Most people who are interested in Russian history associate the adjective “neighbor” with the words “Stalin's dacha”. Indeed, almost everyone knows about the Moscow Volynskoye facility, where for the most part he lived, and the generalissimo died. He appears in dozens of films, photo reports and television programs. But the “leader of the peoples” had another residence near Moscow, the existence of which, until recently, was known to a fairly limited circle of people.
In the summer of 2010, I was able to visit Stalin's Far Cottage in Semenovsky, which, unlike the Near, after the death of the leader, was often used by top officials both for various events and for recreation. Some of them, for example, Yuri Andropov, spent their holidays there, others, like Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, came only occasionally. But in any case, something attracted them to this place ...
Having traveled eighty-odd kilometers along the Simferopol highway, then twenty along the so-called second concrete road, photojournalist Oleg Rukavitsyn and I turned into a forest. We drive another kilometer along an inconspicuous side path and stop at a high green fence. Of course, the fence is not the same as that of the mansions on Rublevka, but nevertheless, solidity remains. By the way, already in the process of communicating with historians, we learned that in Stalin's times the height of the fence reached six meters. On both sides of the fence was exactly the same as on the state border, the control and track strip. And the facility was guarded by more than a hundred specially selected officers of the NKVD. And one more small detail: until the eighties of the last century, the airspace over this area was completely closed ...
We, the first two journalists who had the opportunity to visit the Far Cottage, as well as our escort from Moscow, were met by an uniformed employee who arrived at the gate on a vintage Ural motorcycle. I checked the certificates, carefully examined our passports, and then took them “before departure”. And we followed him in two cars into the depths of the forest on a well-groomed asphalt road. A few minutes later, among the centuries-old pines and firs, several buildings appeared, which, in fact, were a Stalin's dacha.
Honestly, I imagined her a little different, outwardly similar to the Middle. But it was not painted with green paint, but looked like an ordinary country house with a predominance of yellow, brown, and sometimes pink tones. Later, I learned that in the original the summer cottage was green, just like Kuntsevskaya. Stalin didn’t really like variety at all. It is known that he gave the architect Merzhanov the task of making the rooms in the Middle Dacha similar to those in his Kremlin apartment. Well, the Far Cottage was built similar to the dwelling of the Secretary General in Volynsky. Only during the period when Yury Andropov was in power, in 1982 or 1983, she was repainted in a more "cheerful" color.
I specifically asked which of the mere mortals have managed to visit this building over the past 70 years. It turned out that journalists were not allowed here. During the mass events of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which Khrushchev loved to hold, everything took place outdoors, far from the main complex of buildings. Even the writer Daniil Granin at one time was carried out only along the part of the building, and even then at a fast pace. So the information about the Stalin cottage that we received was a kind of exclusive.
The entrance hall of Dalniy Dacha was very reminiscent of the situation in the main Stalinist residence: the same walls, lined with wooden panels, similar hangers, about the same furniture. Slightly different fireplaces, the absence of a second floor (in the Middle it was built in 1943). And the volume of the room itself was larger. And on the walls there were no maps with Stalin's markings. Most likely, during the war, Stalin came to this country house not to work, but to rest.
Our "detour" of the Far Cottage began strictly clockwise. Going through the left door, we ended up in the Stalinist office. True, not everything was preserved in it in this form, as it was during the lifetime of the Generalissimo. If the Near Summer Cottage after Stalin's death was supposed to function as a closed museum (and was such in 1953–1956), then in Semenovsky from the fifties to the nineties there was a country residence of the leaders of the CPSU and the government of the USSR. Even in the years of new Russia, President Yeltsin, Chairman of the Federation Council Shumeyko and other figures rested there. And some people stayed at the Far Cottage in the last decade ... In general, the main goal was not to preserve the historical situation, but to create comfortable conditions for vacationers. Although, in fairness, I note that the employees of the dacha managed to save a lot.
In Stalin’s office, a modern armchair at the pre-war table, an electronic calculator lying on the table, a later writing instrument and a liquid-crystal television in the corner are immediately evident. In addition, the portrait of Stalin on the wall and the bust on the table clearly discord with the room. And indeed, they confirmed to us that they had been dragged from the storerooms “to create an atmosphere”. But four armchairs, a sofa, chandeliers, a table by the window are completely authentic, moreover, they have been in this office since Stalin's time. Of course, on the desk in the office there is no herded pack of “Herzegovina Flor” next to the Stalin pipe, but there is a handmade lamp with a pear tree base, furniture, other historical objects, so that the “effect of presence” is still felt.
In Stalin’s office, the ceilings are “low”, some four and a half meters. The walls of the cabinet with almost no decorations. Interestingly, the tree with which the rooms are decorated has retained its specific smell for 70 years. In each room he has his own. And according to the condition of the parquet floor, walls and ceiling panels, it is clear that they are constantly and carefully looked after.
