can now be seen in the house-museum. And exhibits related to winemaking are collected in another building not far from the factory, which now houses the Museum of the History of Champagne Wines «Novyi Svet». Here you can learn about the history of winemaking in the village.
Prince L.S. Golitsyn spent the last years of his life in poverty. In 1912 he gave most of his estates, including the factory, to Nicholas II, as he could not manage all this himself due to his health. Until the end of his days he was cared for by his daughter Nadezhda, and after his death in 1915 Golitsyn was buried next to his wife in the family crypt, which today has also become one of the attractions of the New World.
Lev Sergeyevich Golitsyn devoted his life to the development of Crimean winemaking and made an invaluable contribution to this field, making Crimean champagne famous all over the world. Today, Prince Golitsyn’s house-museum is talked about not only as a attraction of Crimea, but also as an asset of the whole country. And all tourists coming to rest in Novy Svet are given a unique opportunity to visit the house where this outstanding man lived. He became the discoverer of many attractions of the settlement and the creator of some of them. It is thanks to him that the paradise corner of Novy Svet became famous, and tourists going to holiday in Ukraine choose this small but famous village.