Bryusov lane. Houses of the Soviet elite: where the artists of the Bolshoi Theater lived

On the places and areas of residence of general secretaries, marshals and academicians Soviet Union tells the Muscovite, architectural historian Denis Romodin. The topic of the next publication is the house of artists Bolshoi Theater in Bryusov lane (modern address: Bryusov per., 7). The building was specially built for the theatrical intelligentsia in the 1930s.

Bryusov (or as it was called until 1962 - Bryusovsky) lane miraculously incorporated a number of apartment buildings built for the Soviet creative elite in the 1920s-1950s, this was the House of Artists at No. 12, built in 1928 according to the project of the architect I. Rerberg; And famous House composers in the ZhSK "Teacher of the Moscow Conservatory", built under number 8/10 in 1953-1956 by architect I. Marcuse; as well as residential building number 17, built in 1928 according to the project of A. Shchusev for Moscow Art academic theater. In the same alley, the architect Shchusev designed a monumental and outstanding house at number 7, known as the House of Artists of the Bolshoi Theater.

The project of this house was prepared back in 1932, when a housing cooperative of workers of the Bolshoi Theater was created. The workshop of the architect D. Fridman took up the work (according to other sources, the architect L. Polyakov, who moved from Leningrad to Moscow). However, later the design was transferred to Alexei Shchusev, who developed in 1933 new plan buildings in which the architect completely departed from the avant-garde, presented earlier in his work,- in previous years, he designed many bright buildings in Moscow, such as Lenin's mausoleum, the building of the Mechanical Institute on Bolshaya Sadovaya, 14, the building of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture on Sadovo-Spasskaya, 11/1, houses for workers of the Moscow Art Theater in Bryusov Lane. In the early 1930s, Shchusev was already beginning to work on changing the design of the Mossovet hotel, which had previously been developed by the duet of architects L. Savelyev and O. Stapran. In the changes in the composition and facades of the future Moskva Hotel, one could see the search for the architect and the beginning of his development of the classical heritage, and in the house in Bryusov Lane, these searches were already completed with a completely classical solution.

The house for the artists of the Bolshoi Theater, built in 1935, is divided into three parts - the central building, deepened from the alley, and two protruding side ones. This made it possible to fit a nine-story residential building into a narrow lane and provide apartments with light. Unlike house number 17, in house number 7, Shchusev designed the apartments, increasing the windows in them because of the high ceilings. To improve illumination, starting from the third floor, bay windows without deglazing window frames are placed on two side wings. For a monumental appearance, the facades are lined with "Riga" plaster interspersed with crumbs of quartz, marble and granite. The portals of the entrances and the plinth are finished with natural pink granite. The last two floors received rounded windows and a powerful cornice - the architect will repeat this decision in the Moskva Hotel and his residential buildings designed in the same years.

In the same house, the architect introduced a special soundproofing system, since the apartments were intended for artists of the Bolshoi Theater. Shchusev also needed to design large rooms for rehearsals, to develop the dimensions of the spaces for placing the piano and its delivery to apartments.

The layout of the apartments initially looked more like the pre-revolutionary one - a suite of front rooms, bedrooms for the owners, a separate sanitary unit, a kitchen and a room for servants. The floors in all living rooms were covered with inlaid parquet, sanitary facilities and kitchens were covered with tiles. On the stairwells - the same tile and polished stone chips. For the walls in the living rooms, a beige-yellowish color, typical for that time, was chosen.

Since the house was cooperative, the apartments had only built-in furniture by the time they moved in. The furnishings were done by the residents themselves. In the absence mid 1930s a large selection of finished furniture apartments were furnished with antiques. Moreover, the residents of this house were creative people - some memorial plaques on the facade with the names listed below speak for themselves: sculptor I. D. Shadr; conductors N. S. Golovanov and A. Sh. Melik-Pashaev; ballet dancers A. B. Godunov, L. I. Vlasova and O. V. Lepeshinskaya; opera singers I. S. Kozlovsky, A. S. Pirogov, M. P. Maksakova, N. A. Obukhova, A. V. Nezhdanova. By the way, in honor of Nezhdanova, Bryusov Lane was temporarily renamed - in 1962-1994 it was called Nezhdanova Street. She herself lived in apartment number 9. In honor of her famous architect I. Zholtovsky with his colleague N. Sukoyan and sculptor I. Rabinovich completed a sketch of an elegant and monumental memorial plaque on the facade of the house. In the neighboring apartment No. 10 there is now a museum-apartment of her husband, conductor N. S. Golovanov. In these two apartments, an amazing atmosphere of a huge and at the same time elegant home, which became the decoration of the alley.

RBC-Nedvizhimost continues to publish a series of materials dedicated to houses Soviet elite in Moscow. Muscovite, architectural historian Denis Romodin tells about the places and areas of residence of general secretaries, marshals and academicians of the Soviet Union. The theme of the next publication is the house of artists of the Bolshoi Theater in Bryusov Lane (modern address: Bryusov per., 7). The building was specially built for the theatrical intelligentsia in the 1930s.

Bryusov (or as it was called until 1962 - Bryusovsky) lane surprisingly absorbed a number of apartment buildings built for the Soviet creative elite in the 1920-1950s - this is the House of Artists at No. 12, built in 1928 according to the project architect I. Rerberg; and the famous House of Composers in the ZhSK "Teacher of the Moscow Conservatory", built under No. 8/10 in 1953-1956 by architect I. Marcuse; as well as residential building number 17, built in 1928 according to the project of A. Shchusev for Moscow Art Academic Theatre. In the same alley, the architect Shchusev designed a monumental and outstanding house at number 7, known as the House of Artists of the Bolshoi Theater.

The project of this house was prepared back in 1932, when a housing cooperative of workers of the Bolshoi Theater was created. The workshop of the architect D. Fridman took up the work (according to other sources, the architect L. Polyakov, who moved from Leningrad to Moscow). However, later the design was transferred to Alexei Shchusev, who developed a new building plan in 1933, in which the architect completely departed from the avant-garde, presented earlier in his work,- in previous years, he designed many bright buildings in Moscow, such as Lenin's mausoleum, the building of the Mechanical Institute on Bolshaya Sadovaya, 14, the building of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture on Sadovo-Spasskaya, 11/1, houses for workers of the Moscow Art Theater in Bryusov Lane. In the early 1930s, Shchusev was already beginning to work on changing the design of the Mossovet hotel, which had previously been developed by the duet of architects L. Savelyev and O. Stapran. In the changes in the composition and facades of the future Moskva Hotel, one could see the search for the architect and the beginning of his development of the classical heritage, and in the house in Bryusov Lane, these searches were already completed with a completely classical solution.

The house for the artists of the Bolshoi Theater, built in 1935, is divided into three parts - the central building, deepened from the alley, and two protruding side ones. This made it possible to fit a nine-story residential building into a narrow lane and provide apartments with light. Unlike house number 17, in house number 7, Shchusev designed the apartments, increasing the windows in them because of the high ceilings. To improve illumination, starting from the third floor, bay windows without deglazing window frames are placed on two side wings. For a monumental appearance, the facades are lined with "Riga" plaster interspersed with crumbs of quartz, marble and granite. The portals of the entrances and the plinth are finished with natural pink granite. The last two floors received rounded windows and a powerful cornice - the architect will repeat this decision in the Moskva Hotel and his residential buildings designed in the same years.