When my colleague Oleg Rukavitsyn decided to sit down on a sofa in the office of the Generalissimo, he was politely but firmly asked to make room. Specialists told us about the tradition that was in the state security bodies:
No one could sit in the chair of the guarded person, except himself. Violation, even for personal protection, was punishable by immediate dismissal.
Of course, now there are no such severities at the cottage in Semenovsky, but tradition is tradition ...
Readers, mostly foreign, received the first information about the very existence of such an object as Dalnaya Dacha from the memories of Svetlana's daughter Stalin:
Semenovskoye is a new house built just before the war near the old estate with large ponds dug up by the serfs, with extensive forest. Now there is a “state dacha”, where the famous summer meetings of the government with artists took place. In Lipki and Semenovsky everything was arranged in the same manner as in the father's dacha in Kuntsevo - the rooms were also furnished (exactly the same furniture), the same bushes and flowers were planted near the house. Vlasik authoritatively explained that "he" loves and does not like. My father was very rarely there, - sometimes a year passed, - but the whole staff was expecting his arrival daily and nightly and was in full combat readiness ...
All the buildings of the Far Cottage, also named after the nearest settlement "Semenovskoye", were erected in 1937-1939 by the forces of the special construction department of the NKVD. The architect was Miron Ivanovich Merzhanov, the same one who built the Near dacha in Volynsky. Most likely, Stalin met him in the late twenties, when he came to rest in Kislovodsk (Merzhanov worked in this city. - Auth.) Another version says that the rise of the novice architect occurred after he won an open competition for the construction of the Red Army Sanatorium in Sochi, which was named Voroshilov. They said that the future “first marshal” really liked the project, and from its submission Merzhanov moved to Moscow. But in any case, already in 1931 he ended up in the capital.
The fate of Miron Merzhanov, who built many of Stalin's dachas, underwent ups and downs. For ten whole years (from 1933 to 1943, he was practically a “court architect” of the “leader of the peoples.” On August 12, 1943 he was arrested, and on March 8, 1944, he was sentenced to ten years in camps by the decision of the Special Meeting at the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR “For participating in an anti-Soviet organization, anti-Soviet campaigning and expressing terrorist intentions.” Together with him, knowledgeable people say, his son was convicted, and the reason for their arrest was the discovery of foreign currency from them.
Naturally, the project of the new cottage was approved personally by Stalin and was generally similar to the one that was implemented in Kuntsevo. The main difference: the Kuntsevo cottage was made of fiberboard blocks (then it was dismantled and the exact same brick house was built), and the cottage in Semenovsky was originally brick. In addition, as we have already mentioned, this house does not have a second floor. Despite this, the Dalnaya Dacha seems larger than the Nearest in terms of area. Numerous architectural parallels and similarities in the decoration of some rooms are still present.
Supervised the construction process personally by the People's Commissar Lavrenty Beria. And Stalin himself came to inspect the finished building, and then visited the cottage during the Great Patriotic War. His two visits to Semenovskoye have been documented, but people who know do not unreasonably believe that he visited this place more often. Alexei Rybin, according to his statement (in brackets we note - dubious), who often went on various trips with Stalin, wrote in his memoirs:
The second cottage, "Semenovskoye", was one hundred and ten kilometers from Moscow, in the former possession of the favorite of Catherine II Grigory Orlov and his brothers. There in the thirties the OGPU built the same one-story house with six rooms and two glazed terraces. Around me was also mostly pine forest. There were three ponds. The most remarkable was a five-switch spring. Each stream of this miracle of nature was of a different height and beauty.
Stalin rarely came to Semenovskoye. Maybe admire the five-switch and with the company relax on the island in the middle of the largest pond. Once he advised to direct spring water into blooming ponds. For some reason, the local fish began to languish from it. Regretting this, Stalin proposed to correct the mistake. Water was let into the Lopasnya river, flowing to the Semenovskoye village.
Historical reference:
A distant summer cottage was built on the territory of the English estate park, once donated by Catherine II to Alexei Orlov-Chesmensky and sold to his younger brother Count Vladimir Orlov (Grigory Orlov, mentioned by Alexei Rybin, had nothing to do with “Semenovsky” -Auth. ) The estate "Semenovskoe" or "Joy" is better known by the name of the last owners of the Orlov-Davydovs.
Its area, which today is more than a hundred hectares, was simply huge in Stalin's times. A cascade of ponds with the purest water from springs and springs, a large lake, a pheasant, a bear cub, turkey poultry farm, trout farm, greenhouses, orchard ... Yes, and now all the remaining services are in working condition, and they carefully look after existing wildlife and vegetation.
From the office of the Secretary General, we move into a winter garden that would look almost modern if it were not for the decoration and furniture from Karelian birch. Furniture, by the way, was made on special order by the Lux furniture factory. It was located next to the Butyrka prison and carried out the most important orders for government cottages. The best cabinetmakers of the country worked on it. It was at Luxe that all furniture was made for the first persons of the state, and window frames, wall and ceiling panels, stairs, railings, doors were also made ... In the manufacture of interior items, they were all duplicated many times. The factory kept the blanks of each table, chair or cabinet, strictly numbered. If necessary, a new table or cupboard would be assembled during the day and sent to the cottage.
