An old money cabinet and a documentary film archive, cognac bottles with a curved neck from tsarist times and a collection of pre—war German chemistry books, a bust of Maxim Gorky and a painting by the artist Viktor Dubrovin, which he completely forgot about, are all on the list of historical finds of developers and architects
Most recently, in the Old English Courtyard on the territory of the capital’s Zaryadye Park, as part of the forum-festival “Territory of the Future. Moscow 2030” the exhibition “Finds in restoration” was held. What was not presented here!
Wooden letters that decorated the facade of the Pravda newspaper plant in the early 30s of the last century and, most likely, were then covered with gold leaf. The window sills of the same building, which, as a carefully conducted analysis showed, are fragments of the destroyed cathedral of Christ the Savior. The ceramic chandelier of the pavilion “Young Naturalists” found during restoration work at VDNH and the samples of minerals from the pavilion “Geology” that were considered lost. Letters, articles, poems, business cards — a huge archive, which, presumably, could belong to Vladimir Gilyarovsky. There are about 200 finds from 100 sites in total.
“There are many professions where the need for some standards, some mechanisms is opposed to creative search, the surprise of finds. And people, based on their lifestyle, are also divided into these two categories. Here we will present a construction site that is all built on clear rules written in blood. We love our builders. We understand that in order for the building to stand, certain rules must be strictly followed, and deviations are not welcome. And there is a restoration, which is very similar to a construction site. I bet you can’t tell a restorer from a builder from the outside. They are similar in their overalls. But the restoration consists precisely of surprises. A restorer, even with some very well-prepared project, often cannot predict what his professional fate will throw at him. And the more unexpected the find, the more interesting and pleasant it is for the restorer,” Leonid Kondrashev, First Deputy head of the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage, chief archaeologist of the capital, said at the opening of the exhibition.
The chief archaeologist of Moscow, Leonid Kondrashev. Photo: Yaroslav Chingaev / AGN “Moscow”
And that’s right, but it sounds insulting: it seems like representatives of the construction industry are not able to understand anything about subtle, unpredictable restoration matters, and from its high poetry, they, adherents of the rough prose of construction sites, should be kept at a distance so as not to mess up. Meanwhile, while following the “clear rules written in blood”, developers are also able to rejoice in the surprises in the form of historical finds, they are sincerely proud when this happens at their facilities, and they were happy to share with BFM.ru with his stories about “news from the past”, which can be funny, sad, and important — all sorts. Here are just some of the stories they told.
“160 meters from Red Square, we are working on a project that includes three buildings of former Warm Shopping malls with the status of cultural heritage sites. During the preparatory work, treasures of copper and silver coins (from 1790), copper crosses of the XIV century, a black-flattened jug of the XVIII century, braided with birch bark strips, were found on their territory. We have transferred these finds to the Museum of Moscow,” Samira Levshina, Vice President for Coordination at Sminex, begins the first of the stories.
By the way, elements of household utensils found during the reconstruction of the only wooden building on Dolgorukovskaya Street that survived the fire of 1812, the city estate of A. A. Petrovo—Solovovo – M. A. Shiller, were transferred to the Museum of Moscow and other museums of the city. The BEL Development company has been engaged in this work for several years. As its general director Elena Komissarova recalls, the restorers then sorted and numbered all the preserved parts of the log house, and the missing elements were restored using construction technologies of the XIX century, taking into account the location of each log.
Samira Levshina, Vice President for Coordination at Sminex, “Another of our windows is an ensemble of a park and four historical mansions. Here we found an old tin soldier, a 1924 newspaper, and other household items “from the past.” Or, for example, one of our club houses — a reconstructed building from 1915, the former apartment building of the Anchor insurance company. During the restoration of the historical pavilion next to the house, we discovered that the facades were lined with brick with the stamp “I” from the tsarist era. This connection with history is highly appreciated by our clients, and we always tell them about the artifacts found on the territory of the houses they are interested in.”
And here’s what Alexander Zilbert, director of information Policy and corporate Communications at LSR Group, recalls about the discovery of their company: “In 2011, during the restoration work of a cultural heritage site of regional significance at Nevsky Prospekt, 1, a money cabinet was discovered at the end of the XIX — early XX century. The product is decorated with the emblem of the double—headed eagle – a gratitude bestowed by the Imperial house to Franz Karlovich San Galli, at whose factory this safe was produced.”