In the same house, the architect introduced a special soundproofing system, since the apartments were intended for artists of the Bolshoi Theater. Shchusev also needed to design large rooms for rehearsals, to develop the dimensions of the spaces for placing the piano and its delivery to apartments.

The layout of the apartments initially looked more like the pre-revolutionary one - a suite of front rooms, bedrooms for the owners, a separate sanitary unit, a kitchen and a room for servants. The floors in all living rooms were covered with inlaid parquet, sanitary facilities and kitchens were covered with tiles. On the stairwells - the same tile and polished stone chips. For the walls in the living rooms, a beige-yellowish color was chosen, typical for that time. A large selection of finished furniture was furnished with antiques. Moreover, the residents of this house were creative people - some memorial plaques on the facade with the names listed below speak for themselves: sculptor I. D. Shadr; conductors N. S. Golovanov and A. Sh. Melik-Pashaev; ballet dancers A. B. Godunov, L. I. Vlasova and O. V. Lepeshinskaya; opera singers I. S. Kozlovsky, A. S. Pirogov, M. P. Maksakova, N. A. Obukhova, A. V. Nezhdanova. By the way, in honor of Nezhdanova, Bryusov Lane was temporarily renamed - in 1962-1994 it was called Nezhdanova Street. She herself lived in apartment number 9. In honor of her, the famous architect I. Zholtovsky with his colleague N. Sukoyan and sculptor I. Rabinovich made a sketch of an elegant and monumental memorial plaque on the facade of the house. In the neighboring apartment No. 10 there is now a museum-apartment of her husband, conductor N. S. Golovanov. In these two apartments, the amazing atmosphere of a huge and at the same time elegant house has been preserved, which has become the decoration of the alley.

Denis Romodin specially for RBC Real Estate

In the 1920s, a wave of construction of a new type of cooperative housing swept through Moscow. Actors, musicians, engineers and officials massively united in cooperatives to build their own houses: one of the most well-coordinated were those created by the artists of the Bolshoi Theater and the Vakhtangovites. The six buildings built for them are still inhabited by the descendants of prima and composers.

House of Artists of the Bolshoi Theatre. Photo: wikimapia.org / Enormousrat

Three addresses in Bryusovo and one in Karetnoy: Bolshoi Theater actors' houses

Bryusov lane, 7

Carriage row 5/10

Due to its nondescript appearance even by the standards of constructivism: five floors, one entrance, mouse color - the building rarely attracts the attention of Muscovites. But the house has been included in the register of monuments for several years. cultural heritage. The building was built for employees of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater in 1935 according to the project of the famous Moscow architect Alexey Shchusev. The house was erected by order of the theater workers' cooperative. Immediately after the completion of construction, she settled here soloist of the Bolshoi Antonina Nezhdanova, it is her name from 1962 to 1994 that the entire lane will bear. The artist's neighbors were ballerina Olga Lepeshinskaya, singers Maria Maksakova and Nikadr Khanaev, theater artist Fedor Fedorovsky, conductor Alexander Melik-Pashaev and many other well-known employees of the theater at that time. It is interesting that the memorial apartment in the house remained only after one tenant - musician Nikolai Golovanov who lived in apartment number 10.

In 1956-1960, for the grown troupe of artists of the Bolshoi Theater, another residential building was built in Karetny Ryad. Despite its impressive size, there were almost no really famous residents in the house. The greatest popularity was achieved by those who settled here from the very beginning Leonid Utyosov and settled later TV presenter Leonid Yakubovich.

Memorial plaque to Leonid Osipovich Utyosov at 5, st. Karetny row in Moscow. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Bryusov lane, 12. Photo: wikimapia.org / Bakurin

In 1928 the building was built architect Ivan Rerberg. A five-story building with external elevator shafts can easily be confused with mass building, for which the first cooperative houses of the NEP era prepared the basis. After the construction was completed, the architect himself and his family settled in the house, ballerinas Victoria Krieger and Marina Semyonova, actors Sofia Giatsintova and Anatoly Ktorov. The most famous and unfortunate residents were the residents of apartment 11, Vsevolod Meyerhold and his wife Zinaida Reich. The director himself was shot in 1940, his wife was killed in the same apartment. Immediately after the death of Reich, according to legend, the living space was divided into two parts: one half was occupied chauffeur Lavrenty Beria and the other is a girl named Vardo Maksimilishvili. In various sources, the young woman is credited with serving as an NKVD officer, personal secretary, and even Lavrenty Beria's mistress. Now the house has been turned into a museum open to the public.

Bryusov lane, 17

The same nondescript as the neighboring ones, the cooperative house of artists of the Moscow Art Theater became the first project of Alexei Shchusev in Bryusov Lane. It took only one year to build: the minimalist building was conceived in 1927, and occupied as early as 1928.

Bolshoi Levshinsky Lane, 8a. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

The building is slightly higher than the neighboring artistic buildings and has 6 floors. The local apartments were distinguished by increased comfort: almost all of them were created taking into account the personal wishes of future residents. In one of the sections on the ground floor, even a swimming pool was originally designed. Actors Nina Litovtseva, Vasily Kachalov, Ivan Moskvin, director Leonid Leonidov, ballerina Ekaterina Geltser and choreographer Vasily Tikhomirov settled in the house. Already in the middle of the 20th century, the famous Soviet dancer Maris Liepa. A few years ago, in fact, the entire top floor and the attic of the building were bought by artist Nikas Safronov- here is his workshop and residential apartments.

Two houses of "Vakhtangov"

Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky lane, 12

Built in 1928, the house was intended for artists of the Vakhtangov Theatre. The building was designed by a little-known architect Yakov Rabinovich. five-storey house correct form divided into four entrances and 38 apartments. Among the guests of the first floor stood out actor Boris Shchukin.

Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky lane, 12 / Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Iosif Rappoport, Anatoly Goryunov, Vasily Kuza, Ruben Simonov lived on the second. The house manager chose the artists Lev Ruslanova. Many years later his son Vadim Ruslanov will describe the life and way of life of the first generation of "Vakhtangov" in his book "House in Levshinsky". The work features a very lively and close-knit inner life yard: joint dance evenings, games of tennis, volleyball, a skating rink flooded for the winter and evenings on a bench under Shchukin's windows.

In 1937, a second house was built for the artists of the Vakhtangov Theater. This time, the eight-story residential building is located very close to the duty station, in Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky Lane. The most famous locals were two actors - father and son - Mikhail Derzhavins. The latter still lives here with wife Roxana Babayan.

Architect K.S. Melnikov, 1927–1929

Photo: Olga Alekseenko

This, perhaps, the most unusual mansion in the world has an original form - it consists of two conjugated vertical cylinders. It is so different from ordinary houses that casual passers-by can hardly understand what exactly is hidden behind a low wooden fence. The design of the mansion is even more unique than the actual architectural form: lattice brickwork, hexagonal holes that appeared due to the shift of bricks. Some of the openings are sealed with plywood and are not visible under the outer plaster, while others are left as windows.

