Restoration professionals discover a secret cache in the house of sculptor Nikolay Andreev in Afanasyevsky Pereulok
In the house of Nikolay Andreev, a well-known soviet sculptor, they found a cache under the floorboards: gypsum heads and other parts belonging to sculptures of Lenin, Stalin, and Mayakovsky, glazed oven tiles, furniture details and other items from the early 20 th century. The house at Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok (27, bldg. 2, 3, 4) is a cultural heritage site of federal significance.
“Restoration projects often reveal surprises, bringing us the joy of unexpected findings, and the cache in Andreev’s house is one such instance. As a part of accident-prevention effort, our people removed the old linoleum and rotten floorboards, to discover a concrete cellar, filled to the brim with various items. It is no surprise that many of those items were sculpture parts: after Nikolay Andreev’s death and up until 2017, the house was used as a communal living facility for the Moscow branch of the Artists’ Association,” said Alexey Yemelyanov, Head of the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage.
All the findings were handed over to experts for assessment. They will clean the items from dust and dirt, determine their age and value; for many sculptures, their authors will also have to be determined. After that, they will have to make a decision if their restoration and further public display are viable. The best items will be displayed at the Restoration Findings, an exhibition organized by the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage.
“The house where Nikolay Andreev lived from 1900 to 1932 will be restored under the 1 Ruble per Square Meter per Year program. Lease rights for historical buildings were auctioned off in July 2023. A contract for 49 years was signed with the winner, Trety Taim, LLC. In the first five years, the company has to restore the 800+ square meters’ house. After that, they are free to switch to the preferential rent rate, and use the house as they see fit,” added Maxim Gaman, Moscow Government Minister, Head of the Municipal Property Department.
An accident prevention effort is underway right now. They are installing temporary drain pipes, shroud the building in a waterproof cover and try to strengthen the surviving beams and ceilings so they do not collapse. At the same time, there is research going on to later serve as grounds for the restoration project that would ensure that the building retains its original appearance. All the works will be supervised by the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage.
The building in Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok is a small eclectic house. It was built in 1893, following a design by Alexander Kaminsky, a well-known Moscow architect, mentor of Fyodor Schechtel; he also designed Tretyakovsky Proyezd, and the first Tretyakov Gallery building. The house displays laconic echoes of the Classicist style visible in its shape, complete with saw-tooth cornices, and Art Nouveau windows and doors from the late 19 th-early 20 th century.
There was a whole commune of sculptors established in Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok at that time, existing for many years thereafter. Next to Nikolay Andreev’s place, there used to be the workshop of Maria Sinitsyna, where Vera Mukhina, Lyudmila Gold, Sofia Rosental, Ivan Rakhmanov used to work in their early years.
Also that was where Nikolay Andreev used to work in the 1900 s, making the monuments to Nikolay Gogol (on Nikitsky Boulevard) and Fyodor Gaaz, the Holy Doctor (in Maly Kazyonny Pereulok): some of his most well-known pieces. In 1918–1922, he also made monuments to Alexander Herzen, Alexander Ostrovsky, and Nikolay Ogaryov. In the early 1920 s, an enormous number of Lenin’s portraits were painted in his workshop; they have been included in the famous Lenin series by Andreev.
After the sculptor died in 1932, the house in Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok was turned into a communal living facility; the workshops were handed over to various sculptors. Some of them were Andrey Drevin, Viktor Dumanian, Oleg Tolstoy, Abram Malakhin, Anton Lavinsky, etc. As the dating of some of the books found there indicates, one of them could very well have been the owner of the secret cache.