I was surprised by the low chairs that looked almost childish at the table in the winter garden, but I remembered that the “leader of the peoples” was very short and most likely it was convenient for him to sit on such chairs. Parquet in the conservatory is less sophisticated than in the study, and is covered to a large extent with a carpet, which, judging by the drawing, refers to the seventies and eighties of the last century.
From the conservatory there is a door to the Great Dining Room. The doors in the country, by the way, are made of oak massif 5–7 centimeters thick and equipped with piece-locks. They have corresponding numbers and stamps. They were most likely made in Tula at an arms factory. By the way, seventy-odd years have been functioning properly ...
The "big dining room" is clearly designed to amaze the imagination. The huge room, about seven meters high, is completely finished with wood. Vaulted ceilings, also wooden. And all this is not some newfangled veneer there, but an array of different types of wood. By the way, despite its considerable age, the tree does not crack and does not deform at all, preserving the shape given to it in the 30s. In one of the walls there is a working fireplace trimmed with onyx and opal. If at the Near dacha the fireplace is very small and made rather modest (although Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Stalin, called it the “only luxury” at the dacha), then at the Far Cottage the fireplace is huge, and they obviously did not intend to save on materials for its decoration.
At a large table in the center of the dining room, if desired, can accommodate fifty people. Stalin did not like the big dining room, preferring to dine in a more modest room, but Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev made a kind of meeting room out of the dining room. Already when he was the First Secretary of the Central Committee, Khrushchev loved to hold visiting meetings at this table and arrange public gatherings. But then, during lunch or dinner, when a plentiful treat and a rather large amount of alcohol were served at the table, the situation smoothed out by itself.
The main bedroom, in which Stalin, Khrushchev, Andropov, and Yeltsin rested from day work, is decorated with a Karelian birch. The large volume of the room gives the impression that the beds there are for children. In fact, these are two ordinary full-size beds. But for Yeltsin (and he came here, still being the first secretary of the CPSU MGK, and having become president, he was weekly until 1996), the bed had to be extended (after all, he was 30 centimeters taller than Stalin). In the nineties, Yeltsin loved to be in the "Semenovsky", fishing, walking, went to the spring. By the way, the spring is a local attraction. It has been “running smoothly" since the 18th century and gives a large amount of very tasty and cold (we tried) water. And Yeltsin liked her so much that twice a week they brought him special bottles poured from a spring. Actually, there are seven springs in the park. One of the employees told us that the main grotto with the lion's head, from which water flows in a pulsating stream, was built "on order" by Stalin. Even the stone with which it was trimmed was brought from his homeland - from Gori. Beria knew how to please the owner.
The bathroom adjoins the bedroom with an area of \u200b\u200bapproximately a modern one-room apartment - about forty square meters. Since 1939, it has preserved old plumbing and the beloved Stalin's couch. The toilet in the "main" bathroom is exactly the same as in the Near Country, with a rectangular tank and a powerful flush system.
An interesting “plumbing” story from the leader’s life, showing some human traits of his character, was recalled in his book “Next to Stalin” by Alexei Rybin:
On the way from Moscow, he was clearly determined to take a bath. He took the linen and went there. It is hard to imagine how the valves turned, but there was no water. No. He returned, angrily saying:
– You were assigned to watch the serviceability of the bath.
He threw linen, a washcloth and soap on the table, and left. Solovov (commandant of the dacha in Semenovsky. -Auth. ) rushed to the gates. Water spurted from the taps with might and main. Solovov happily reported this. However, while walking along the terrace, Stalin had already changed his mind about washing. But the guilt for the ridiculous incident remained. That way with a fit asked:
– Owner, what do you think, this old pine tree cannot fall in a storm in our hut?
– Let's cut it down just in case, ”Solovov suggested.
– But as? After all, she will still be pulled to the hut.
– Saw in parts. First, remove the crown on the ropes, then the middle. And everything will work out.
– Right. So do it.
Solovov went after the workers. But after half an hour, Stalin admitted:
– Master, I changed my mind about sawing a tree. Perhaps it will still survive us.
The next room we visited is the so-called flat bedroom. She was, as they say, the most beloved premises of Stalin. The decoration in a range of yellowish, brown and dark brown colors seems to have pleased the leader ... But the historical furniture has not been preserved in it, and the bed clearly dates to the end of the 20th century. Nearby is the "small dining room", in which the "leader of the peoples" usually dined. It is designed for six to twelve people, and members of the Politburo — Demichev, Suslov, Podgorny, Gromyko, Kirilenko and others — who came here to rest with their families, dined here.
In the flat bedroom, the Gorbachev couple usually rested. By the way, in it, as in others, a personal furnace is installed, which is a reserve source of heat and is heated from the corridor. The whole system is operational, and a control firebox is carried out several times a year. Although there is a diesel generator, and central power supply, and gas.