Architect Melnikov in Krivoarbatsky Lane Photo: pereplet.ru Melnikov was sure that rounded walls were an order of magnitude more economical than straight ones. Shortly before the creation of the house-workshop, the architect returned from Paris, where he presented his famous masterpiece– Soviet pavilion at the Exhibition decorative arts and the modern art industry, held in 1925. World recognition played a role, and he was able to get a small plot in the very center of Moscow. When planning a dwelling, Melnikov thought not so much about himself as about the future, therefore he presented the experimental building to the Moscow City Council as a prototype for mass construction. It was about blocked houses-cylinders, drawn up in a line, and the author saw their internal structure as simpler than the furnishings of his house.

Internal organization The house is amazing: from the street side we see a building with a large display window illuminating the dining room on the first floor and the living room-workshop on the second. Through the hallway you can get directly to the dining room or to the stairs leading upstairs. There is a living room-workshop and a bedroom with a group of hexagonal windows. And even higher is the holy of holies - a workshop from which you can get to the roof-terrace of one of the two cylinders, the lower one, standing closer to Krivoarbatsky Lane.

Interior Photo: Flickr/arch_museum However, this house should not be considered the ideal home of the future. In fact, he personifies the real manifesto of the new architecture. Melnikov conducted a kind of experiment, in fact arranging for his own family commune house. This is evidenced not only by the established daily routine, but also by the system of collective going to bed with preliminary dressing in pajamas and nightgowns installed by the architect in a special dressing room located on the ground floor. The bedroom was shared: in the center there was a large double parental bed, and on two sides of it behind the screen walls were the children's cribs. Moreover, the whole structure of the building determined the rigid organization of everyday life. There are practically no isolated rooms here, except for two rooms of 4.2 m2 each, intended for preparing lessons (the architect had two children - son Viktor and daughter Lyudmila). The bedroom was separated from the living room by a glazed door, as was the hallway downstairs.

According to the granddaughter of the architect Ekaterina, the doors were arranged only in a tiny restroom and in a relatively spacious bathroom. Only there, sitting on an old chest, the already elderly architect and his wife could calmly rest, since there was simply nowhere else in the house to hide from the usual children's noise, especially when grandchildren appeared in the house. Ekaterina believes that largely due to the lack of privacy, elementary personal space, the Melnikov children failed to save their families and both marriages eventually broke up.

Viktor Melnikov. The interior of the bedroom of the Melnikov house in Krivoarbatsky lane, 1933 The architecture of the house is a compromise between brutal avant-garde aesthetics and decorativeness. The unusual interior decoration of the house-workshop also contributes to this decorative effect. The walls are plastered and painted in lilac (in the dining room), pinkish (in the living room) and honey yellow (in the bedroom). Only the workshop is left completely white, while the ceilings in the children's study rooms are decorated with bright blue and bright yellow triangles, and the ceiling in the dressing room is painted in a lilac shade.

The house has a lot of antique furniture. Planning the future of his family, Melnikov had long dreamed of own house and therefore I bought this furniture in advance from an American friend, since he could not take it out of the country. The windows of the lower floor and the bedroom are decorated with lace curtains, which were made by the architect's wife. In addition, the house had several author's interior items. For example, the stepped racks for magazines invented by him, a round table on one support on the mezzanine of the workshop where he liked to work, as well as his light easel, have been preserved. Unfortunately, the most interesting objects, conceived in the style of the emerging Art Deco, have not been preserved. In particular, the beds are on a wave-shaped base, with thick bolsters on both sides of the mattress. The bedroom also had a closet with a rounded plaster wall and a glass door.

• Address Krivoarbatsky lane, 10

House of Mosselprom

Civil engineer V.D. Tsvetaev, engineer A.F. Loleit, civil engineer N.D. Strukov, 1912–1925

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/pimgmx

• Address Kalashny lane, 2

Kremlin polyclinic

Architect N.V. Hoffman-Pylaev, 1929

Photo: Ivan Erofeev

The history of the Kremlin polyclinic begins with a move in the fall
1918 of the Soviet government to Moscow. For its members, an outpatient clinic began to operate in the Poteshny Palace of the Kremlin. Only five people worked in the new medical institution: a general practitioner, who is also the head of the outpatient clinic, two paramedics, a nurse and a nurse, and a 10-bed hospital with an emergency room was located in the adjacent building.

At the same time, first-aid posts were organized in the homes of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to provide medical assistance to members of the government working outside the Kremlin. At that time, the “houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee” were called hotels, where until the end of the 1920s mainly responsible workers lived. The first house of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - "National", the second house of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - "Metropol", the third house of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - on Sadovo-Karetnaya (Delegatskaya, 1), the fourth house of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, "Peterhof", was located on Vozdvizhenka, 4, and the fifth - at the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Romanov lane.

Photo: Nikolai Karpov In 1925, the Kremlin Hospital settled on the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Romanov Lane. A polyclinic was also organized there (later it became known as the "Central Kremlin Polyclinic"). She took over the buildings former estate Count Sheremetev.

In 1928, a new polyclinic building was opened on Vozdvizhenka, which at that time already belonged to the Sanitary Directorate of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Today it is difficult to imagine that the four-story building, the author of which was N.V. Hoffman-Pylaev, is essentially a converted outbuildings of an old estate.

The architecture of the neighboring house, which also belonged to the Sheremetevs, clearly influenced the appearance of the new building. Hoffman-Pylaev decides to use a number of cylindrical shapes in the new building: the rounded corners of the main facade overlooking Vozdvizhenka, ledges-risalits, between which, in the recess formed in the center of the main facade, an extensive vestibule is organized. Here, above the doors of the main entrance, there is a wide balcony, which plays the role of a canopy. The central part of the building is crowned with a cylinder with strip glazing raised above it. There are ribbon windows on two street facades, they give the architecture of the new building a modern look. The windows effectively “roll up” on the rounded walls, the surfaces of which have been carefully plastered.

• Address Vozdvizhenka street, 6/2, building 1,2

Central Telegraph

Engineers I.I. Rerberg, S.S. Ginsburg, 1927

Photo: www.urixblog.com

A whole block at the beginning of the main street of the capital is occupied by the building of the Central Telegraph. The competition for this prestigious building was held in 1925. And despite the fact that such innovative architects as the brothers A.A., V.A. and L.A. Vesnin and A.V. Shchusev, who made brilliant projects published in the journal Modern Architecture, the government instructed I.I. Rerberg, an authoritative engineer. By the time of the construction of the Central Telegraph, he had significant experience in creating large structures, public and residential buildings in Moscow. His most famous building is the Kyiv railway station.

Photo: pastvu.com At that time, the telegraph was a symbol of new information technologies, and it is symbolic that it was an outstanding engineer who realized this building project with impressive facades. Rerberg's experience in decorative design structural elements. Most often, he worked in a neoclassical style, simplifying antique motifs and inseparably connecting them with a metal or reinforced concrete frame. It is noteworthy that in the case of the Telegraph, he acted differently, decorating only the street facades with constructive and decorative forms, anticipating the then emerging a new style art deco, typical of European architecture of the 1930s. The building fit in well with all the later architectural decoration of Tverskaya (Gorky Street). It was one of the few buildings that matched gigantic scale"Stalinist" reconstruction of Moscow in the 1930s-1950s.

