Album 274
(Translated by
Ekaterina Ivanova)
In this and the next few albums, we will
continue our tour along the Stachek avenue, which
we didn't get a chance to finish last
time, at the Park January 9th.
This time we will walk all the way to Avtovo metro
station, and even a little bit farther, so we can take a look
at the newly built viaduct.
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The majority of the buildings in this
area are residential; roughly, they were built
between 1930 and 1950. Speaking in politically correct terms -
this is the period of Neoclassicism, it is
also known as "Stalin's empire" The general scheme of the Stachek
avenue was designed by an architect L.Ilyinm,
who at the time was the chief architect of Leningrad. N. Trotsky
offered an alternate plan for the
development of the avenue, but it was rejected
because it suggested a complete overturn of the existing
district.
These two houses on the left (26 and 28) were designed by
V.A.Kamenskii. In particular, the one with a
tower was designed together with A.V.
Mondzalevkii and was built in 1950's. |
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Here we can see three same-style houses
32, 34, 36.
They were designed by three female architects:
G.L. Ashrapyan, O.S. Yakovleva and V.A.
Kardakova. Before these houses were established,
there was a side-walk of the Stachek avenue on
that same place, i.e. the street was wider
before, than it is now.
School #30, some other building that was built
at about the same time, and some houses from
earlier in the century look as if they are hidden
behind, because of the three houses. |
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Building #32 up-close.
Since back then, designers and architects aimed to
widen the streets, rather then narrow them
down, one can conclude that in this way they
consciously tried to break down "the display of foreign
constructivism". |
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Building #34 - on the right. The arches
that are attached on the sides of the buildings are images of the
tendency of that time's architecture, which can be outlined this
way: "the buildings are ought to be spatially
connected with each other". There were opponents
to this point of view, who said that there's no need to build the
arches and to waist scarce materials. |
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On the other side of the street there's a building #33. This is an
earlier construction, it was built in 1920's and the style is
constructivism. The architects are A.S. Nikolski, A.I.Gheghello,
D.L.krichevski, G.A.Simonov. |
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The corner of Stachek avenue and Ogorodni cross street. There's a house
#42 on the right. It was designed by the
same architects and was built at the
same time. Historically speaking, this place is called
"Seraphimovski site". |
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House #40. As I was suggested, this is a building of 1950's, because
only at this time we are starting to have ceramic
slabs on the fronts of the buildings and only at
this time the sizes of the windows are beginning to standardize.
(here we can see the typical window size, that was used for
building later, at Stalin's time, and had a
serial number of 1-405). |
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House #46. The architect is V.A.Kamenski,
whom I had mentioned above
already. |
| Same house, but from a different
perspective. |
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This building is much older than we've
seen before, #45. It is known as a country-estate "Kir'yanovo" (before
it was called "Kir i
Ioannovo")
Apparently, it was a built according to the scheme by D.Kvarenghi in
1783-1784. |
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The owner of the estate was princess E.R.Dashkova. She was the
president of both Russian Academy of
Sciences and The Academy of Sciences of
St.-Petersburg. There's an unauthorized version, that the
estate was built according to her own scheme. |
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Since 1975 this estate functions as a Palace for Nuptials. |
| There used to be a park behind the
estate, but it did not live long enough for us to
see (it was destroyed in the early 19th century).
On the left you can see the a few buildings of
Kirovski factory. |
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In front of the factory there are "new" buildings of the factory, the
construction of which was aborted during perestroika. |
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In 1870's there was a Putilovskaya railway which was connecting
Kirovski factory with other factories of
the city and with the primary thoroughfares. |
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This is the beginning of the Kirovski factory, which occupies a vast
territory - as far as the Ekateringhovka
River. The fence, presumably, was built in 1950's. |
| This is the emblem of this factory -
letter "K" in the center of a gear-wheel. |
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A little deviation from the factory theme
- right across the street there is an old
building #48, the building of Mr.Boghomolov, 1872) |
| Coming back to the factory... Since
1801, cast iron industry was using the territory (it was moved from
Kronshtadt). Starting in 1868, it was renamed as "Putilovski",
since the owner was N.I.Putilov. By the end of
the 19th century this factory was the biggest
metallurgical factory in Russia.
Therefore, the number of workers employed was big.
During the revolutions of 1905-1917, they played an important role in
the revolutionary movement. Starting in October
1917, they were assembling armoured trains to
protect Petrograd (St.-Petersburg) from "White
Guards".
Skipping a little bit further into the century (next album) - the
commissar of that armoured
train, which was assembled in October was I.I.Ghaza - one
of the workers of Putilovski factory). |
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On December 27, 1917 the factory was
nationalized and starting in 1922 it
was renamed "Krasni Putilovets" ("Red Putilovets"). From this
time on they produced
metal ware for Volhovskaya hydroelectric power station.
In 1923-1924 they started to produce tractors
"Fordzone-putilovets" for the
first time in USSR.
In 1930's - hoisting cranes, train cars, train bays.In 1934 the
factory was renamed Kirovski again, in the memory of
S.M.Kirov.
During the war the factory was partially moved to Ural.
After the war they started to produce turbines for atomic-powered
vessels, landrovers, tractors "Kirovets",
and of course, tanks. |
| If we take into consideration what we
hear from people in publics vehicles,
and what we hear from friends, we can conclude that prsently the
factory almost doesn't function. Of
course, no one is planning to close the factory down, considering the
number of workers employed by the factory.
Nominally, the factory is now open joint-stock
company. |
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Show-room of the Kirovski factory. It
was constructed in front of the entrace check-point in 1999-2000.
I should take a note, that it inscribed rather well into the scheme
of the area... Even though, other opinions exist
:) |
| "There was no time in the history of
revolutionry movement in Russia, when the name of
the mighty putilovski worker was not heard".
S.M.Kirov |
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The Stachek avenue is now a very busy
street. In addition, in some places it is clearly
felt that there are some ecological problems, because of the exhaust
gases of the cars. |
| Metro station "Kirovski
Zavod" ("Kirovski Factory"). This building
somewhat reminds one of the most popular buildings in USA
-
memorial of
Lincoln in Washington (it is pictured on a five-dollar bill). It
is being known, that originally in the space between the entrance and the
exit, there was supposed to be statue (talhough, not in sitting
position, like Linclon's).
If anyone at the time would pay attention to this
building and draw parallels to the memorial in
USA, then the life of the architect could have
mysteriously been ended :) |
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The station was opened for public use in
1955, it was built according to the plan by A.K.Andreev. |
| If we pay attention to the doors and
windows, we can see some similarities in decoration with metro station "Narvskaya",
although the two buildings are entirely different. |
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