In general, rooms and corridors really "breathe history." No newfangled air conditioners. But even without them, in the forty-degree heat (Muscovites can remember the hot and smoky summer of 2010), alcohol thermometers of 1950 (and they are in every room) showed from 19 to 24 degrees.
The distant cottage "got" during the Great Patriotic War. It was almost blown up, like the Stalinist residence in Zubalov. Alexei Rybin wrote about this:
During the war, this cottage survived by a miracle. At the nearby railway stations of Barybino and Mikhnevo, Far Eastern and Siberian troops were unloaded from echelons. Therefore, enemy air raids intensified to the limit. Some bombs were brought down here in the wind. Mortar shelling of the territory was constantly conducted. The approach of fascist forces forced to mine the cottage. Solovov even had to find out from his superiors whether to blow it up? The wise general answered:
– If you blow up the cottage ahead of time, we’ll shoot it. If you hand it over to the Germans, we will find and hang it. So decide for yourself according to the situation.
Solovov rushed to Stalin. The troops of the Southwestern Front under the command of General Zakharkin received orders to remain in their positions. So they saved the cottage. For which Solovov brought the commander of the militia, a very suffering stomach ulcer, a full glass of alcohol. In the old house of the Orlov brothers, a field hospital is located. In the light of kerosene lamps, doctors operated on wounded soldiers. Mortar shelling of the territory did not stop.
The unusualness of the building is emphasized by the interesting transition between the residential area and the office building. This corridor is bent, and its floor becomes higher as it moves away from the main house. The specialist historian explained to us:
This architectural decision was associated with two factors. Firstly, Stalin really did not like the smells of cooked food coming from the kitchen. And secondly, the curved corridor did not make it possible to produce a direct shot, which fully met the then safety requirements. There is exactly the same corridor at the cottage in Volynsky ...
We already noted that only two trips of Stalin to the Far Cottage were documented. But in the memoirs of his associates, daughter and guards, this object is mentioned quite often. Alexei Rybin recalled a curious episode of the war years:
Although the territory of the distant summer cottage “Semenovskoye” was constantly fired by mortar fire of the enemy, Stalin continued to come there. Finally, the NKVD even received a formidable warning that one of the mines did not explode into the ground. In addition, a deliberate laying of a mine near a summer house, or even under it, was supposed. I had to report this to Stalin. Solovov, of course, was afraid of scam: where did he look ?! But Stalin calmly said:
– You are a tanker and a miner. Well, let's go check it out.
Solovov began to act as a mine detector. Stalin stomped around with curiosity. He also strove to overtake Solovov, but he could not send him away to a safe place. Fortunately, everything ended well.
In the postwar years, the building of the country house underwent a small restructuring and partial reconstruction. In the eighties of the last century, a ten-meter pool with a countercurrent was attached to it. This was done specifically so that the chairman of the KGB, and then the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Yuri Andropov, could take the water procedures prescribed to him by doctors.
In general, quite a lot is connected with the name of Andropov in Semenovsky. He often came here, fished, walked in the park. As people who are knowledgeable say, it happened that he spent a vacation here and was very moderate in food and entertainment.
On the territory of the cottage there are quite a few places associated with historical figures. On one of the ponds, Nikita Khrushchev and Ekaterina Furtseva, then Minister of Culture, often fished together. As we were told, the lady was much more fortunate, which was very annoying for the head of state. It was necessary, as in the film “The Diamond Arm”, to launch a scuba diver into the water, who carefully put the fish on the hook of Khrushchev’s fishing rod, and he triumphantly pulled out one carp or zander after another. And Furtseva, of course, didn’t have any bite at that time - after all, the diver scared the fish for a while.
And Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko loved to mow grass, not with a lawn mower, but with an ordinary peasant scythe in his own clearing. And he did it quite professionally. As, however, and led the domestic diplomacy.
High-level foreign guests have visited and sometimes even lived at this facility: Jawaharlal Nehru with his daughter Indira Gandhi, Gamal Abdel Nasser - the Egyptian leader, Fidel Castro, Yumdzhagiin Tsedenbal - the head of Mongolia, the President of Afghanistan Najibullah with his family and others. There were also astronauts, starting with Gagarin and Titov.
Major events were held here infrequently and were not directly related to the main house. Near one of the ponds, a gigantic metal frame was preserved, which under Khrushchev was blocked and became a huge tent. Here in 1957 and 1961, Nikita Sergeevich met with cultural and art workers, inviting up to 300 people. At these meetings, Khrushchev criticized the writers Konstantin Simonov and Marietta Shaginyan, the poetess Margarita Aliger. But such meetings ended peacefully - everyone drank and had a bite to the performance of the orchestra of Russian folk instruments.
In 1943-1954 he was repressed, worked in architectural sharashka from Sochi to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The author of the Golden Star projects of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Hero of Socialist Labor (1938-1939).