The general composition of the building is typical both for the Art Nouveau style and for the avant-garde that followed it: the main facade has a faceted tower, the entrance is organized from the corner. The building is four stories high and the tower is five stories high. From Tverskaya Street, the building has a very representative and elegant look, while the staircase blocks open onto the courtyard, completely devoid of decor. Like all industrial structures of those years, the tower is completed with an ornamental fence placed between pointed vertical elements that have sharp silhouette-spiers raised above the cornice. Above the main entrance is a large rotating globe, symbolizing contact with the whole world. This spectacular part of the Telegraph is still magnificently decorated on holidays, turning into an extravaganza of glowing light bulbs.

Photo: pastvu.com Despite the significant decorative component, the building was erected taking into account the most current building trends. In particular, a load-bearing frame was used, accentuated by stone cladding. This design made it possible to make a free layout inside, placing partitions in any right place and use huge floor-to-ceiling windows to illuminate the tall operating rooms. It is impossible to leave such a frame uncoated in our climate, so all participants in the competition assumed that the facade would have plastered columns and ceilings. And Rerberg was able to get from customers a rare in Moscow, but much more advantageous, albeit very expensive, material - natural stone.

The building was completed by 1927. For its foundation, the engineer decided to apply the then-unique foundation design in the form of a monolithic slab, not assuming that this know-how would lead to tragedy. They say that when the building began to tilt a little, I.I. Rerberg could not stand it and, while awaiting arrest for "wrecking", tried to commit suicide. However, the process of destruction did not go further, and I.I. Rerberg survived and later escaped reprisals.

• Address Tverskaya street, 7

Residential building of the Moscow Art Theater in Bryusov Lane

Architect A.V. Shchusev, 1928

Photo: Alexander Ivanov

The history of the creation of the second “House of Artists” was described in detail by the younger brother of the architect Shchusev, Pavel Viktorovich: “In 1927, Alexei Viktorovich was invited by K.S. Stanislavsky to create scenery for the play "The Sisters Gerard", which was being prepared for staging in the Moscow art theater <...>Having approached the actors in this way<...>, Alexei Viktorovich soon, at their request, drew up a project for a residential building for the Moscow Art Theater cooperative in Bryusovsky Lane and, with his usual speed and determination, built it in 1927-1928. The house, made in extremely simple and clear forms and plastered with marble chips, had a large terrace on the top floor, from which a beautiful view of Moscow and the Kremlin opened up.

Photo: Alexander Ivanov The shape of this second "House of Artists", in contrast to the first, which was built earlier in the same lane, resembled three parallelepipeds connected to each other. The lowest of them ended with a terrace from the side of the Church of the Resurrection on Uspensky Vrazhek, a 17th-century church, preserved in the years Soviet power. “After the design work on the Kazansky railway station was completed,” the architect’s brother wrote, “Aleksey Viktorovich placed his new workshop in the superstructure overlooking the terrace, where he developed options for the project of Lenin’s granite mausoleum and other buildings. Here Alexey Viktorovich painted a lot of oil picturesque sketches and sketch sketches of Moscow and the Kremlin...” Today Shchusev's “House of Artists” has been built on and has lost its harmonious proportions, and along with them, part of its charm.

Its architecture can be described as strict: any Soviet person should not stand out among colleagues and fellow citizens, it is no coincidence that this building looks rather ascetic. Since the house for tenants - representatives of Bohemia - was cooperative (the architect himself was the chairman of the partnership), he made the apartments based on specific customers with their special requests. So, on one floor there were only two huge apartments - from six and eleven rooms (the last one - with two bathrooms and two kitchens).

But if desired, such a large apartment could be divided into two: three- and eight-room. It is noteworthy that the rooms in the apartments were arranged in the form of an enfilade, characteristic, as a rule, of the buildings of the era of classicism of the 18th-19th centuries.

Photo: pastvu.com Here lived the most famous drama artists of Moscow, singers, dancers. Hungry times forced them to get out of the situation by breeding livestock in their dachas. A curious case was described by the same P.V. Shchusev, referring to the famous inhabitant of the “House of Artists”, ballerina Geltser, who was friendly with the architect’s wife: “While doing housework, Maria Vikentievna became very attached to pets, especially to small goats that screamed hilariously sitting on her hands. Returning to the city, she took them with her and presented one of the goats to an old acquaintance of Alexei Viktorovich, the ballerina E.V. Geltser, who performed with her more than once in the ballet Esmeralda on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

The history of the new house is undoubtedly connected with the first house, where
many Moscow artists settled in the 1920s. It is also located in Bryusov Lane, in house No. 12. There are many memorial plaques on the facade, for example, dedicated to one of the most famous residents - Vsevolod Meyerhold. Now a memorial museum is open in his apartment.

• Address Bryusov lane, 17

Residential building of the State Insurance

Architect M.Ya. Ginzburg, with the participation of V.N. Vladimirova, 1926–1927

Photo: Alexander Ivanov

The six-storey building of Gosstrakh, designed by the architect Moses Ginzburg, is interesting not only for its outwardly elegant architectural plasticity, but also for its rational internal structure. In addition to comfortable apartments, it also has a hostel on the roof, and a terrace for walking, and a shop on the ground floor. This combination of different types of housing was one of the real ways solution to the acute housing problem. After all, even government officials who moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow lived until the end of the 1920s in hotels (and in the Kremlin - until the 1950s!).

Photo: V. Vladimirov To popularize his ideas, Ginzburg published a number of articles on the pages of the Modern Architecture magazine, which he headed together with A.A. Vesnin. He was the initiator of the creation of a special typification section at the Construction Committee of the RSFSR for the development and implementation of new types of housing on a national scale, and the State Insurance House became his first experimental site.

There are four apartments on each floor of the State Insurance House, and this building does not differ from pre-revolutionary tenement houses. From this type of architecture, Ginzburg takes an important component - variability, and therefore makes all apartments different in configuration. Each has bathrooms, toilets, kitchens. Many household parts, characteristic of pre-revolutionary times, but not yet forgotten then, for example, double-leaf entrance doors through which it is convenient to bring in furniture. Each anteroom is designed so that it fits a wardrobe, and if one apartment has a corner bay window, then in the rest this advantage is compensated by balconies. The hostel upstairs, due to its compactness, has access to a vast roof-terrace. This decision required the organization of internal drains and a wide parapet along the outer contour of the building.

Photo: V. Vladimirov Proud of his work, the architect published his drawings and photographs in the Modern Architecture magazine.

Ginzburg reflected the variety of apartments, in particular, on the street facades. On the opposite side, its building, together with the neighboring house, forms a traditional courtyard-well. The most expressive element is the corner of the building overlooking the crossroads (the intersection of Malaya Bronnaya with Spiridonievsky Lane). Downstairs in the corner of the house there is a store, above it corner windows overlooking two sides attract attention.

Later, Ginzburg continued to experiment with even more diverse types of apartments, designing other objects, the most famous of which was the Narkomfin building.

