Kshesinskaya Mansion

The mansion was built in 1904 - 1906 in the style of " Northern Art Nouveau " according to the project of the architect A. I. von Gauguin for the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya . The interior design was attended by architect A. I. Dmitriev .

1917

During the February Revolution, Kshesinskaya left her mansion in a hurry with her son Vladimir. The empty building was arbitrarily occupied by the soldiers of the workshops of the reserve armored division. By agreement with them, the Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP (b) , its military organization, and then the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) , the expedition of the newspaper Pravda, and the editorial board of the newspaper Soldatskaya Pravda moved to the mansion. From April 3 (16), 1917 to July 4 (17), 1917 , V.I. Lenin worked here and made speeches from the balcony of the mansion. So the house turned, as the Petrograd newspapers wrote, into the "main headquarters of the Leninists."

Kshesinskaya made attempts to return her property. In a letter addressed to the prosecutor of the Petrograd Court of Justice, she asked: “1) Take measures to free my house from unauthorized persons and give me the opportunity to safely return to it. 2) Start an investigation into the case of the looting of my property in the same house. ”

But the prosecutor only asked the management of the reserve armored division for “the possibility of freeing Kshesinsky’s house from standing because of her petition” and requested “an inquiry about the stolen property” from the police commissariat of the Petrograd district. Then, on behalf of Kshesinskaya, her lawyer , attorney Vladimir Khesin, filed a civil eviction lawsuit in court. As one of the defendants, the plaintiff indicated “the candidate is right V. I. Ulyanov (lit. pseudonym - Lenin )”. The lawyers M. Yu. Kozlovsky undertook to represent the interests of the defendants.

On May 5, 1917, the magistrate of the 58th precinct, Mikhail Gavrilovich Chistoserdov, ruled: “Evict from house No. 2-1 on B. Dvoryanskaya St. within 20 days "all revolutionary organizations" with all residents and clean the premises of their property. " The lawsuit against V. I. Ulyanov was left unaddressed in connection with his “non-existence” in the mansion. After that, the Central and St. Petersburg committees of the RSDLP (b) were forced to officially declare their departure from the Kshesinskaya mansion, but the military organization of the party flatly refused to comply with the court decision, and the St. Petersburg committee also soon actually returned.

On the morning of July 6 ( 19 ), 1917, during an armed conflict with the Bolsheviks, government troops occupied the building. Seven Bolsheviks were arrested, who were still involved in the evacuation of party documents, including V.I. Lenin's guard, Vasily Vasiliev . After this, the mansion was occupied by a scooter battalion , arrived in Petrograd. The soldiers ruled in the mansion, destroying and pulling away everything that remained. Attorney Khesin continued to file new claims, now seeking not only to return the building to its former owner, but also to compensate for the damage, which he estimated at one third of a million rubles.

Kshesinskaya herself left July 13 (26) from Petrograd to Kislovodsk , where her future husband, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich , was waiting for her ^[1] , and in February 1920 she emigrated to France ^[2] .

An entire notebook of Judges Chistoserdov’s memoirs is devoted to the eviction of unexpected guests from the house - it is entitled “Eviction of the Bolsheviks from the Kshesinskaya Mansion”. Now the notebook is kept in the State Archive of the Russian Federation , in the fund of Vladimir Tukalevsky (editor-in-chief of the Tolstoy Yearbook). Like Chistoserdov, after the revolution, Tukalevsky emigrated to Finland and lived in Terioki - it was probably there that the author handed the notebook to the publisher. The materials were never published, although they are of great interest to lawyers ^[3] .

After 1917

• After the October Revolution until 1938, the mansion housed the institutions of the Petrosoviet , the Institute of Public Catering , the Leningrad branch of the Society of Old Bolsheviks .
• In 1938 - 1956, the Museum of S. M. Kirov (in 1956 transferred to the Benois House on Kamennoostrovsky Ave. ).
• From 1957 to 1991 - State Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution . During the reconstruction in 1957, according to the project of architect N.N. Nadezhin, it was connected with the former mansion of V.E.Brant ( 1909 , architect R.-F. Meltzer ) with the inclusion of a new building in the composition and the entrance hall. The stone slabs of the facade of the building correspond to the cladding material of both buildings, but are softly highlighted in color, and the neoclassical interpretation of the facade of the new building is perceived as a natural continuation of the modern forms. ^[four]

After 1991

After 1991, the building houses the Museum of the Political History of Russia .

The building - a classic example of northern Art Nouveau - is distinguished by an asymmetric plan and a composition of uneven volumes. The free rhythm of windows of different sizes corresponds to the location of the rooms. A contrasting combination of finishing materials was used: red and gray granite , facing bricks and majolica tiles , decorative metal.

The main facade of the mansion faces Kronverksky Prospekt, but the building did not have an entrance from the street. It was necessary to go through the gate to a small courtyard, and then up the main staircase to the hall connected with the premises of the mansion. On the ground floor there were office premises, in the first - halls and living rooms for receptions, evenings and balls, in the second - a bedroom, nurseries, bathroom, dressing room and other living quarters. ^{[5] The} interior of the ground floor is organized as a suite with a glassed-in conservatory .

The interiors were decorated in modern style .

Huge mirrored windows overlook Kronverksky Avenue and the Peter and Paul Fortress . White furniture upholstered in silk against the walls. In the direction of the Neva, the hall is closed by a semicircular ledge, in which huge palm trees stretch. Silver-blue ribbons of water flow on the stones of the picturesque grotto. Behind the graceful glass door there are many draperies made of expensive velvet fabrics. Three massive doors lead from the hall to the inner rooms of the palace. ^[6]

In Soviet times, the design was lost, but since the mid -1980s, partially restored.

• Leningrad: Travel Guide / Comp. V.A. Vityazeva , B.M. Kirikov . - L .: Lenizdat , 1986 .-- 366 p.
• Isachenko V.G. Architecture of St. Petersburg. Reference Guide. - SPb .: Parity, 2004. - 416 s - ISBN 5-93437-125-8 .
• Kirikov B.M. , Stiglitz M.S. Architecture of the Leningrad avant-garde. Travel Guide - SPb. : Kolo, 2008 .-- S. 35-37. - 384 p. - ISBN 978-5-901841-49-5 .
• Vinogradov M. Yu. Matilda Kshesinskaya: The battle for the mansion in Petrogradka .
• Kshesinskaya M.F. - M .: AST, 2001 .-- 411 p. - ISBN 5-17-003879-8 .

• A. Kulegin. Litigation of Kshesinsky and Lenin
• Kshesinskaya Mansion
• Matilda Kshesinskaya: The battle for the mansion in Petrogradka