A pre-revolutionary money cabinet found on the sixth floor of a historic building at Nevsky Prospekt, 1. Photo: press service of the LSR Group
According to the interlocutor BFM.ru The find itself is not surprising, because previously a private commercial bank was located in the first house on Nevsky Prospekt. Incredibly, the safe was found on the sixth floor! Such objects weigh up to a ton, and it is still unclear how it was able to be lifted there a hundred years ago. “In the 21st century, our engineers had to develop a special mechanism to lower the safe to the ground floor. It has been restored, now it is on display in the lobby, and anyone can see it,” Alexander Silbert emphasizes.
Alexander Silbert, Director of Information Policy and Corporate Communications at LSR Group, “We also found an interesting find during the analysis of the offices and industrial premises of the former Liviz plant. There was a whole film archive of the middle of the XX century. The films feature documentary footage about the life of a distillery: the operation of an automatic workshop line, the shipment of finished goods, the selection of products for export, the practical implementation of innovative ideas and proposals. Full-fledged films on a production theme! All the found films have been digitized. At the moment, we do not have specific plans for their further use, but I do not exclude that they will become an element of promoting the project in the future.”
During the study of the workshops of the Moscow-Alexandrovskaya Railway (the future semantic center of the new urban quarter of the capital), several finds happened at once. “In a workshop built in the 1900s, restorers found antique 19th-century white cast iron floors filled with concrete in Soviet times.
In order to preserve an important artifact, the slabs were cleared manually — restorers processed more than 5 thousand parts. During the restoration, some of them decorated the floors of the design space. After completion of the work, all the plates will be integrated into the interiors of cultural heritage sites again,” promises Yulia Gaponenko, head of work with cultural heritage sites at Forma.
Yulia Gaponenko, head of Cultural heritage at Forma, “A historical monument associated with the December 1905 events in Moscow will gain a second life on the territory of the quarter: a monument in 1959 in the form of a bronze statue of a worker with a whistle announcing the beginning of the revolution. A stele made of marble boards with the names of workers of the Krosna machine-building plant, which was located during the Great Patriotic War on the territory of the workshops and was finally reorganized several years ago, has also been preserved. After the completion of the landscaping of the quarter, both artifacts will be returned to the citizens and installed in the walking park. Very often, historical objects become a decorative element of an updated historical building, but sometimes artifacts cannot be integrated into the concept of space. In this case, according to the law, they must be museumified. For example, we handed over to the Museum of Moscow a commemorative plaque about the December 1905 uprising.”
West Wind Group, in principle, specializes in working with historical buildings, so its head of the commercial department, Elizaveta Ilyukhina, could probably talk about the finds endlessly. But I decided to stop at only four.
Elizaveta Ilyukhina, head of the commercial department of West Wind Group, “A walled-up armory was found at one of the facilities, in which (presumably, since the 80s of the twentieth century) many IZH-22 rifles were stored. They had rusted badly during this time, and we just had to dispose of them. A pre-revolutionary button belonging to an employee of the Orel Railway was found in a building on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. It is now kept by our employee. We assume that similar buttons and other small antiques are found in abundance by builders, who, by the nature of their activities, often go down to basements, participate in dismantling and excavation work. Also in one of the mansions we found a painting by the artist Viktor Dubrovin, dated 1989. His paintings are in private collections in many countries, and he now teaches at one of the art universities in Moscow. Our colleague contacted Viktor Mikhailovich. He has forgotten about this job and does not know how it got into that basement. But it was interesting to find a master and communicate with him. And perhaps our most unusual find is a large collection of pre—war scientific books on chemistry. It was found in the basement of a building on an Earthen Rampart, in which we carried out redevelopment. It is noteworthy that the books were not Soviet, they were taken from a German library in Germany. It is not known when and under what circumstances this happened. Subsequently, we used some of the books as a decoration on the object, they organically fit into the loft interior. But there are a lot of books, it was impossible to find a place for everyone, so we moved some more to our office.”
The developers’ stories are eagerly continued by architects who have even more experience in this area. “The most common place for artifacts during reconstruction is the attic. My first find of this kind was discovered in Yaroslavl, in the attic of an Art Nouveau building with the status of a cultural heritage site — it was an old bust of Maxim Gorky. But sometimes you can find quite unexpected things in these spaces: from vintage household items and utensils to ancient icons. The fact is that attics are often used as a warehouse for something unnecessary at the moment, which acquires value over time, which means that the most interesting things in houses with a history are most often stored there. Now in our office, fragments of stucco from the facade of the old building, which we managed to remove before its demolition, are exhibited as decorative elements. Although the object did not represent cultural value, the plaster stucco turned out to be an interesting artifact of that time and perfectly fit into the context of the interior of the bureau,” emphasizes Alexander Starikov, partner of the architectural bureau Syntaxis.