• Address Malaya Bronnaya street, 21/13

Club of the Society of Political Prisoners and Exiled Settlers

Architects A.A., V.A., and L.A. Vesnins, 1927–1934

Photo: Alexander Ivanov

Today the name "House of hard labor and exile" sounds strange, but in the 1920s it was perceived quite normally. In 1921, on the initiative of F.E. Dzerzhinsky, Ya.E. Rudzutaka, E.M. Yaroslavsky and other figures, the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles was founded. It was engaged in the collection, study and publication of materials on the history of the royal prison, hard labor and exile, and also provided financial assistance former political convicts and exiled settlers. In 1926, the Society organized a museum with a library and archive. With the expansion of the scale of activities, the question arose of building a new building, which was interpreted as a center for research, political, educational and cultural work of the Society. The project has been commissioned experienced craftsmen, known even before the revolution, and then became the leaders of constructivism - the Vesnin brothers. In 1927, the architects designed a new building. But a place for it was taken away later, on Povarskaya Street, near Kudrinskaya Square, on the site of the demolished Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Kudrin.

From the outside, the building was conceived as a picturesque group of parallelepipeds of varying widths and heights, joined together. The walls are cut with horizontal windows, which reflects the frame structure. Above the foyer, the roof has been turned into two open terraces located above the first and second floors. The remaining roofs have a slight slope, but are taken into powerful parapets, imitating a flat roof that was fashionable at that time.

Photo: pastvu.com Initially, in the project, the house of the Society of Political Prisoners was clearly divided into two parts - club and archive-museum. The construction of the building began with a club, but the museum remained on paper, so today architectural composition Vesnin may seem unbalanced. A parallelepiped of the small hall hangs over the large front staircase, arranged from the Povarskaya side. This volume plays the role of a powerful visor; it rests on round pillars, between which the main entrance is located. The small hall is lit through the ribbon side windows. Above the entrance, on the surface of the blind end of the small hall, a decorative panel was planned, which in the end was not completed.

Further, in the back of the building, there is an extensive foyer. On the left side relative to the entrance, an L-shaped wing for the archive and the museum was planned, and to the right - a large theater Hall. Just adjacent to it is a foyer with a wardrobe, common to two halls. There are two stairs here: one of them leads to the foyer of the second floor and from there to the balcony of the auditorium, and the other one leads to the premises of the museum part, also located on two floors. The first staircase is inscribed in a square and consists of three flights, and the second, spiral, is much to the right, its wide steps rest on a central cylindrical support. This entire staircase block is a glazed cylinder protruding outwards. Two more staircases with rounded landings are located on the side of the courtyard, their volumes protrude from the plane of the back wall in the form of semi-cylinders. It should be noted that in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a similar solution was used in the Vesnins' projects more than once (a club in Surakhani, Baku; the Palace of Culture of the Proletarsky District, Moscow).

A spacious stage has been designed in the large auditorium with a balcony and stalls. Her "box" is the tallest part of the building. A stage without a turning circle, but with "pockets" - backstage for artists and scenery. In terms of area, the stage part occupies, as it should
in theaters, no less than seats for spectators.

Photo: chekhoved.net By the time the construction was completed, the building, sustained in a strict avant-garde style, began to be sharply criticized in the press. The Construction of Moscow magazine wrote in 1935: “It would seem that the architects who designed this building should have given it especially expressive and monumental architectural forms.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Cubism and constructivism are more than prominently revealed in the forms of this house. Deliberate simplification in everything, the fetishization of absolutely straight horizontals and verticals, the deadness of bare planes, which, given the low height of the building, weakens the monumentality of the overall composition.

The main thing is the absence of its own face at the House of hard labor and exile.<...>

The life of the fighters and martyrs of the revolution provides enormous material for wall frescoes, for painting ceilings and for sculpture. Specificity dictated in advance to provide for the active participation of painters and sculptors in the work on the interior design of the House of Hard Labor and Exile.

Unfortunately, this has been forgotten, and we have in the lobby, foyer and dining rooms, instead of painted ceilings, protruding ribs of concrete beams, utterly simplified.

To “enrich” the building, a project of sculptural decoration of facades and interiors, which remained unrealized, was created, in the development of which sculptors V.V. Lisheva, N.A. Kongisser, I. Biryukov.

Sophisticated functional architecture of the House of Political Prisoners
by the time the protracted construction was completed, it was not in demand, since the Society of Political Prisoners was liquidated
in 1935. The building began to be used as a cinema with the loud name "First", which worked for 10 years. After the war, the Film Actor's Theater settled here, and a decade later (in the mid-1950s) - the Cinema House. Moscow and International Film Festivals were held here, premieres of new films were held, creative evenings of famous film actors were held. Later, a new building was built for the House of Cinema, and the newly created Film Actor Theater, which is located there now, returned to the premises on Povarskaya.

• Address Povarskaya street, 33, building 1

Residential building of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR (Narkomfin)

Architects M.Ya. Ginzburg, I.F. Milinis, engineer S.L. Prokhorov, 1928–1932

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/janelle

People's Commissar for Finance of the RSFSR Nikolai Milyutin was an admirer of the work of the leader of the architectural life of the 1920s, Moses Ginzburg. At one time they lived in the house of Gosstrakh, and then, when in 1932 the house of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR (Narkomfin) was built on Novinsky Boulevard, they again became neighbors.

The project of the Narkomfin building was developed by M.Ya. Ginzburg together
with architect I.F. Milinis by order of Milyutin. Officially, their new work was called the "2nd House of the Council of People's Commissars", since at the time of its design, the "1st House of the Council of People's Commissars", known as the "House on the Embankment", was already being erected.

Photo: Flickr/qwz The creators of the Narkomfin building used standard apartments in their project, then they were called "cells", emphasizing the democratism of the idea itself. They were developed by members of the typification section of the Stroykom of the RSFSR, headed by Ginzburg, a fanatic of ultra-modern and mass housing.

A canteen and a library were designed in a special building with an overhead passage from the residential building. A kindergarten and a “mechanical” self-service laundry were supposed to appear nearby. A dormitory was designed on the flat roof-terrace of the residential building. The architects planned that the entire complex would be of a "transitional type". At that time, there was a discussion about the complete socialization of everyday life and about communal houses as a real prospect. However, there were still separate apartments here.

Unlike communal houses, the design of the Narkomfin House is based on the idea of ​​creating a comfortable living environment. Many of the apartments were on two levels, with a high common room-living room and compact bedrooms.

Each apartment always had a restroom, but the kitchen was turned into a kind of closet, as residents were called to eat in the dining room.

Photo: Flickr/qwz The architects managed to arrange the two-level apartments into a single building in such an unusual way that it interested even Le Corbusier himself, who visited the Narkomfin building and personally visited Milyutin's apartment in 1929. The fact is that the main volume of the building is filled with cells “F”, minimal in area, designed for 1–2 people (with shower cabins and compact kitchen elements), access to them was from the upper corridor. And from the lower corridor, the doors led to cells "K", bigger size, with two bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms. At the ends of the residential building there are relatively spacious cells of the “2F” type (cells “F” connected in pairs, Ginzburg himself lived in one of them). In fact, there were non-standard apartments on each floor, at the ends of the corridors, in total there were eleven options for residential cells, including a concierge room, a “studio” on the top floor, a hostel on the roof and Milyutin’s own apartment.

