 Romanovs of the 17th century maintained Bronnitsy merely as a household item and the village evolved in relative prosperity, evidenced by the construction of the Cathedral of Archangel Michael, launched in the 1690s and completed in 1705.Peter the Great reformed it into a productive stud farm.He granted Bronnitsy to Alexander Menshikov; after his fall in 1727 control over the village and government-owned stud farms passed to statesman Pavel Yaguzhinsky who "managed" the business into a ruin.