Biography
The early years and early careers
The architect was born in the city of Nakhichevan-on-Don (today - within the boundaries of Rostov-on-Don) in a prosperous Armenian family. Father Ivan served as an official and manager at the factory of the merchant Hunanyan in Slavyansk, and was a distant relative of I.K. Aivazovsky. All three sons of Ivan became, each in his field, talented specialists. The middle son and younger brother Miron Martyn became a well-known sports journalist who founded the weekly Soccer in 1960, the younger Jacob worked as a theater artist in Moscow, but died early. Before the start of World War I, Meran managed to graduate from the classical gymnasium and enter the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers. He worked as a draftsman in the workshop of A.I. Tamanyan, then was drafted into the army, but did not manage to get to the front.
After the October Revolution, he fled from hungry Petersburg home to Rostov. Trying to avoid conscription into Denikin’s troops of the first line, he voluntarily entered the engineering battalion of the White Army, and after its defeat he settled in Krasnodar. In 1920-1923 he continued his studies at the Kuban Polytechnic Institute, easily entered the circle of local professionals, in 1922 he married the daughter of a Kislovodsk architect, Elizaveta Emmanuilovna Khodzhaeva.
The first independent construction of Merzhanov was his own house in Kislovodsk (1925). Followed by
- essentuki Indoor Market
- state Bank building in Pyatigorsk
- one of the buildings of the sanatorium "10 years of October" (now the "Pearl of the Caucasus") in Kislovodsk
In these buildings, formally belonging to constructivism, Merzhanov’s style was manifested, preserved until the end of his days - the desire for spectacular monumentality of buildings, combined with romanticization, visual relief of structures, as well as a favorite detail of the architect - corner balconies and corner niches that tear the smooth walls of buildings . Later Merzhanov called his main teachers I.V. Zholtovsky and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Thirties
In 1929, Merzhanov won the open competition for the design of the Red Army sanatorium in Sochi, which was personally supervised by K. E. Voroshilov. The sanatorium, financed by a loan among the military, was opened on June 1, 1934, and in the same year it was named after Voroshilov. The architect and the people's commissar became personal friends; this friendship remained after Voroshilov’s resignation and the release of Merzhanov. The sanatorium was built in a constructivist manner, but Merzhanov intentionally masked the toughest constructivist elements, harmoniously combining simple geometric shapes with the mountainous terrain of the coast. The image of the sanatorium and the adjoining funicular was propagated by propaganda, and Merzhanov entered the clip of the most sought-after Soviet architects.
In 1931, Merzhanov was called to Moscow and appointed chief architect of the economic administration of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Along with the completion of the Voroshilov sanatorium, on the instructions of the Central Executive Committee, Merzhanov built a complex of state dachas "Bocharov Ruchey". He led the design of the Naval Academy in Leningrad, the design of buildings for the new city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and together with A.K. Burov built the Moscow House of Architects. In the second half of the thirties Merzhanov was building two large sanatoriums in Kislovodsk - the Sanatorium Hotel NKVD (now Kislovodsk) and Red Stones. This is undoubtedly Stalinist architecture, and not limited in funds for high-quality stone decoration, and retaining the "southern" romanticism typical of the architect.
In the years 1933-1934 Merzhanov designed the first Stalinist cottage - the so-called. the nearest cottage in Kuntsevo. The original one-story house was built up to two floors in 1943 (according to other sources in 1948), when the architect was already in custody; the author of the perestroika project is unknown, but it is likely that Merzhanov’s project was used. In 1934, a satisfied customer called Merzhanov personally and set the task to design a complex of state dachas in Matsesta, in 1935 - on the Cold River near Gagra. All these objects were designed in the style of a modernized classic (see post-constructivism), equally equidistant from both constructivism and the “Stalinist Empire”, which allowed some authors (D. Khmelnitsky) to argue that Stalin’s personal tastes were significantly different from what was actually implanted in Soviet architecture.
In 1938, Merzhanov developed a number of projects of the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union (the first Heroes were awarded only the Order of Lenin); the most concise option was chosen. In 1939, he proposed two versions of the Hammer and Sickle medal, this time choosing the smallest one. The stars were officially approved on August 1, 1939 and May 22, 1940.
Arrest and Sharashka
After the outbreak of World War II, Merzhanov designed civil defense facilities in Moscow, including the arrangement of the Mayakovskaya metro station in front of the historic meeting on November 6, 1941. After the majority of Moscow architects were evacuated to Chimkent, Merzhanov and K. S. Alabyan remained in Moscow.
On August 12, 1943, Merzhanov, his wife, and a close circle of employees were arrested. On March 8, 1944, Merzhanov was sentenced without trial to 10 years in the camps under article 58, parts 1a, 8, 10, 11, 17, 19 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The indictment was based solely on the testimony of a narrow circle of employees Merzhanov and the fact of his service with Denikin. The fact that in October 1941 he stayed in Moscow was proof of "treason". Merzhanov’s wife died in the camps in the mid-forties, and the architect himself, transferred to the familiar Komsomolsk-on-Amur, was pulled out of the general hut by the camp authorities and again engaged in design. In Komsomolsk, according to his project, the city Palace of Culture and the recreation center of the aircraft factory were built.