The common room in all cases was almost twice as high as the bedrooms - about 4.8 m and 2.25 m, respectively. This made it possible to arrange the residential building itself in an unusual way. As a result, some apartments (lower "F") can be reached from the corridor by going down the internal stairs to the common room, while others (upper "F") can be reached by going up. Thus, it was possible to avoid the repetition of corridors on each floor and make the apartments bright.

The main acquisition of the residents of the new house was a double-height living room. In it, as in a social club, all daily life took place, while in the bedrooms only a bed, a chair, a bedside table were placed. As about their counterparts, Ginzburg wrote about the cabins of the steamer and the compartment of the sleeping car.

Externally, the Narkomfin House was one of the first implementations of all five principles modern architecture Le Corbusier: frame house on poles, free plan, free façade, ribbon windows, roof-terrace. Therefore, it is often called the prototype of the no less famous Marseille residential unit - a house with basic service facilities, which was built in 1949-1957 according to the project of Le Corbusier. However, an architectural solution more similar to the Marseille block was proposed in 1927 by Leningrad architects K.A. Ivanov, A.A. Ol and A.I. Ladinsky. It was a competitive project for a residential building with a corridor inside the building, between mirrored double-height common rooms and bedrooms.

The walls of the Moscow house are made of lightweight Krestyanin blocks, molded right on the construction site according to the system of the reputable engineer S.L. Prokhorov. He also used here a number of non-industrial, but available at that time materials, such as reeds. The walls in the apartments were not covered with wallpaper, but were smoothly painted. Warm ranges of colors for some apartments and cold colors for others were selected by specialists from the Bauhaus.

Milyutin, apparently, designed his apartment on the roof-terrace of the residential building himself after the creation of the main frame of the residential building, when a hostel adjoining his apartment was still being built there (he also rearranged it simultaneously with the design of the apartment). The living room had a dark blue ceiling, and gray and blue walls alternated, accentuating the mezzanine ledges and reminiscent of a cubist painting. The penthouse was decorated with furniture made according to his own sketches.

Photo: Flickr/qwz How passionate the customer of the house was about the reorganization of life can be seen from his texts. “A significant rise in the living standards of the workers and the development of socialized forms of servicing the everyday needs of the working people (public catering, nurseries, kindergartens, clubs, etc.) are gradually destroying the significance of the family as an economic unit. This process will inevitably lead, ultimately, to a complete alteration of family forms of hostel,” Milyutin wrote. The main thing for him was the economic result of this process: “The task of emancipating women from petty household and its involvement in production forces us to resolve the issue of all-round assistance to this process. But, as always, the public bloc did not act as intended. The dining room functioned as a kitchen, and Ginzburg's workshop, as they thought temporarily, took the place of a kindergarten, for which a special building was never built.

In practice, due to the cramped living quarters, the residents suffered, but stubbornly refused to eat together. As families grew and bedrooms were small, living rooms were also used as bedrooms. Therefore, even before the completion of construction, in 1929, a project was developed for the second building of the Narkomfin building, which ended up in Milyutin's book "Sotsgorod". This never built hull would have been much more comfortable. Despite the realities of our climate, it even proposed to arrange loggia-gardens, as Le Corbusier did in his projects.

• Address Novinsky Boulevard, 25, building 1

Moscow planetarium

Architects M.O. Barshch, M.I. Sinyavsky, engineers A.K. Govve, P.Ya. Smirnov, 1927–1929

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/julia_sanchez

It was the first building of its kind in the USSR, but it had western, mostly German counterparts.

Photo: Flickr/mothlike The high dome of the planetarium has a diameter of 28 meters and is the thinnest reinforced concrete shell, only 12 cm thick at the bottom and 6 cm at the top. Beneath this unique shell is a second, inner layer of metal frame that holds the surface to display the starry sky (Network system). The dome encloses a round auditorium for 1440 people, and even lower - a foyer, a vestibule with cash desks and a cloakroom. From the outside, this constructivist building looks quite pragmatic: the blank surfaces of the dome, rounded stair towers and vertical walls are combined with banded glazing of openings with metal bindings.

“The theater is still nothing more than a building in which worship takes place ... Our theater should be different. It should instill in the viewer a love of science. The planetarium is an optical science theater and is one of the types of our theater. People don't play in it.
but they control the most technically complex apparatus in the world,” wrote Aleksey Gan, author of the book Constructivism, with pathos.

Photo: RIA Novosti“The planetarium is one of the most complex and amazing instruments of our time. Roughly speaking, this is a system of a large number (119) of projection lamps, each of which is in independent motion and projects separately a planet or a group of stars onto a white hemisphere screen that overlaps the auditorium, which, in complete darkness, gives the perfect impression of the firmament of heaven with people moving along it. planets, the Sun, the Moon and other luminaries,” wrote the editors of the Modern Architecture magazine about this innovation, developed by the Carl Zeiss company and specially ordered for Moscow. A draft design of the Moscow Planetarium, developed at the suggestion of the Glavnauka of the People's Commissariat of Education, and photographs of the almost completed planetarium, a symbol of the victory of the scientific way of thinking, were also published here. It was noted that “only part of the entire structure has been completed. In the near future, it is planned to complete the construction of an astronomical museum, a library, an auditorium and an observatory.” Far from the whole plan was completed, but on the territory around the planetarium, devices for observing nature were placed, as well as numerous posters dedicated to astronomy.

In the 2000s, the planetarium was reconstructed according to the project
A.V. Anisimov, one of the authors of the new building of the Moscow Theater
on Taganka. In the course of it, the architectural monument was treated not too tactfully. The planetarium was “torn off” from the ground and raised six meters to accommodate a number of new rooms below, and the roof was completely redone (initially the dome was insulated with cork and sphagnum). The rare German projector was also replaced.

• Address Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya street, 5

The building of the editorial office of the newspaper "Izvestia"

Architect G.B. Barkhin, with the participation of I.A. Zvezdin engineer A.F. Loleit, 1925–1927

Photo: RIA Novosti

The building of the editorial office and printing house of the newspaper Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is the most significant work of Grigory Barkhin, the founder of a whole dynasty of architects. It has been designed since 1925.

Photo: pastvu.com The Izvestiya House was built for the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution on Strastnaya Square, next to the monastery, which was demolished later, in the 1930s. The plot of not quite correct shape was occupied by two buildings: production and editorial. A block of stairs is placed between them, forming a courtyard inside the block. The facade of the editorial building overlooks the square. In the original version of the project, it was crowned with a tower of 12 floors, towering over the main six-story volume.

Grigory Barkhin, an academician since pre-revolutionary times, who did not join the groups of avant-garde architects, nevertheless very accurately understood the new style and created a masterpiece, arousing the envy of his fellow constructivists. According to an eyewitness, the architect Yu.Yu. Savitsky, despite the severity of the forms of the Izvestia House, they accused Barkhin of embellishment, pointing out that round windows did not meet lighting calculations.

Interestingly, Barkhin himself, who lived at the other end of the same square in the famous tenement house of the engineer E.R.K. Nirnsee (which was then the highest in Moscow), watched the construction from the comfort of the house, directly from the roof-terrace. Constant supervision has affected the very high quality of the building's finishes. For example, the finishing work was carried out by the same Italian masters as in the Museum of Fine Arts, using plaster with granite chips mixed into it.

