My personal photo blog. City lanterns: the considerable significance of small architectural forms Birch trees in the Hermitage garden

Autumn is wonderful this year. The trees are still bursting with colors and only recently have their leaves begun to fall off. And a week ago, everything was just showing off in place.

And I found a new fun. Walking during lunch isn’t enough for me, now I sometimes go for walks in the mornings too :))) It’s just that the start of the working day was postponed for 10 o’clock, and no one even thought about postponing the start of school. In light of this, you still wake up as before, and the child goes to school as before, so now I have almost a whole hour of time in the morning. Fortunately, we now work in the center and there are so many places to walk. And how I enjoy this circumstance!

The weather was wonderful that week. And one morning I decided to take a walk to the Hermitage Garden. Many times we walked past it during our walks, but somehow never got inside.

On the way to the garden I looked at the decoration of all sorts of cafes

And this name, apparently, arose in light of the sanctions :)))

The bike rack is almost empty. It has become very popular to ride a bicycle to the office; every day I see office workers on bicycles from the bike rack

Just the day before I saw an interesting house here

And the interesting thing is the decoration. I've never seen houses decorated with bats

Walk quickly along the side streets to the Hermitage Garden. It's already on the horizon. But I had time and I decided to walk along Uspensky Lane, which is next to the garden and has just been restored.

We walked along this alley many times, but somehow I didn’t remember anything about it at all. And now he looks much better. Placed benches and flower beds

And the lanterns, in appearance, are the same as the gas ones that stood in Moscow more than a hundred years ago.

All you have to do is paint the building a little, put an emphasis on it - and the look of the alley is completely different

And behind the building is something without which it is impossible to imagine the city - the domes of churches

Well, now you can take a look at the Hermitage Garden

I came in from Uspensky Lane and immediately came across a large children's playground

Squirrels are said to live in this enclosure. But early in the morning I found only the janitor there.

How to describe the feeling when you are walking through a very popular place in Moscow, where in the evening there are always a lot of people, but you walk and there is not a soul around? Beauty!!! Early morning, autumn trees, leaves underfoot, but only a janitor rarely flashes anywhere.

There are several theaters in the Hermitage Garden.
The monument is a monument to Victor Hugo.

Monument to Dante Alighieri (it seems that it was a gift to Moscow from the Italians)

Another theater is the New Opera. The building is already more than a hundred years old, I later read this. And at first I thought it was a successful remake.

And on the balconies on the sides there are such visitors

Irina Trubetskaya

Continuing the conversation about the Main Exhibition, let's look around and take a closer look at... the lanterns. After all, they differ here from their other city counterparts, which catches your eye already on the approach to the All-Russian Exhibition Center-VDNKh. Let’s immediately make a reservation that we will consider lantern columns more, since their tops - brackets and lamps - were changed often, but many columns still stand to this day.

Most of the lantern supports on the territory of VDNKh are from the 1950s, since not only the pavilions, but also small architectural forms, which include lanterns, were reconstructed for the grand post-war opening in 1954. And yet columns from the period 1939-1941 can be found.

For example, a dozen rather tall lanterns for four lamps stand on the approaches to VDNKh on Sergei Eisenstein Street, and once upon a time the same ones stood on the alley leading to the “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. Another type of lamp posts of this period is the “cast iron column type 343”, developed by Mosgorsvet in the 1930s to illuminate Moscow streets. In the workshops of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, they designed a special series of brackets and lamps for it, the latter were supposed to be oblong in shape, made of cut glass. But, as the inscription on the drawing says: “due to the impossibility of obtaining faceted cylindrical glass, a transition to spherical balls has been agreed upon.” The brackets and light fixtures were replaced in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as more recently, but the graceful columns of the 1930s stood safe until recently. Unfortunately, this year they were declared unsafe and began to be dismantled.

The dismantling appears to be a mistake, given that this type of lantern columns, once common in the city, remains almost nowhere today. Only a few semi-abandoned columns of the same type are known. At VDNKh there will be about 20 of them, lined up on the alley of the Small Northern Ring. The need for an expert discussion of the future of the All-Russian Exhibition Center and the development of a special approach to this unusual territory, containing various layers of the twentieth century, was mentioned. Preservation of small architectural forms could be part of such a holistic approach. It would be instructive to go further and restore the 1930s brackets and light fixtures to give visitors a feel for the city at that time.

What about other old lanterns in Moscow? According to experts, there are about four hundred thousand lanterns in the city, of which about two thousand are old. The boundary separating the old from the new is the 1950s, when the fight against “excesses” in architecture began.