In 1948, Merzhanov was transferred to Moscow, where V.S. Abakumov personally set him the task of designing a sanatorium in Sochi for the MGB. For the work, two were deployed. The architect worked in a Sukhanovo prison and in a sharashka in Marfino (where he met A. Solzhenitsin. In 1950, the project was approved by Abakumov, and Merzhanov began construction of his largest and probably best work - the Dzerzhinsky sanatorium However, shortly after the arrest of Abakumov, at the end of 1951, Merzhanov was suspended from construction, and until March 1953 he was in an Irkutsk prison, then in Krasnoyarsk transfer (the sanatorium was completed in 1954).
Exemption
Formally released in 1954 for an indefinite link, Miron Merzhanov settled in Krasnoyarsk. Since 1954, he headed the Krasnoyarskgrazhdanproekt (the main architect of the city was also an exiled Armenian, Gevorg Kochar). According to the projects of Miron Merzhanov in Krasnoyarsk, the regional House of Soviets was built on Revolution Square, the Central District Committee of the CPSU, the Krasnoyarsk branch of the State Bank on ul. Dubrovinsky, the main building of the medical institute, the Palace of Culture of the Krasmash plant - an attempt to return from empire to constructivism, an extension to the Sovkino cinema.
He was rehabilitated on May 30, 1956. In 1960, M.I. Merzhanov left Krasnoyarsk to Moscow. He worked at Mosproject-1. Died in 1975.
Administration building of the Krasnoyarsk Territory
A family
- Son - Merzhanov, Boris Mironovich (born 1929), doctor of architecture.
- Brother - Merzhanov, Martyn Ivanovich (1900-1974).
- Grandson - Merzhanov, Sergey Borisovich (born 1959).
26. The architect of Stalin, Merzhanov Miron Ivanovich.
Somehow in the middle of the summer of 1949, as usual, Colonel Zhelezov came to us. This time, the retinue was more numerous than ever, and among the KGB men in military suits, a black, stooped man dressed in an elegant suit of high growth stood out sharply. Thomas Fomich introduced him to us as the new leader of our group, reorganized into an "architectural-artistic" group.
Then you will get to know each other better, but this does not relieve you of responsibility for the work of artists, said Zhelezov, referring to Ivashov-Musatov, and the authorities left.
/ ... Running ahead, I note that as the group worked under the leadership of Musatov, it continued to work in the future, since Merzhanova was taken to a nook right there at the studio, where he was retreating and pored over some drawings and drawings. And we burned out of curiosity ... /
The next day, he came out to us, stretching, bending his elbows and abruptly throwing them back, trying to straighten his back.
Well, friends, let's get to know each other, I’m an architect, I build sanatoriums on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, built summer houses for Comrade Stalin, and he named one of the sanatoriums he built, it seems, if I’m not mistaken, to them. Voroshilov. He answered briefly about his term: "Article 58-10, part one, for" bowing to the West, "10 years in prison. Laughing, he bowed picturesquely, pretending to wave his hat with feathers before us. And in general he turned out to be a man witty and funny, but did not even try to hide from us his sense of superiority, was imposingly in moderation.
I drew attention to his words: “I am building sanatoriums,” that is, in the present tense, but I was ashamed to ask him a question. This soon became clear even without my questions - he simply continued to work on a MTB sanatorium project on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, which he began to design even before his arrest. After a while, he showed us sketches of the design of the main building, executed in watercolor on large sheets of whatman paper, which beautifully fit into the picturesque landscape of the mountainous coast of the sea.
Every morning, Merzhanov, passing through the studio to his nook, loudly greeted us: "Well, what have you got a little bit of bohemia? The most important thing in life is to be able to sharpen a pencil correctly!" And indeed
- 135 -he sharpened pencils amazingly beautifully and quickly - with just a few movements of a safety razor. Slices were long and graceful. For all the time we worked in a group, he tried hard to teach each of us this art, but, for example, I didn’t get any lessons for the future - I continued to repair at random ...
Over time, Merzhanov tempered his arrogance, became simpler, friendlier, probably felt our growing alienation. Hence these everyday greetings and pencil sharpening lessons. Between ourselves, we came to the conclusion that he was simply trying to take control of our disposition, although we could not understand why. Most did not respond to his flirtations; we saw that he was a stray bird, and that he was flying high today in prison, and tomorrow, that look, again near Stalin, we were afraid of him.
The exception was Ivashov-Musatov, who, it seemed to me, was a little crouching before him, although he was a proud, proud, independent person. But maybe I was wrong, and he simply bowed to the talent of an architect? After a while, they could already be seen together on a walk, in the dining room. They argued about something in an undertone, which was surprising, since everyone knew Musatov’s habit of speaking very loudly and shouting in disputes. Not only that, Merzhanov was not shy of strong expressions, while Musatov, hearing them, let his ears go, although in other cases, when swearing in fury, he shouted: “Do not dare, do not dare, it’s like coming to church, lowering your pants and make a trumpet sound! "
A month after the appearance of Merzhanov with us, we were faced with a phenomenon quite unusual in our conditions: Colonel Zhelezov frequented us and, hastily greeting everyone, hurried to his place where they talked for a long time. It seemed to us that they were even arguing about something! It looked strange and mysterious.