The font composition on the blank wall of the upper floor "Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee" is carelessly smeared today. Initially, "the letters were mounted in bulk, with glazed milky glass on the front surface and internal lighting." Inscriptions, that is, the names of the magazines published here (“New World” and “Krasnaya Nov”), were decorated in a similar way. They were supposed to decorate the two lower long balconies, but in the end they were not installed. In the daytime font composition attracted attention with white and gold letters, green and black squares were inserted into the white dial of the watch.

Photo: pastvu.com The Moscow Architectural Institute Museum has a drawing of the lobby of the Izvestia House with bright red walls; the red-orange cinnabar coloring of the profiles framing the snow-white floor slabs was combined with dark gray beams and columns. The floors were made of xylolite, a special magnesian cement. IN office space they were green, yellow, dark red, black, and light parquet was laid in the editorial halls. According to A.G. Barkhina, big role to express the completeness of the interiors, specially drawn signs of floors and rooms played, large written in black and red letters and numbers in chopped font, that is, the architect did everything - from large to small, was both an architect and a designer.

Later, in the 1970s, the spectacular corner of the Izvestia House was built up with a new building for the editorial office of this newspaper, designed by Yu.N. Sheverdyaev.

The spiral ramp fixes the corner of the block with its cylindrical volume. Inside the yard formed by him, there is another ramp-bridge that connects the garage with other garage buildings. They were placed along the street on the site of the former carriage sheds, thanks to which the street got its name.

Photo: moscowhite.livejournal.com The architect preserved the manor house of the 19th century, where P.P. Ilyin, and led out into the street only a narrow part of the entrance gate with a spiral ramp effectively hanging over them. Such an expressive form emphasizes the modernity of the building against the backdrop of the development of historical Moscow. The dynamics of the movement of cars is transmitted not only by the ramp, but also by the building, standing along the smooth bend of the alley, along which the garage is stretched. On the winding line leading from the gate and the ramp, there are vast spaces for cars covered with steel trusses. The second ramp, exit, is hidden in the courtyard of the mansion, a ramp was attached to it, leading to the adjacent garage building, built after 1934 according to a different project.

The complex architectural form is complemented by unusually shaped openings that were fashionable at that time: ribbon openings illuminating the ramp, a vertical staircase window and large round windows of the administrative premises on the second floor. Now the car depot of the Office of the President is located in the garage.

• Address Karetny Ryad Street, 2

Central building of Novosukharevskiy market

Architect K.S. Melnikov, 1924–1926

Photo: Wikipedia

An unusual triangular building, today standing alone in the depths of the quarter, was built in 1924 in the center of a large complex of the Novosukharevsky market. Its shape is dictated by the layout of the site, to the center of which several lanes converged. The architect built up a large area with wooden stalls, connected in "lines" of different lengths; in total there were ninety-eight such "lines". He wrote: "Two thousand trading places, and all corners." The fact is that the architect, realizing the advantage of the angular position of the trays, placed them with an offset relative to each other, thereby forming a “saw” in the plan. "Lines" placed under different angles, formed inner streets - straight and curvilinear, the widest of which flowed around the triangle of the central building. By the way, initially the author thought to make it in the form of a cylinder.

"Scheme of centralization and the shortest distances from the entrances" - such a signature is under the complex master plan of the market. Despite the decorative appearance, its layout turned out to be very practical.

The central building of the market housed an office and a tavern with access to the roof-terrace. The corner leading to the middle of the square is cut off, and there is an entrance to a spacious hall on the first floor, on the sides of which, along the side walls of the triangle, there are office premises. The two far corners are occupied by stairs. The facades are decorated with large pylons, emphasizing the brick structure of the building, the window piers were painted dark, focusing on the edges of the pylons. Despite the apparent symmetry of the triangular shape, all three facades of the two-story building are different. The façade with a round window of the tavern staircase is notable. Its roof was flat, it housed an open terrace, and in the middle stood a kind of superstructure with a pipe - together with a round window, they gave the building the appearance of a steamer.

• Address Bolshoi Sukharevsky per. 9

The book "Architecture of Moscow during the NEP and the First Five-Year Plan", Restoration H / ABC Design, Moscow, 2014, has already been published and is sold in city stores. The presentation of the guide will take place on July 13 at Chitalkafe.

Walking with a child is an opportunity to be together, talk, talk heart to heart. This is an accessible way of communication even for a very busy person - after all, you can always find a little time to walk with your son or daughter through the park, embankment or old city streets. begins to collect places and their stories suitable for such rendezvous walks.

In the very center of the capital there is a place where you can take a walk, and breathe in the spirit of antiquity, along with the bohemian spirit, and pray with all your heart. This is Bryusov Lane.

Street on the river

And as soon as this ancient (even the oldest) corner of our capital, covered with all sorts of legends and all sorts of conversations, was not called ... And Uspensky enemy, and Vrazhsky lane - there were never any enemies here, but from "enemies", it became be, the name, simply a ravine (well, how funny these toponyms are, how much sometimes unexpected and even funny lies in them - historical, of course, too) ...

In this enemy there flowed a rivulet - so small that it didn’t even have a name. It still flows today, but only underground, hidden more than two hundred years ago in a pipe. On excursions, children are told mainly about the Neglinka, which flows in a pipe dungeon. But how many nameless, like this, rivers, streams and streams flow underground. Do not count!

photosight.ru Photo: Tatiana Tsyganok

And this lane is also known as Voskresensky, since the Church of the Resurrection of the Word has been standing here since the beginning of the 17th century. First wooden, then stone - it burned more than once, but never closed. Never! Even in the terrible Stalinist times of persecution of the church. And this despite the fact that the temple is located just a few hundred meters from Red Square and the Kremlin. Truly the Lord has preserved!

From the middle of the 18th century Bryusov lane became. For a hundred years the glorious Bryus family had already lived here, having moved to Muscovy, to serve the Russian sovereign, still the “quietest” Alexei Mikhailovich, from England. The first was Yakov Vilimovich Bruce, a descendant of the kings of Scotland and a military man. His son was also a soldier. At first, the grandson also went along the same path - also Yakov Vilimovich Bruce - from an early age he was an associate of the future Tsar Peter the Great.

However, later Yakov Vilimovich became a purely scientific person. Knowing several languages, having studied maritime affairs, he was also a connoisseur of painting, collected a unique library and the richest herbarium. But astrology, they say, did not disdain. And even - shh! - sorcery. Moscow legend says that the first Russian Freemason flew through the air from his home to the Sukharev Tower (which was built by Yakov Bruce in order to watch the stars). That's just how he flew, on what? .. Then, after all, there were no balloons either. It is only known that he moved around at night. When no one saw...

The last of the Bryusov estate, nephew of Yakov Vilimovich, Count Alexander, was neither able to fly, nor to spy on the heavenly bodies ... However, he managed to participate in a considerable number of campaigns, rise to the rank of lieutenant general and even become vice-governor of Moscow.

So who is the street named after? And here's a question for you. Guess yourself.