Alexander Starikov, partner at Syntaxis Architectural bureau, “If you explore old abandoned buildings, you can find a lot of details that can tell you about the past, but you need a trained eye to find them. Contrary to the stereotypes from the movies, artifacts in most cases are not gold coins and candlesticks, but rather things that are inconspicuous to the naked eye. When redeveloping any object, architects necessarily try to preserve and open the layers of the past, so that the connection of times is organic. Even just one of the finishing and painting layers has a chance to turn out to be a potential treasure hidden under later alterations. If we do not talk about any unique cases and finds, but only about what builders and architects most often encounter in their practice, then the search for artifacts is rather a great way to accentuate and enrich the project. For example, one day while working at the facility, we discovered an unusual vintage door handle, which was integrated into a modern interior. An element with a story can decorate the design, become part of the interior space and even a marketing tool.”
From this point of view, the experience shared with the portal by Marina Dimova, head and partner of UNK design, is interesting. This experience is connected with the Sherwood Manor building, an ancient neo—Russian mansion built in 1911, where Vladimir Sherwood, the creator of the Historical Museum on Red Square, lived at the beginning of the last century.
Marina Dimova, head and partner of UNK design, “The building went to UNK for restoration and adaptation to the headquarters in a sad, depressing way. But we understood that in such a building we had the opportunity to find interesting artifacts and use them in interior design. The find, which as a result became the main accent element in the new minimalist interior, was the original cast-iron stair balusters (racks), which, like the building, are more than 100 years old. We put them in order, designed their integration into the interior, and painted them in our red corporate color. In addition, we have preserved the famous Monier vaults on the minus ground floor, vaulted ceilings were also made in some rooms, elements with stucco were recreated in the lobby. We also found 100-year-old newspapers in the building. Now they are in our library, where you can read about the metropolitan life of that era over a cup of coffee in your free time. We have placed rare photographs and building plans of the Sherwood estate in the UNK History Museum, which has now merged with the 113-year history of the mansion.”
The HADAA Bureau, together with several associates, is currently engaged in the development of a tourist cluster in the city of Ostashkov near Lake Seliger. “This is a very old and even ancient place with a rich history, which hides many valuable discoveries. First of all, our job is to save old, very beautiful houses, settled and intended for demolition. By law, such facilities must be dismantled, but in small towns they are almost always of cultural and historical value and can be turned into points of attraction. As a result, we saved four monuments, and we managed to find interested investors for three of them. Our bureau oversees one building independently, and the general idea is to form a unified management structure, develop and promote the city’s brand from like—minded people in one place,” Georgy Tyugaev, head of the HADAA architectural bureau, shares details.
Georgy Tyugaev, head of the HADAA Architectural Bureau, “Our facility with an area of about 300 square meters has the status of a monument. A three-storey brick house of the XIX century is located on the embankment of Lake Seliger, in the central part of the city next to a large park. This is the oldest part of Ostashkov, where there are many historical buildings, for example, a church with an ancient clock with a bell brought from Europe. We have already managed to discover a lot of interesting things, starting with coins and ending with cognac bottles of the royal time with a curved neck. I am sure that there may be a lot of similar finds in the city, and all of them can be used in the future to attract tourists, transfer to museums or use in interiors. Now, when many places on the country’s map are being rediscovered by people, the use of artifacts can become a powerful attractor for attracting people and forming local tourist brands.”
“Two years ago, as part of the reconstruction of one of the VDNH pavilions, I discovered a large painting measuring more than 3.5 meters in length and 1.5 meters in height. I decided to buy it back and put it in my personal collection. Such things happen quite often, and even if an item cannot be monetized and benefited from, then antiquity often has its own connoisseurs who know how to preserve it and in what context to place it. The further away the find is from us on the time scale, the more valuable it is simply due to the inflation of history,” Georgy Tyugaev is sure.
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In principle, of course, yes — the old ones often, almost always, have fans. And those “news from the past” can really become worthy museum exhibits, decorate the interior, and attract the attention of tourists. But we still haven’t forgotten about the construction site with the “rules written in blood”?
Therefore, could a historical find, in addition, slow down work on the site and become a serious headache for the developer? And if future buyers or tenants are interested in the very fact of the project’s connection with history, then does the developer have the right to equate this interest with, say, the rental rate above the market? Continue.
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