Such meetings were repeated every three to four days for a month, and then Merzhanov disappeared. Just disappeared. He was last seen at night, when he, accompanied by Lt. Col. Mishin (about him later), left the bedroom and was like that ...
He appeared on a sharash again two weeks later. He arrived not in a funnel, but in a chief’s car and in a company with two civilians with a military bearing. They carried luggage after him - baskets with grapes and other fruits, and he walked with a careless gait, as if he were not followed by the MTB, but his adjutants. Zhelezov appeared immediately. After a couple of minutes, the authorities departed ...
We were terribly intrigued by this event, but no one dared to be the first to inquire about the essence of what was happening, everyone pretended that nothing extraordinary had happened.
- 136 -Finally, Miron Ivanovich came to us, stood, swaying from socks to heels, and loudly asked: "Of course, you are burning with curiosity, right? Well, I will not test your patience, just leave your hands alone!"
He said that, accompanied by two MTB officers and Colonel Zhelezov, he flew to Sochi and lived for several days in the Intourist hotel. Then he was taken to Tsikhis-Dziri, where a sanatorium was built according to his design, then to Batumi and back to Sochi. They drove him to the Caucasus to link the project to the area. I had to work with two free architects from Moscow, who were subordinated to him for ten days. It was the last event that probably brought him particular pleasure: “You know, it was quite pleasant to command them, having a 10-year term on my neck. It was very gratifying to see how these fraers were gearing me, catching every word of mine — the word of a scrambled prisoner! And you they would see in what condition they arrived at me at all, they probably had pants full of fear - they took them in Moscow at night. Then they confessed to me, they thought they would arrest them! " - and he laughed.
Most of us have already visited the camps and heard enough that it was difficult to surprise our brother. But for the architect, the home architect of the great leader to use thieves terminology, and with such cynicism ?! Well well! To be proud that he commanded two days, scared to death by people who knew that just like that, the KGB did not come at night? It was uncomfortable to listen to all this. Even Ivashov-Musatov, apparently embarrassed, not listening to him, left the studio.
Then he told and showed in his faces how he was taken to restaurants, and MTB officers tried to please him in everything and were more likely to be friends than guards, because: "... they both drank wine and went to sorority. .. "He was joyfully excited and said that fortune should soon turn to face him:" They are unlikely to manage without me - of course, there are many architects, but Merzhanov is one! "
Soviet architect, who built mainly in the resort cities of the Caucasus. In 1934-1941 he was the personal architect of I.V. Stalin, the author of the projects of Stalin's dachas and senior leaders of the USSR in Kuntsevo, Matsesta, Bocharov Ruchey. In 1942-1956 he was repressed, he worked in architectural sharashka from Sochi to Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
R dressed in an Armenian family in the city of Nakhichevan-on-Don. Father served as an official, and was a distant relative I.K. Aivazovsky. Before the start of World War I, he managed to graduate from a classical gymnasium and enter the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers. He worked as a draftsman in a workshop A.I. Tamanyan, then was drafted into the army, but did not have time to get to the front. In 1920-1923 he continued his studies at the Kuban Polytechnic Institute.
First independent construction Merzhanova - own house in Kislovodsk (1925). It was followed by an indoor market in Essentuki, the building of the State Bank in Pyatigorsk, one of the buildings of the sanatorium “10 years of October” (now the “Pearl of the Caucasus”) in Kislovodsk. In these buildings, formally belonging to constructivism handwriting appeared Merzhanova, preserved until the end of his days - the desire for a spectacular monumentality of buildings, combined with romanticization, visual relief of structures, as well as a favorite detail of the architect - corner balconies and corner niches that tear the smooth walls of buildings. Later Merzhanov called his main teachers I.V. Zholtovsky and Frank Lloyd Wright .
In 1929, the architect won an open competition for the design of the Red Army sanatorium in Sochi, which was personally supervised by K. E. Voroshilov. The architect and the people's commissar became personal friends; this friendship remained after Voroshilov’s resignation and release Merzhanova. The sanatorium is built in constructivistmanner but Merzhanov deliberately masked the toughest constructivist elements, harmoniously combining simple geometric shapes with the mountainous topography of the coast. The image of the sanatorium and the adjoining funicular was propagated by propaganda, and Merzhanov entered the clip of the most sought-after Soviet architects.
In 1931 M.I. Merzhanov He was called to Moscow and appointed chief architect of the economic administration of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Simultaneously with the completion of the Voroshilov sanatorium, on the instructions of the CEC Merzhanov built a complex of state dachas "Bocharov Ruchey". He led the design of the Naval Academy in Leningrad, the design of buildings for the new city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, together with A.K. Burov, he built the Moscow House of Architects. In the second half of the thirties Merzhanov is building two large sanatoriums in Kislovodsk - the Sanatorium Hotel NKVD (now Kislovodsk) and Red Stones. This is undoubtedly Stalinist architecture, and not limited in funds for high-quality stone decoration, and retaining the "southern" romanticism typical of the architect.