Much later, this street was called by the name of Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova, the famous Russian singer and once the first soprano of the Bolshoi Theater. But this is not for long, just over thirty years - from the 62nd to the 94th year of the last century. However, even then the alley that connects the main Tverskaya with the chamber Bolshaya Nikitskaya in just five minutes on foot was called by Muscovites in the old fashioned way "Bryusov". And 20 years ago, the street was returned to her historical name. And, we dare to hope, now forever.

Shadows of the past

The unforgettable performer of the now almost forgotten romance Nadezhda Andreevna Obukhova also lived on this street. "Shadows of the Past" - uncomplicated words of an urban romance - she, like no one else, knew how to turn into a short, but always surprisingly lively story of someone's deep feelings. From here, from house number 7, the “queen of the Russian romance” is perhaps the only opera singer with a unique mezzo-soprano who could sing old romance in a salon (and not in a classical) manner - she left for the Bolshoi Theater. On opera stage Obukhov reigned as sovereignly as in the music salon.

Yes, house number 7 ... The largest, perhaps, in Bryusovo ... and certainly the most glorious. House of Artists of the Bolshoi Theatre. The main theater of the country.

“Shadows of the Past” were also sung in a duet in this house. An old chronicle brought to us a half-worn record of a romance sung by Obukhova in the company of the first tenor of the country, Ivan Kozlovsky, in the apartment of Antonina Vasilievna Nezhdanova. The apartment, however, had already become a museum at that time (quite soon after the death of the legendary singer) and TV shows of the good old-fashioned genre were periodically broadcast from here in the power of “it was, it was ..”. And although now it may seem quite unbelievable, but ... It really happened. And it doesn't seem like it's been that long...

In the invariably tidy front garden outside the house, the famous bass Mark Reisen strolled in a huge white hat - rather wide-brimmed and ancient, but at the same time somehow never dilapidated and always fashionable. Elegant and handsome to a ripe old age, Reizen took the Bolshoi stage for the last time at the age of 90 to sing Gremin's aria in Eugene Onegin. And what? .. The voice sounded like never before!

Basically, house 7 was inhabited by opera houses. Alexander Pirogov - he marvelously knew how to hide his short stature when he sang his crown Boris in Mussorgsky's opera; Bronislava Zlatogorova - famous not only for her deep mezzo, but also for a fair collection of antique furniture; Elizaveta Shumskaya is the virtuoso Violetta from La Traviata and Kozlovsky's favorite partner...

The tenor himself, before last days protecting his unique voice with a warm scarf in any weather, at the same time, under no circumstances did he shy away from everyday exercise. Walks - half an hour, no more - were made hand in hand with the faithful housekeeper Nina Feodosyevna - from home to the Church of the Resurrection. They say sometime famous singer he sang here and on the kliros, together with Nezhdanova... They say... But he was a faithful parishioner. That's for sure. And the artist himself was buried by the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and Yuryevsky Pitirim - another legend of Bryusov Lane.

Tall and stately, with jet-black hair (and then white as a harrier), a handsome man who was the honorary rector of the temple, he came to serve on Sundays (and sometimes on weekdays) and was always surrounded by a host of annoying admirers. They annoyed Vladyka in the pre-perestroika period by attracting too much attention for the Soviet times to the hierarchical person. And then, when the times changed and those who should have watched the persons of the clergy, it was no longer necessary - and the admirers of the lord became very old. The circle began to dissolve and sadly thinned out. Old women, regardless of gender and rank, gradually left for another world. And in 2003, Vladyka himself also left. Ten years after Kozlovsky's death. And Bryusov Lane by that time had already changed quite a lot ...

... There are no others anymore ... And memorial plaques remind me of those who lived here in scanty lines ... The most terrible is at house number 12. Director Vsevolod Meyerhold, a great theatrical dreamer and experimenter, lived here. Putting Bulanova from Ostrovsky's "Forest" on her head a green wig, true friend and an adherent of the Soviet regime, he was ruthlessly destroyed by the same regime.

His board is adjacent to the memorial of Sophia Giacintova. The actress was not only the first star of the Theater. Lenin Komsomol, but also a passion that faithfully served the Soviet regime. Lucky, however, Sofya Vladimirovna much more than Vsevolod Emilievich. They say because the actress managed to be in right time in the right place and play the role of the mother of Lenin himself, which allowed Giacintova to live comfortably until almost 90 years old, without leaving the theater stage.

House of Artists in Bryusovo. Photo: Alexander Ivanov.

Hello new life...

And what is in Bryusovo now?

The famous artist Nikas Safronov moved to these parts to roam the roof of his apartment at night. Known for his various escapades, the minister of muses bought several dwellings at once at house number 17, in which the most famous ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater Ekaterina Vasilievna Geltser, a friend of Marshal Mannerheim, once lived.

They say that the legendary military leader even in Soviet times, crossing the border incognito (oh, how romantic!), came from Finland, which by that time he ruled and ruled, to look at his enchantress. Now half of Geltser's apartment is occupied by another ballerina - Ilze Liepa, who named her cat Vaska, or rather Vasilievna, in honor of the patronymic of Mannerheim's great passion.

Another sign of the new time - only inanimate - a monument to Mstislav Rostropovich. The great and, as always, very concentrated cellist was seated at the instrument in the corner of the square by the ubiquitous Alexander Rukavishnikov. He sat me down right opposite the entrance to the temple, which the musician, by the way, really liked to go to.

Another celestial is looking at Rostropovich from another square. Composer Aram Khachaturian. Both lived here nearby, in the House of Composers. It was built already in the 50s, next to the artists' cooperative. And some - from the first generation of inhabitants - can still be found here. Here, for example, Lyudmila Lyadova ...

And so - the tribe is young, unfamiliar ... Near the House of Composers, they built some kind of cube of an incomprehensible design. Either a cube, or a parallelepiped, or ... Nervous multi-colored graffiti on the wall ... And house 19 - one of the most elegant buildings on the street, a hundred years ago, protected by the state - was demolished. Putting mediocre glass "tower" with a basement for foreign cars. They say that people live in it too ...

Heavenly helpers

Let's go to the temple for the last time. Before the icon of the Mother of God “Search for the Lost”, parents have long been praying for their lost children, crying in front of the icon of the Heavenly Intercessor so that the Lord would return understanding to negligent students.

This icon came here from the Church of the Nativity in Palashi, where Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergey Efron once got married in front of it. And she had to endure a lot of trials - and she was smashed to pieces by Napoleonic soldiers, and burned - after a ruined widower nobleman with three daughters once brought her to the church. The legend says that left a beggar with three teenage children, he was in extreme despair, and the Mother of God remained his only hope. From last strength he prayed in front of the icon, and when he gave his daughters in marriage, he transferred the shrine to the temple.

And before the ancient image of St. Nicholas they pray. He is always the first assistant to students. And they turn to Spridon, the Trimifuntsky miracle worker ...

Gorgots Ilya. Bryusov lane. Watercolor.

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... And it is better to enter Bryusov Lane from Tverskaya. And do not even enter, but enter ... For the street opens with a "triumphal" arch with powerful granite columns. It's like stepping into a solemn ballroom. And - so much space, history, life in front of you ...

Let's go in!..

Entrance to Bryusov. Photo: artema-lesnik.livejournal.com