A search in the register of cultural heritage shows that not a single free-standing lantern has yet been recognized as a monument subject to state protection. Although several are listed as “declared” and “identified” objects, that is, at different stages of historical and cultural examination that determines the value of potential monuments. The oldest from this list are two lanterns of the Usachev-Naydenov estate on Zemlyanoy Val. These are former oil lamps from the first half of the 19th century, which are now adapted for electric ones and are in working condition. But their brothers from the era - the former oil lanterns at the New Catherine Hospital were not lucky - they disappeared after the recent start of reconstruction of the building; there was no time to report them to the guards.

A real preserve of old lanterns is the Hermitage Garden, where you can see three different types of them. The oldest are about fifty columns, on the plinths of which the initials of the park’s founder, Yakov Shchukin, “YASCH” are cast. He purchased generators for lighting the theater and illumination in the garden in 1895, at which time these columns were installed. Their lower part now looks somewhat massive and contrasts with the thin upper part, but the fact is that initially they carried taller columns, unlike those of today. To understand what they once looked like, you need to go to the Kremlin and look at the lanterns on Ivanovskaya Square, where this type has been preserved. Another type of historical lanterns in the Hermitage garden has reached us in its entirety - this is the only lantern from 1912-13. The design of this elegant lantern was developed by the Lighting Department of the Moscow City Duma, and it was cast in the Polish city of Sosnowitz (the manufacturer's mark has been preserved). Probably, the preservation of this rarity was facilitated by the fact that it is an identified monument and is included in the register of cultural heritage sites. The third type is low park floor lamps, designed in the 1950s specifically for this garden by the Mosgazproekt Institute.

As it became known, the Department of Fuel and Energy of Moscow, with the participation of the Moscow Lights Museum, is currently developing technical specifications for the restoration of all the listed lanterns of the Hermitage Garden. The implementation of the project may take a year, since the process is labor-intensive - it is necessary to manually clean the cast iron parts from numerous layers of paint and rust.

An example of restoration that has already been carried out is work in Luzhniki on the alley leading to the embankment. About fifty lanterns created in 1947, for the 800th anniversary of Moscow, according to the design of the architect M. Minkus, were recently restored here. There are several hundred of these in the city, but in recent years they have begun to disappear in the process of “improvement.” The latest case is Pushkinsky Square, where landscaping work is now being hastily carried out, and the original lanterns from 1947 have been removed. Will they, and not pale copies, be returned to their place?

The difficulty of preserving old lanterns lies in the fact that they all belong to different departments and are entirely dependent on the goodwill and orders of the heads of organizations. For example, the mentioned lights in Luzhniki are on the balance sheet of the city Department of Energy. And the lanterns at the All-Russian Exhibition Center are on the balance sheet of JSC All-Russian Exhibition Center. Will the Exhibition administration want to undertake the restoration of lantern columns from the 1930s? Wanting to take it on means both wanting to find funds and wanting to attract specialists. But it's worth a try. Moreover, experts and the public have already made a corresponding request to the administration to preserve these columns in situ for the city’s history - it’s so nice to wander along the alley and look at all sorts of “little things”!

Total 11 photos

Lanterns with a 100-year and even 200-year history still decorate Moscow streets, courtyards and estates. And these are real open-air museum exhibits - many of them were created according to the designs of the most famous Moscow architects.

The name of the outstanding theater entrepreneur and philanthropist Yakov Vasilyevich Shchukin is well known not only to connoisseurs of high art, but also to the general public. True, many have heard about him as the creator of the Hermitage Theater - the oldest in the garden of the same name. However, he stood at the origins of the park itself, which perhaps not everyone knows about. Thanks to his efforts, the once abandoned area, where the merchant Olontsov’s estate used to be, in a short time turned into a favorite vacation spot, first for Moscow bohemia, and then for ordinary townspeople. In fact, the Hermitage Garden was opened in 1894, when the first visitors were invited here. But this date is not official.

On the territory there was an old factory building, also abandoned. It could easily have been demolished, since it did not fit into the surrounding landscape. But the enterprising and far-sighted Shchukin decided otherwise - he turned to the city authorities with a request to convert the premises into a theater. He was given the go-ahead for this, and in the same 1894, the former factory was added with a one-story gallery and porch, which were built by the architect V.P. Zagorsky. Then his colleague Balevich continued what he started, redeveloping the entire park. With his light hand, summer stages appeared, as well as canopies for the buffet.

And then came June 18, 1895 - the long-awaited moment of the official opening of the garden, which was called the “New Hermitage” (the first word was added so as not to be confused with the Hermitage pleasure garden, which was located on Bozhedomka). For convenience, the people called him Shchukinsky. A year later, on May 26, 1896, the first film show in the city took place here - at the cinema of the famous Lumiere brothers. The event became an important milestone in the cultural history of Moscow and all of Russia, especially since everyone could attend it.

The premiere of the play “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich”, which took place on October 26, 1896, is also inscribed in the glorious chronicle of the Hermitage Theater and the garden of the same name. After all, with this production, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Moscow Public Art Theater was solemnly opened. The first success inspired new premieres: performances based on Chekhov’s works “Uncle Vanya” and “The Seagull” were shown.

