Secrets Of The House Of The Gospel. Fontanka Looked Into The Baptist Church, Which Had Been Abandoned For 30 Years

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

The history of the confrontation between the House of the Gospel and the Elektroapparat plant has ended. On May 16, the Association of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches, which manages the church, was able to freely use the building. Fontanka looked into the time capsule that the House of the Gospel had become over decades of homelessness.

It is still impossible to enter the House of the Gospel on the 24th line of the V. O. without a guide: the gates to the territory of the Elektroapparat plant are locked with a key, which is kept only by Dmitry Kolarkov, the business manager of the Association of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches. In the near future, there will be a narrow circle of people from among the employees of the association, who (so the court decided) will accompany visitors through the territory of the plant from the gate to the threshold.

— So far, I’m afraid to invite people here: there will be five or seven thousand people who want to enter, and this is only from St. Petersburg. As it is, people from all over the country want to come here,” says Dmitry.

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

He unlocks the fence, and the reason for his fears appears to our eyes. The narrow courtyard of the church, overgrown with bushes, is littered with fragments of fittings, broken unaffordable transformers, gas (are they empty?) cylinders and other miscellaneous garbage that has been accumulating on the territory of the plant for more than one year. A chipped porch is suffocating under the trash, the empty eye sockets of the windows are framed by moss and fragments of broken glass. There is no front door. Roofs are also in places — trees have grown in its place.

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

The church looks even scarier inside. The marble of the staircases is chipped. Where the walls once had paint, the brickwork gapes like an ulcer. The tile could not withstand gravity and collapsed, the remnants of the suspended ceiling bristled above his head. In one room, there is a chaos of shattered sofas and mattresses overgrown with black mold. In another, under a layer of dust, an electric kettle, a toaster and what used to be a computer have passed away right on the floor. In the central hall, where services used to take place, and in the years of the USSR they set up a cinema, old narrow flags and drawings in German are piled up, a forgotten worn-out shoe is pressed against them.

— Apparently, someone was practicing shooting here, — Dmitry notes and demonstrates several holes in the backs of wooden chairs with edges torn into chips. A finger passes freely through the hole.

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

There was once a secular library across the wall from the hall. Right now, ferns and mushrooms are sprawled freely on the shelves, on books blackened by dampness. From under a thick layer of lime, “Conduit and Schwambrania” whispers: This is a world beyond, a time capsule. Vladimir Ilyich turns away from the bas-relief on the wall that walled up the church’s stained glass window with disgust. It seems that he realized that Engels had miscalculated in his theory.

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

The history of the Baptist Church is documented in detail. It began in 1910, when the community acquired a plot of 717 square fathoms (approximately 3.3 thousand square meters) for a large sum at that time — 42 thousand rubles. Due to legal restrictions, the transaction required a high level of coordination – the permits were signed by Nicholas II. Soon after, a prayer house with an area of about 3 thousand square meters was built with the money of believers. A small territory was added to the ensemble, facing the 24th line, and an entrance with a fence and gate. During the Soviet period, the prayer house was closed and transferred to the neighboring “Electric Apparatus”. The company has placed a factory House of Culture there.

In the center is Wilhelm Andreevich Fetler, pastor of the St. Petersburg Baptist community “House of the Gospel”

The laying of the House of the Gospel on September 8, 1910

In 1993, the KUGI of St. Petersburg transferred the building to the city, and almost immediately — for indefinite and gratuitous use by Protestants. At the same time, the issue of organizing free access to the church was raised. The committee’s resolution did not touch the ground under the building, and the House of the Gospel was cut off from the world. The site was transferred to the Baptists only in 2016, cutting it in half, and access to line 24 remained at the plant.

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

The claim for the establishment of an easement on the site on the 24th line of the V. O. “Association of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region” filed with the St. Petersburg arbitration in July 2021. In May last year, the court satisfied him, and in December of the same year, a writ of execution was issued, which ordered to execute the court’s decision and establish the right of limited access to the building for the Baptist church. But instead of a dot, a comma appeared in the case: the defendant tried to challenge the arbitration decision first in the 13th Arbitration Court of Appeal, then in the arbitration of the North-Western District. The Supreme Court, which took place in April 2024, refused to consider the cassation appeal to the defendant.

The right of the Baptist Church to freely receive parishioners was witnessed by the bailiff of the Vasileostrovsky district with an act of execution. “The debtor has executed the court’s decision,” he wrote in a document dated May 16, 2024. The act is available to the editorial board.

Despite the devastation, last Saturday an impromptu first communion service was held in the House of the Gospel. In a narrow circle. The grand opening of the church to all comers has not even been thought about yet — bringing people here means putting their lives at risk.

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

— First of all, we must carry out an examination and emergency work: fix the roof, windows, all this brick that falls out, take out all this junk that has nothing to do with us. We will refrain from interior decoration, maybe even from the exterior, for now: during the construction of the subway, the dome cracked, because we were not allowed to strengthen the foundation, but the crack is not critical. We will look for archival data on the stained glass window that was at Ilyich’s place — there is an idea to recreate it in its original form. But will we find the blueprints… There was a composition on the stained glass window — a text from scripture, but the preserved photographs are fuzzy,” Dmitry explains.

It is impossible to say now how long it will take to transform the House of the Gospel. And it’s not just about the amount of work to be done. In 2020, the cost of restoration was estimated at 200 million rubles, but in four years it has clearly increased.

— I am convinced that we will collect as much as it takes. The co-religionists from all over the world, with whom we communicate, are also convinced of this. The building has no security status, but for us it is important from a historical point of view, in terms of the memory of our fathers and grandfathers,” Dmitry notes.

The area around the House of the Gospel will also be transformed. Back in 2018, the Elektroapparat plant announced that it intends to move production to the St. Petersburg special economic zone, and in its place, according to the General Plan, multi-storey buildings and underground parking will appear.

Natalia Vyazovkina,

Photo: Mikhail Ognev /

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Источник: www.fontanka.ru

Secrets of the House of the Gospel. Fontanka looked into the Baptist church, which had been abandoned for 30 years

Friedrich, you’ve miscalculated.

Cut off from the world for decades

Large-scale renovation

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Friedrich, you’ve miscalculated.

Cut off from the world for decades

Large-scale renovation

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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