Novospasskoye is a family estate of a great Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. The estate is 130 kilometers to the south-east from Smolensk and 25 kilometers to the south from Yelnya.
In 1750 this estate was given to a retired major Nikolai Alekseyevich Glinka, the grandfather of the great composer. Initially, the land was called the «waste of Shatkovo», by the name of the nearby village. But later a Transfiguration church was built there and the estate was called Novospasskoye.
The big manorial house with a colonnade and two out-houses was built already by Ivan Nikolayevich Glinka, the son of Nikolai Alekseyevich Glinka, in 1807-1810. However, during the War of 1812 the family had to move from the estate to Oryol. The territory was occupied by the French troops and the estate was plundered. After the war Ivan Glinka had to reconstruct the manorial house and the other buildings.
Mikhail Glinka, the future Russian composer, was born in the Novospasskoye estate on May 20, 1804. He spent there the first 12 years of his life and in 1817 went to study in St. Petersburg. While the estate was in possession of the Glinka family, Mikhail Glinka frequently came there.
Today at the estate there was opened a museum devoted to the creative work of Mikhail Glinka. In the manorial house there were also restored the interiors of 19 century. The estate has a very picturesque landscape park with a system of interconnected ponds. The connecting canals are spanned by small bridges. In the park there remained over 300 century-old trees, including the 9 oaks, which were planted by Mikhail Glinka himself.
