Shukhov Tower to Be Built Down?

I started this blog with a story about the Shukhov Tower (http://lovemsc.blogspot.com/2013/12/shukhov-tower-we-start-off-exploring.html).

If you haven’t read/visited it yet, it may be a high time to do so as the tower may be pulled down for a revamp, the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media said Tuesday.

A cultural property site protected by the state, The Shukhov Tower has long been in urgent need of repair due to corrosion in all its units and elements as well as issues with its foundation. Back in 2010, a RUB 135 M budget was allocated for renovation of the tower, but officials of the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Culture never approved the revamp project leaving the tower to corrode.

Now the Shukhov Tower is so damaged that it can simply “fall on people’s heads”, Aleksey Volin, Deputy Head at the Ministry of Communication said. “We will disassemble it, lubricate all the little parts and put them into a warehouse. It will be possible to reassemble it where authorities decide. In any case demounting is a necessary stage of any renovation”, he continued.

The government officials are already considering a disassembling project worth RUB 119 M, Izvestia reports.

In my articles, I really try to avoid mentioning any kind of discouraging details of the poor state of things for many cultural sites here in Russia, although there are a lot of sad stories to recall. As an art lover, I live with constant anxiety for them, but it is not the kind of stories most tourists would like to hear. And more importantly, there is still so much to adore and gasp at in amazement! But you can see it yourself, it is highly possible that you adore some sites one day and find them in shambles or in another place the other day.

So I’m concerned, really concerned.

 

 

 

 

Art Noveau Church In Freezing Moscow

January is dragging to the end, inevitably, but extremely slowly, and to make things worse, it’s been bitterly cold. Moscow is frozen, moving reluctantly, and walking anywhere feels more uncomfortable than anything else. It’s a time to wrap yourself up in warm fluffy scarves, cook mulled wine and ginger Pu-erh.

With a winter spell on me, I feel like the rest of the city, numb in the cold, and writing is slow and painful. I’ve been long flirting with the idea to start a cycle of stories on Moscow art noveau; in fact, I have started translating a major article about art noveau in Moscow that I wrote for Code de Vino Magazine last autumn. But so far the struggle has been unequal, and the article is not yet ready.

But as I was feeling compelled to write of at least something, a brilliant attraction right beside my office came to my rescue. It’s in two minutes’ walk, and it’s absolutely adorable.

So meet the Old Believers' Church of Intercession of Theotokos.

Well, not that I can always really remember names of Russian churches, especially given that the names in Russian sound complex and solemn, and have hidden meanings that affect translation. This particular name (Церковь Покрова Пресвятой Богородицы, Tserkov Pokrova Presvyatoy Bogoroditsy) is very widespread in Russia; it can also be rendered as the Church of the Veil of Our Lady, since Pokrov in its original meaning is actually a veil that in the Orthodox tradition the Virgin spread over the craving people. I personally prefer to remember location, not names. The Church address is Maly Gavrikov Lane 29, and it’s close to Baumanskaya metro station.

 Google Maps

 

 

Yandex Maps

 

This cleared up, there is another fact that is worth a special comment. The church used to belong to an Old Believers’ community, Old Believers being a branch of the official orthodox religion. For centuries their belief was outlawed, and at the same time a lot of prosperous merchants and talented people practiced it in total secret. When the Old Believers were eventually inlawed in 1905, a cultural explosion followed, and we can now admire masterpieces created by or for them.

First decade of the 19^th century was a time when art noveau blossomed. In Russia, art noveau is called modern, and there are a lot of the style varieties. In our case this is the so-called “northern modern”, a term recognised only in Russia, its next-of-kin being the National Romantic style typical to the Scandinavian countries.

As you can see on the photos, northern modern features shapes and patterns one can see in northern architecture and nature. Shapes are bulky, colours are subdued, and only coloured maiolica is used in abundance to cover the onion domes. Textures contrast each other, forms vary, and the whole building appears as a fairy-tale cloud hovering above the frozen cement underneath, hidden among blocks of flats.  

And here’s the architect, Ilya Bondarenko.

 

He was a pioneer of northern modern and an eminent Russian architect. He is the author or co-author of more than 50 buildings of varied scale and application. After the Revolution of 1917, he focused his efforts mainly on museum management and preservation and restoration activities.

