Crossing the border of history: The 19th-century customs house in Lefortovo to be done up

The façade of the three-storey customs house in Lefortovo will be restored and regain its original appearance. The repair work was authorised by the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage.

The building is a cultural heritage site of national importance. This is one of the few surviving buildings that were built to the south-east of Moscow at the turn of the 19^th century. The customs house is an example of industrial eclecticism that was tremendously popular at a time of the surge in the development of manufactories in Moscow. It is not known when exactly the customs house was built.

Presumably, the construction was initially used as a warehouse. However, according to some other sources, this was one of the places that accommodated a weaving facility owned by the Alexeyev merchants who were top level guild members. The building first appeared on the maps in 1852 and in the 1880s it was turned into the Moscow customs house after the Nizhny Novgorod and Nikolayevskaya railways were built and connected – today, it is the Gorkovskaya Line of the Moscow Railways.

It is not a coincidence that the building is located near a thoroughfare that played an important role in the late 18^th century as a transport link between Moscow, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod. It was a time when a mass of construction work was taking place on the left bank of the Yauza River, which was being crowded with plants and manufactories. Today, the property belongs to the Federal Agency for State Reserves (Rosrezerv). 

 “The customs house on Volochayevskaya Street is one of the city’s architectural landmarks worth seeing,” said Alexei Yemelyanov, Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage (Mosgornaslediye). “We don’t know much about it compared to other cultural heritage sites, however, we still greatly value it. Specialists from the Department of Cultural Heritage will oversee the badly needed repair work on the front of the building.”

Mr Yemelyanov added that to repair the façade, workers will have to carefully strip off the stucco and paint from the walls, patch up  the pierre apparente walls and regroup the brickwork and apply protective solution to the surfaces to help preserve the building from crumbling and the adverse effects of the environment. The white paving stones and the brickwork will be redone on the ground floor. The last phase of the project will be to paint the front of the building.  

Yauza River’s left bank

The history of the development of the left bank of the Yauza River dates back to the 14^th century, when in the 1360s the Andronikov Monastery of the Saviour was built on the high hill by the old road leading to the city of Vladimir and near the mouth of a small stream. The first stone structure – the white-stone cathedral dedicated to the Holy Image of Edessa – appeared there in the 15^th century and has survived to this very day. Famous Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev (1360–1428) lived in the vicinity and took part in the construction and painting of the cathedral. Presumably, he was buried in the monastery grounds but the exact location of his grave is not known. Until the early 18^th century the Andronikov Monastery of the Saviour was a book rewriting centre in Russia. 

In the 17^th century, millers, Streltsy [shooters] infantrymen and followers of faiths other than Orthodoxy began to settle on the left bank of the Yauza. State gunpowder mills were built in the area at the time. In the 18^th century, the unpopulated meadows – the pastures of the Andronikov Monastery and the Rogozhskaya Sloboda suburb – were incorporated into Moscow. According to 1730 city maps, there was a mint there, which was later re-equipped to accommodate a wool weaving factory.

In the mid-18^th century, the Stroganovs built a mansion in the Empire style not far from the site, known as the Stroganovs’ dacha on the Yauza. Its owners were members of the famous Stroganov family of industrialists, after whom later the Stroganovskaya icon-painting school was named. The mansion was designed by architect Rodion Kazakov (1758–1803). In the 19^th century, the new owners – the Alexeyev merchants – added a storey to the mansion, which has survived to this day, remaining largely intact from the outside. It is located close to the customs house at 38 Volochayevskaya Street. In the 1880s, the Stroganovs’ dacha was also bought by the Moscow customs house.

In Russia, customs houses first appeared in 1819 when all customs offices along the border with Europe were divided into four categories in keeping with the Customs Code. There were customs houses, as well as main, declaration and other customs offices. The customs houses were used to pay duties on all goods that were not banned from being taken out of the country or brought into it and could be stored at the warehouses for up to eight months. By the mid-19^th century, the booming growth of railway transport in Russia had led to the construction of a large warehouse building for the customs.

The main building of the Moscow Main Warehouse Customs, which today is home to the Central Customs Directorate, was built in the Russian Classicism style to a design drawn up by architect Konstantin Ton (1774–1881).

Landmark conservation

Work to preserve and restore architectural landmarks in Moscow never stops. For example, the greenhouse ponds at Tsaritsyno Museum Reserve have already been included on the list of restoration projects. In Zamoskvorechye, the renovation of the façade of the main building of the Bakhrushin Memorial House, or the State Central Theatre Museum, was completed this past summer. The mansion was built by merchant and patron Alexei Bakhrushin in 1894 to a design drawn up by Moscow architect Karl Gippius.

The façade of the building of the Moscow State Art Gallery run by People’s Artist of the USSR Alexander Shilov was done up last spring. This brick mansion was built in 1829.