Our correspondent learned about the common interesting past of the metro builders and the museum building in Samotechny Lane.
In the courtyard of the house 9/1 on 1st Samotechny Lane there is peace and quiet. Among the green lawns, two metro ventilation shafts stand alone. The building itself, sheathed on three sides with copper plates, looks austere, its windows are closed with shutters. Inside there is a museum telling visitors about the sad pages of Soviet history. But this was not always the case.
The history of the house began in the 19th century. Gradually, the Dukhshchinsky merchant and hereditary honorary citizen Mikhail Popov, who bought up all the lands in the district, decided to build apartment buildings on this site of Samoteki.
In 1906, a project for two four-story buildings was created and approved by the Construction Department of the Moscow City Government. The author was the famous Moscow architect Nikolai Zherikhov. Construction of the house and commissioning took several years. The first residents moved into it after 1914.
The next stage in the biography of the house came after the events of 1917. The new government changed the lives of people, the country and even buildings. The house was nationalized. Although its purpose remained the same, apartments began to become denser - communal apartments appeared.
Brick walls remember birthdays, weddings, deaths, shared dinners, boys playing in the yard. In 1972, the house was resettled, and its residents were given warrants for new apartments. Metro builders came to the vacant building.
The resettlement occurred due to the development of Moscow and the emergence of new metro sections. A vertical shaft was built in the yard, through which the passages from the Tsvetnoy Boulevard station to the Mendeleevskaya station and a little later from Trubnaya to Dostoevskaya were carried out.
A shower facility and a canteen for workers were organized in the house. The site manager's office, a machine shop, and a design institute are also located here. Some of the premises on the upper floors were rented out.
– After the excavation work was completed, a ventilation shaft was built, the yard was landscaped, and ventilation kiosks were installed. The site located in the house was moved to another facility under construction in Brateevo. The building was transferred to the Moscow Property Committee,” recalls Mikhail Kaygorodtsev from SMU-6, former deputy director at SMU-3. It was he who was involved in transferring the building to the city.
Since 2005, the fate of the house was under threat, there was a possibility of demolition due to disrepair. But by a happy coincidence, the building received new life and content. In October 2015, the State Museum of Gulag History opened here.
The museum was founded in 2001 by Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, a famous historian, publicist, and public figure who went through Stalin’s camps as the son of an “enemy of the people.” The first exhibition was located on Petrovka Street in 2004, but over time the museum became cramped in this space.
Konstantin Andreev, head of the Museum’s Educational Center We were looking for a building that we could equip for the museum complex. Make an exposition, allocate space for temporary exhibitions, educational purposes, a conference room, as well as for funds that include documents and exhibits. The house was abandoned for a long time, in 2012-2014 we carried out a high-quality reconstruction, in the process we re-equipped something, strengthened the foundation and walls, and changed the internal volumes.
The centuries-old history of the house constantly makes itself felt to its current inhabitants. Former residents still come to the museum with their memories. The staff greet everyone with cordiality and are sensitive to stories about the past, collecting bit by bit the chronicle of the house. Perhaps metro builders also have a desire to share stories about this place.
Memories can be sent to the museum's email addressobraz@gmig.ru.