The church I’m describing was laid down in 1909. It was the first church in Moscow to be built of reinforced concrete, with abundant decoration and precious icons inside. The domes are covered with maiolica slates, and somehow they resemble snake’s scales, a telltale art noveau symbol.

 

In the Soviet time the church bells and crosses were dismounted, and currently the church hosts a gym and a boxing training center.

 

Finally, a couple of pictures of the surrounding old houses dating back most likely to the 18^th century.

 

The City Logic: Finding Your Way Around

Moscow is ranked 15th in the world’s top 20 largest cities. With its population officially exceeding 11.5 million people (2010 Census, and unofficially judging by the food consumption and the traffic related figures, the real figure totals around 20 million), its metropolitan area reaching 870 km2, and history extending over nine centuries, Moscow may be a real challenge for tourists who want to see a bit more than the usual attractions. And it’s not that Red Square and the Kremlin are not interesting to visit, it’s just that to feel the city you have to walk around. And to know where to go in Moscow you have to understand the city layout.
 

 

Well, it’s not really complicated. As in many other old cities, take Paris or Athens or Rome for instance, the historical centre of Moscow lies in the centre. Simple, right? J
 
It’s important to understand the main city-forming principle: Moscow started as a small patch of land on the Brorvitsky Hill, and it grew in size throughout its whole history in all directions. And since nomad raids were a constant danger in the Middle Ages, there was also a constant need for fortification works around the city. Each new district meant construction of a new protection wall. At the same time, there were roads that led out of the city centre to the major cities of the time, again in all directions. They were named after these cities, and the places where the roads met the walls were fortified by gates.
 

 

 

As time went by, some inner walls were more of an obstacle for transport, and they were pulled down and replaced by boulevards, and squares replaced the gates. This is how the city concentric and radial layout took its shape and was supported, already in the modern history, by construction of the largest highways Third Ring Road and Moscow Ring Road (MKAD).

Going a little more in detail and all the more in pictures, let’s look into the most ancient city district, the Kremlin. It lies on the Brorvitsky Hill at the confluence of the Moskva and the Neglinnaya River (the latter runs currently beneath the ground). Although most history books give 1147 as the year Moscow was first mentioned in the ancient history records, it is evident that Moscow is much older. Archaeological digs revealed that people lived here as early as in the Bronze Age (II century BC). The place was convenient to settle in: water ways provided food and transport, the hill rising above the surrounding valleys gave a nice overview and made it difficult for the enemy to come unnoticed.

 

 

The fortification wall Moscovites built around the Kremlin was first of wood, subsequently of white stone and then of bricks (more or less the way we know the Kremlin now).
 

       

 

 

  

Let’s look at the engraved map of the 1630^th and compare it to the current map of Moscow. Here the Kremlin territory is marked in red.

   

The thick mighty walls gave shelter and confidence and attracted more and more new settlers. In XIV Moscow (= Kremlin) could not house all those willing to come, and a new district appeared. It’s called Kitay-gorod in Russian (see in yellow on the maps), and it was occupied first by nobility and then by merchants as shopping arcades and the city exchange opened in the area.
 

 

 

Moscow Exchange, currently Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
 

 

Bely Gorod used to be a district where nobility in the Tsar’s service lived. If translated literally, Bely Gorod is White Town, and the name presumably reflects the fact that the noble residents were exempt of the land tax and occupied “white” land in terms of the XVI century Russia. The district was also surrounded by a brick wall painted white. According to the 1775 city development plan, only stone houses could be built in Kitay-Gorod and Bely Gorod. This largely contributed to the safety of the many houses erected then till our time. 

 

 

 

Zemlyanoy Gorod, literally translated as Earthworks Town, was regarded as suburbs till the end of XVI. Initially it was a scarcely populated rural area of monasteries and villages, later an area of where the town craftsmen settled. It was separated from Bely Gorod by a stone wall with gates (exactly as was the case with Kitay-gorod), and from the rest of the world by an earth wall. However, very soon this area was added to Moscow territories and built up with stone houses, the wall was demolished and replaced by a the Garden Ring. Later on, the district witnessed a real building boom after 1860 as entrepreneur activity thrived, and 4- or 5-storeyd tenement buildings and houses of well-to-do businessmen sprouted like mushrooms after the summer rains.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, as we can see, these city parts are the oldest, and despite all the changes that Moscow has undergone so far, there is still a lot of the very old times to discover. Explore!

