Plato von Ustinov

Ustinov was born in Russia, younger brother of Mikhail Grigorievich Ustinov (the Russian consul in Hong Kong), son of Grigori Mikhailovich Ustinov (1803–1860) and wife Maria Ivanovna Panshina, paternal nephew of Mikhail Mikhailovich Ustinov (1800–1871; the Russian ambassador in Constantinople), paternal grandson of Mikhail Adrianovich Ustinov (1755–1836), a millionaire merchant from Saratov.

He was a Russian nobleman who held a manor estate in Ustinovka (Устиновка) in today's Balashov Raion. He travelled to the Levant after his doctors recommended its climate to heal his lung disease. On his way there, he met Peter Martin Metzler (1824–1907) and his wife Dorothea, née Bauer (1831–1870), who both worked in Jaffa as Protestant missionaries for the St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission. The couple earned their livelihood through several enterprises, including a steam mill, a pilgrim hostel, and trading in imported European merchandise. From mid-1861 until early 1862, Ustinov stayed in the Metzlers' hostel, eventually becoming a financial partner in their enterprises. Once his lung disease was completely cured, he returned to Ustinovka, but left the Metzlers a considerable sum of money to enable them to establish a missionary school and an infirmary in Jaffa.[2]

Ustinov employed Bekhōr Nissīm ʾElhādīf, an alumnus of the Miqveh Yisra'el agricultural school.[16] ʾElhādīf (1857–1913) bought exotic plants and trees from all over the world in order to develop the garden of Ustinov's hotel into a botanical park.[17]

German Emperor William II, his wife Auguste Victoria, and their closest entourage stayed at the Hôtel du Parc on their visit to Jaffa on 27 October 1898. Their travel agency, Thomas Cook & Son, chose it because they considered it the only establishment in Jaffa suitable for them.[18]

The Evangelical congregation of Jaffa in 1889 consisted of former Templers, Protestant German and Swiss expatriates, and proselytes gained earlier by the Metzlers' missionary efforts. Johann Georg Kappus Sr. (1826–1905) became the first chairman of the congregation, later followed by his son Johann Georg Kappus Jr. (1855–1928).[19] Ustinov joined that congregation[20] and offered it the hall of his Hôtel du Parc in Jaffa as a venue for services from 1889 to 1897.[21]

When Jaffa's first pastor, Albert Eugen Schlaich from Korntal, and his wife Luise arrived in Jaffa on 10 March 1897, Ustinov accommodated them in his hotel until they could find an apartment of their own.[22]

On 18 July 1898, Peter Metzler, who then lived in Stuttgart, conveyed his last piece of real estate in Jaffa for the construction of a church to the Evangelical congregation, for which Ustinov paid 10,000 francs, two-thirds of the site's estimated value.[23] When the Evangelical Immanuel Church of Jaffa was finally built and furnished, Ustinov gave it a large crucifix of olive wood.[24]

Ethiopian Empress Taytu had convinced her adviser Katarina Hall, who had returned without her husband to Ethiopia in 1902, to persuade Ustinov to acquire property near the Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem. The land was purchased in 1910, and construction of a large building began. Ustinov and his family left Palestine in 1913 for Russia, where he died in 1918. His widow Magdalena, who went to live in England and later in Canada, inherited the land in Jerusalem and the partially completed building on it. During a trip to Jerusalem in 1924, she sold the property to the Empress Zewditu I of Ethiopia, who was also visiting there. Zewditu continued the construction on Ustinov's foundations, and it became the Ethiopian consulate. It still exists."[25]

Beit Immanuel

After the end of the British public custodianship of enemy property in Palestine in 1925, Magdalena von Ustinow sold the former mansion in Rechov Auerbach No. 8 to the CMJ in 1926. It is now used as a place of worship, guest house, and heritage centre, called Beit Immanuel (Immanuel House).[26]

Ustinov was a major collector of Palestinian antiquities. His collection ended up at the University of Oslo, Norway. Theologian Johannes Pedersen wrote a 1928 book about the collection, Inscriptiones Semiticae collectionis Ustinowianae.[27][28]

• Eisler, Ejal Jakob (Eyal Ya'aqov Aizler/איל יעקב איזלר), Der deutsche Beitrag zum Aufstieg Jaffas 1850–1914: Zur Geschichte Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997, (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins; vol. 22) ISBN 3-447-03928-0
• Eisler, Ejal Jakob (איל יעקב איזלר), Peter Martin Metzler (1824–1907): Ein christlicher Missionar im Heiligen Land [פטר מרטין מצלר (1907–1824): סיפורו של מיסיונר נוצרי בארץ-ישראל; German], Haifa: אוניברסיטת חיפה / המכון ע"ש גוטליב שומכר לחקר פעילות העולם הנוצרי בארץ-ישראל במאה ה-19, 1999,(פרסומי המכון ע"ש גוטליב שומכר לחקר פעילות העולם הנוצרי בארץ-ישראל במאה ה-19/Abhandlungen des Gottlieb-Schumacher-Instituts zur Erforschung des christlichen Beitrags zum Wiederaufbau Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert; vol. 2), ISBN 965-7109-03-5
• Perry, Yaron (2003). British Mission to the Jews in Nineteenth-Century Palestine. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-8385-X
• Vogel, Lester I. (1993). To See a Promised Land. Penn State Press. ISBN 0-271-00884-9

• Pedersen, Johannes (1928), Inscriptiones Semiticae collectionis Ustinowianae, Oslo
• Skupinska-Løvset, Ilona (1976), The Ustinov collection: the Palestinian pottery, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget
• Frellumstad, Randi (2007), Glass in the Ustinow collection: objects without context? University of Oslo