In 1933-1934 Merzhanov designed the first Stalinist cottage - the so-called. the nearest cottage in Kuntsevo. The original one-story house was built up to two floors in 1943 (according to other sources in 1948), when the architect was already in custody; the author of the perestroika project is unknown, but it is likely that the project itself was used Merzhanova. In 1934, a satisfied customer called Merzhanova He personally set the task to design a complex of state dachas in Matsesta, in 1935 - on the Cold River near Gagra. All these objects were designed in the style of a modernized classic, equally equidistant from both constructivism and the “Stalinist Empire”, which allowed some authors to argue that Stalin’s personal tastes were significantly different from what was actually implanted in Soviet architecture.
In 1938 Merzhanov developed a number of projects of the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.After the start of World War II Merzhanov designed civil defense facilities in Moscow, including the arrangement of the Mayakovskaya metro station before the historic meeting on November 6, 1941. After the evacuation of most Moscow architects to Chimkent Merzhanov and K. S. Alabyan stayed in Moscow.
August 12, 1943 Merzhanov, his wife and close circle of employees were arrested. March 8, 1944Merzhanov He was sentenced without trial to 10 years in the camps under article 58, parts 1a, 8, 10, 11, 17, 19 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The indictment was based solely on the testimony of a narrow circle of employeesMerzhanova and the fact of his service with Denikin. The fact that in October 1941 he stayed in Moscow, was evidence of "treason". WifeMerzhanova It was not of special value to the NKVD and perished in the camps in the mid-forties, and the architect himself, transferred to Komsomolsk-on-Amur well known to him, was pulled out of the general hut by the camp authorities and again engaged in designing. In Komsomolsk, according to his project, the city Palace of Culture and the recreation center of the aircraft factory were built.In 1948 Merzhanov was transported to Moscow, where V. S. Abakumov personally set him the task of designing a sanatorium in Sochi for the MGB. The architect worked in a Sukhanovo prison and in a sharashka in Marfino, where he met with A. I. Solzhenitsyn.
In 1950, the project was approved by Abakumov, and Merzhanov began to build his largest and probably best work - the sanatorium named after Dzerzhinsky. However, shortly after the arrest of Abakumov, in late 1951, Merzhanov He was removed from construction, and until March 1953 he was in an Irkutsk prison, then in Krasnoyarsk transfer (the sanatorium was completed in 1954).
Sanatorium them. F.E. Dzerzhinsky, Sochi.A photo: Gestaltung Bureau
Formally released in 1954 for an indefinite link, he settled in Krasnoyarsk and headed the Krasnoyarskgrazhdanproekt (the exiled Armenian, G. B. Kochar, was also the main architect of the city). By project Merzhanova in Krasnoyarsk, the Central District Committee of the CPSU, a city cinema, a branch of the State Bank and DC Krasmash were built.
Miron Ivanovich He was rehabilitated on May 30, 1956, returned to Moscow in 1960, and worked actively until 1971. One of the main merits M.I. Merzhanova while working in Krasnoyarsk can be considered the creation of a branch of the central institute Gorstroyproekt, later renamed Krasnoyarskgrazhdanproekt.The largest of them are the House of Soviets, the Sovkino cinema, the building of the Central District Committee of the CPSU and the Krasnoyarsk branch of the State Bank. Partial return of the architect to constructivism it was also especially pronounced in the building of the recreation center of the Krasmash plant, located on the right bank of the Yenisei.
In 1960 M.I. Merzhanov left Krasnoyarsk, but for another two years at the Krasnoyarskgrazhdanproekt he officially remained a consultant.Met in Moscow with V.A. Shkvarikov, got a job at Mosproject – 1.In the 1960s and 70s, two large complexes were built in Moscow - the All-Russian Research Institute "Instrument" on B. Semenovskaya Str. and "Stankoimport" at the station metro station "Kaluga". In both cases, Merzhanov was the leader of the creative team. Both objects are implemented with noticeable deviations from the projects.December 13, 1975, in Moscow, the architect died of a long-term lung disease.
Sources:
Akulov A.A. The architect of Stalin. - Ryazan: 2006;
Family Archive Merzhanovs.
Sergey Merzhanov, architect
Sergey Merzhanov, architect, graduate of MARCH with a degree in history and theory of architecture. The author of many books and articles on modern and historical architecture and on the protection of monuments. For several years he was a public inspector of WOOPIC. Twice winner of the All-Russian Festival of Architecture for the best publications on architecture. In recent years, has been engaged in exhibition design. The author of many concepts of museums and exhibitions, in particular, the author of the concept of the State Borodino Military History Museum-Reserve and the script of Andrei Bely Museum-Apartment in Moscow.
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