Shukhov Tower: we start off exploring!

It rises up against the dark blue sky of the night city, mighty and slender, translucent and glowing golden. The charming intricacy of steel beams, the inviting character of the elegant constructivist design…

It might as well be the Eiffel Tower, but we’re in Moscow, and here it’s the Shukhov Tower, the seldom mentioned Moscow masterpiece. Let’s take a quick look…  

 

 

 

 … and go explore!

Well, that’s how it looks like on the city map.

This is Google Maps: 

And this is Yandex.Maps which I actually recommend to use if you can read Russian. Even if not, you can sometimes also drag some bits of useful information for your walk. The grey, orange and brown (or what is supposed to be brown) dots are the nearest metro stations to the indicated site. You can see the distance to them in light grey (“м” stands for meters, “км” for kilometers). 

 

 Yandex.Maps are Russia specific, maybe even Moscow specific, and therefore you will find much more places of attraction here than in Google, where I had to put the green arrow myself.

With this sorted out, our walk finally starts.

 

The metro station nearest to the tower is Shabolovskaya, Orange line. It was built in 1962, much later than the tower itself, but the constructivist features are easily detected. Check out the ceiling lamps design.  

 

And the stained glass wall panel depicting the Shukhov Tower.  

We go out to Shabolovka St. It is one of the oldest streets in Moscow, and since the streets used to be named after town they led to, so Shabolovka St. was named after the Shabolovka village. We can be quite certain that the street was already there back in mid XVIII, but it never was a major street. Before the XX century it was all wooden houses with gardens and orchards, some small changes happening closer to the end of the XIX century, when merchants chose to settle here in stone 3- or 4-floor houses. The XX century meant erection of a mechanical plant, a brewery, a tramway depot, and finally a radio/TV tower in the area. Still, the street is green and quiet. Well, maybe not that green in winter, but it has a very cosy feeling about it.

 

 

 

 

  

Now round the corner and to the left, and we can see the whole of it. The Shukhov or the Schabolovka Tower.  
 

 

 

The second name is much more in use, but to me the first variant is preferable. Because we owe it to him, to Vladimir Shukhov.

  

 
It’s incredible just to think how much he did for Russia, how outstandingly brilliant he was. A great engineer, he designed and supervised construction of the first Russian oil pipelines (hugely important for Russia, eh?), the first Russian oil treatment plant with oil cracking units, he invented and was the first to use hyperboloid structures in civil engineering. The tower in Moscow is just one example of these. Others include Air traffic control tower in Barcelona, Sydney Tower, Tower Infinity in Seoul, and… so many cooling towers typical of any city landscape.
 

He played a significant role in designing process, and though not an architect, he defined the style of many buildings in Russia and especially in Moscow through his input. Now that I’m thinking of it, these places deserve a separate post J

 

As Shukhov worked on the tower project in the early 1920s, the design height was 350 meters. The hyperboloid design of the tower implies that the tower is built of many hyperboloid sections consisting of many straight steel beams fixed to steel rings. As a result, the openwork grid structure is very lightweight, but resistant to high wind loads, which is a dominant load for tall buildings. If compared to the Eiffel Tower, one height unit of the Shukhov Tower required one third of the metal used for the tower in Paris. Unfortunately, due to the metal shortage during the Civil War, the smaller design was brought to life in 1922, with the tower reaching only 148.3 meters above the ground.

 

 

Unlike the Eiffel Tower, it was never meant to be a tourist attraction, and even now you can only walk around, which I did. But I can say every step is worth it, because it is so unmistakably Moscow-like! And it is so beautiful in December blizzard!

 

 
The floodlamps lighting the tower

 

 
The beastly cold Russian winter ;) 
  

Houses across the streets. One is constructivist, the other belongs to the late Khruschev – early Brezhnev era.  
 
 

 

It was a beautiful peaceful Moscow evening for me. Fancy a walk to see it yourself? J