Simultaneously with the successes in the theatrical field, the Hermitage Garden itself developed, blossoming literally before our eyes. Y. V. Shchukin transformed the former wasteland literally beyond recognition. Many trees appeared here, paths and flower beds were laid out. Soon water supply was brought to the territory, and then electric lighting was installed. At that time, this was a real breakthrough along the path of technological progress. In 1907, by order of Yakov Vasilyevich, several stone buildings by the architect B. M. Nilus appeared in the park. And in 1909, a summer theater was built here, it was later called “Mirror” (architect A. N. Novikov). Shchukin led the Hermitage Garden before the 1917 revolution. In 1926, the eminent theatergoer and philanthropist died at the age of 70.

In the 30s of the last century, the famous Soviet architect Dmitry Dmitrievich Bulgakov, who worked in the style of post-constructivism and specialized in the construction of so-called luxury houses, where the then elite received apartments, was appointed as the new director of the Hermitage Garden. It is believed that the installation of new lanterns and pedestals, the appearance of other small forms in the garden is his merit, but some researchers argue about this. Another famous leader of the garden was Honored Cultural Worker of the RSFSR Iosif Emmanuilovich Bragilevsky, who worked in this position until 1984.

In the 40s, the old winter theater underwent reconstruction. It was carried out by architects Mikhail Vasilyevich Posokhin and Ashot Ashotovich Mdoyants. According to their design, the entrance vestibule had a long life - it was simply razed to the ground. Instead, they built a wonderful colonnade, equipping it with an open courtyard. The building itself, which is the oldest on the territory of the Hermitage Garden, remained, of course, untouched. Since 1959, the troupe of the Moscow Theater of Miniatures has staged performances within its walls, which in 1987 was transformed into the Hermitage Theater. A little earlier, in 1981, another theater opened here - “Sphere”.

Hermitage Garden: Today

There are more than a hundred gardens, squares and park areas in Moscow. In the Central Administrative District alone, to which the Hermitage belongs, there are 27 of them. The area of ​​the garden founded by philanthropist Shchukin is 4.90 hectares, which is not much in comparison with others. However, it stands out from the rest with a number of features, which makes it popular among Muscovites and guests of the city. The compactness here is harmoniously combined with many remarkable places and interesting attractions, which, it would seem, require more space. Various cultural events - holidays and concerts, festivals and competitions - are held here regularly. One of the most famous is the International Jazz Festival “Jazz in the Hermitage Garden”.

In the art studio, ballet and choreography schools operating in the park, talented children are introduced to the world of beauty. Visitors play table tennis outdoors and take part in yoga classes. There is something to dedicate time to in winter too: in the Hermitage Garden, an open-air skating rink is being installed, which is considered the most romantic in Moscow. In general, there are many romantic places in the garden that attract young people. One of them is a metal monument to All Lovers, made in the shape of a heart. It appeared with the light hand of the employees of the Silver Rain radio station, which annually on February 14, St. Valentina invites all lovers to the Hermitage for an unusual and pleasant competition - a mass kiss.

For the little ones there is a modern playground, where mothers and fathers are happy to bring their children. Kids watch with interest local wildlife, for example, purebred pigeons, squirrels, and tame pheasants. And together with adults they admire the unique nature of the park, where many apple and linden trees grow, green shrubs are planted, and flower beds bloom. Children's laughter can be heard here from everywhere, which fills the Hermitage with special energy, and you want to come back here again and again.

Walking along the paths of the garden, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking that you are following in the footsteps of the great Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, who probably stopped at the only fountain, pondering the ideas of their immortal works. In addition to the fact that the capital’s most famous theaters are located here - the Hermitage, Sphere and New Opera, true connoisseurs of art are also attracted by the monuments located on the territory. These are busts of the famous French writer Victor Hugo and the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

After attending an interesting performance, strolling along the alleys or watching a celebrity concert on the park stage (Vysotsky, Zykina, Zhvanetsky and others performed here at different times), you can stop by the Chaikhana restaurant. As you guessed from the name, the establishment serves dishes of national Uzbek cuisine. A visit to the Tea Club, one of the largest in Moscow, will also be unforgettable. Visitors will be invited to take part in an ancient Chinese tea ceremony and will be told about the benefits of this drink, as well as types of tea.

The Hermitage Garden is located at the address: Moscow, st. Karetny Ryad, 3. Open daily from 9:00 to 22:00. Official website: www.mosgorsad.ru.

You can get there by public transport. Stops: metro stations “Chekhovskaya”, “Tverskaya” or “Pushkinskaya”. Then the walk is only 5-7 minutes.

Photography and video filming in the Hermitage Garden is possible, but only upon prior application and obtaining appropriate permission from the administration.