Vrubel’s legacy: Renovated facades of Savva Mamontov’s estate wing

The façade renovation on a wing of the city estate that belonged to the famous Russian philanthropist and manufacturer Savva Mamontov has been completed. It is the only building on the grounds of the estate that has survived until today. The main house was dismantled in 1912, and the Strakhov Men’s Gymnasium was built in its stead.

Singer Feodor Chaliapin, composer Sergei Rachmaninov and artists Sergei Vasnetsov and Mikhail Vrubel visited this house among other cultural figures whom the philanthropist took under his wing.

Initially the wing hosted a coach house and stables, with a two-storey residential building constructed in the 1890s. This was where Mikhail Vrubel lived. There were residential rooms on the ground floor and the artist’s studio on the first floor. The building’s façades were made to his designs. Vrubel called the style Roman-Byzantine.

The facades were covered with light-coloured bricks (as the custom was in Byzantine architecture). Tapered windows with arching uppers were another feature. Several windows were reinforced with fan-shaped stones (a kind of brick laying) that helped the stone ceilings bear a heavy load.

Only two majolica (a kind of ceramics) chimneys likely built to the artist’s designs and two stoves exhibited at the Abramtsevo Museum Estate in the Moscow Region have survived until today from the interior decorations.

“This remaining building of Mamontov’s estate in Sadovo-Spasskaya Street is a federal cultural heritage site, so the renovation of the facades was supervised by experts of our department. The bricks were cleaned, and after that the renovators took out the destroyed pieces and mended small cracks. The lost parts were filled with red clay bricks on lime brick mortar made to be as similar to that used over 100 years ago as possible. After the renovation, the façade was covered with protective and decorative beige paint according to the landmark’s passport of colour appearance,” said Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage Alexei Yemelyanov.

In addition, the roof has also been repaired and reinforced. Experts have installed forged metal entrance roofs made to look like the original ones over the two doorways leading out into the street. They also installed the lost forged lamps on the northwestern façade. Today the building hosts a Moscow Directorate of Marriage Registration Offices.

Savva Mamontov (1841–1918) was a manufacturer and a philanthropist who made a priceless contribution to the development of Russian culture and art. Like his father, he worked in railway construction where he gained his wealth. He spent a significant part of his money on supporting talented artists and actors, such as Ilya Repin, Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, Vasily Polenov, Pavel Trubetskoy, Ilya Ostroukhov, Mikhail Nesterov, Konstantin Korovin and Isaak Levitan (members of Mamontov’s art group), who lived and worked at Mamontov’s Abramtsevo Estate outside Moscow as well as musicians and actors.

There was a carving studio and ceramic studio at his estate. After 1917, the estate was nationalised and turned into a museum estate. Mamontov’s daughter Alexandra was its first custodian. Today there are 18^th–19^th century architectural landmarks and a park on the museum grounds that cover 50 ha. The museum collection includes over 25,000 items. The exhibitions are dedicated to the life and art of Abramtsevo’s owners and famous guests.

Renovating and preserving architectural landmarks is an important area of the Department of Cultural Heritage’s work. Lately it has received permission to carry out research at VDNKh’s Pavilion No.51, Meat Industry. It was built in 1951–1954 to the design of architects Viktor Lisitsyn and Sergei Chernobai and called Glavmyaso until 1956. This July Moscow began renovating 16 sculptures of the victor warriors and women praising the Victory that adorn building 30 at the corner of Leninsky Prospekt and Gagarin Square. This building is also known as the House at Kaluzhskaya Zastava.

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In addition, the renovation of Moscow’s oldest cast-iron tram stop, Krasnostudenchesky Proyezd, was completed this summer. In total, over 1,000 cultural landmarks have been renovated during the last seven years. Each year the city works on about 200 landmarks.