Printing House (Kazan)

The Printing House is a monument of Soviet architecture of the prewar years. Architecturally, his image is based on a rational combination of volumes and forms, the use of tape windows, the alternation of protruding and recessed parts that enrich the volume-plastic composition.

The building is an asymmetric structure complicated in plan, consisting of different-height volumes located along Bauman , Kavi Nadzhmi and Profsoyuznaya streets , forming a closed vast courtyard ^[2] . The total building area is 140 × 80 m.

The main facade along Bauman Street has 3-part division and consists of two 4-storey volumes of various sizes located at the corners of Kavi Najmi Street crossing Bauman Street, and a central recessed volume, which is, starting from the second floor, a transitional gallery with loggias under it is a through passage ^[2] .

An open gallery with large round columns located 5.2 m in front of the glassed-on windows of the trading floors passes through the first floor of the lateral volumes. The colonnade is designed to expand the narrow space of the street along the ground floor ^[3] .

The compositional axis of the main facade is a vertical semicircular protrusion in the middle of the central volume.

The load-bearing structures of the building are made of reinforced concrete, the walls are brick, plastered with a cement-sand mortar of dark gray color. Tape windows surrounding the walls give the building lightness and expressiveness ^[2] .

In the early 1930s, the government of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic decided to build a single complex, which would accommodate the editorial offices of the main publications of the republic and a powerful modern publishing house .

It was built from 1933 to 1935 according to a competitive design by architect S. S. Pan , who graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineers in 1925, in the style of constructivism . According to his projects, the club of the Red Proletarian printing house in Moscow (32 Krasnoproletarskaya Street ) and the Press Palace in Baku were previously built. The Kazan House of Printing complex, which significantly exceeds their size, was successfully inscribed in the ensemble of Bauman Street, located on the site of the former flour market ^[4] .

In the design of the building, new techniques of layout of printing houses and rationalization practices of Soviet printing were used ^[3] . He suggested several interconnected technological units: an extensive editorial and publishing building with shops along Bauman Street; printing and booklet building along Profsoyuznaya street; building of typesetting and zincographic production along the International street. The consumer service building designed along the south side of Mezhdunarodnaya Street with a canteen, an outpatient clinic and a manger has not been implemented. The author of the interiors of the building is A. M. Gustov ^[5]

In the spring of 1935, the leading publications of the republic and all departments of the Tatgosizdat moved to the Press House. Along with the editorial complex, a new printing house (state printing house named after Kamil Yakubov) was commissioned here.

In the 1930s and subsequent years, the Press House housed several departments and organizations related to book affairs, for example, the TASSR State Committee for Publishing, Printing and Book Trade (later, the Ministry of Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Media of the Republic of Tatarstan), The Tatar Book Publishing House , the largest bookstore in the republic (shop No. 1 of Tatknigotorg), the board of the Union of Writers of Tataria (the Writers' Union of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was headed by K. G. Nadzhmi in 1934-1937, and Musa Jalil in 1939-1941), the club of writers named after G. Tukai (in 1941 A. N. Tolstoy spoke in it, and in A. A. Fadeev in 1942) ^[3] .

At the beginning of 1974, some of the organizations located in the Press House moved to the newly built building of the Tatar newspaper and journal publishing house (now the branch of OAO Tatmedia "PIC "Idel-Press" ”) - house 2 on Dekabristov Street , known among the townspeople as the Publishing House.

In 1981, the Press House was included in the "List of monuments of history and culture of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic subject to state protection as monuments of local importance" ^[6] . Due to the deteriorating state of the architectural monument , already in 1986 a program was defined providing for the gradual reconstruction and restoration of the Press House in 1989-1998 ^[7] , but it was not implemented.

In the early 2000s, the State Unitary Enterprise “Printing and Publishing Plant” (formerly called the K. Yakub Printing Plant) and one of the largest bookstores in Kazan were operating in the building ^[4] .

In 2007, the last (and only) Tatknigoizdat store moved out of the Printing House.

In July 2011, the boundaries of the territory of the cultural heritage object of regional (republican) significance “Press House” ^[1] were approved.

In 2012, reconstruction works began at the Press House. To carry out restoration work, the owner of the building of OJSC Svyazinvestneftekhim established a subsidiary LLC Printing House on Bauman ^[8] . According to the head of Svyazinvestneftekhim, the total cost of investments in the facility is about 1-1.2 billion rubles ^[9] .

By the Summer Universiade , which was held in Kazan in July 2013, the facade of the Printing House overlooking Bauman Street was restored.

In 2012-2013, at the site of the production shops of the former printing house, a multi-level (two underground and five ground floors) parking was built for 275 cars. The opened parking lot was named “Barabus” ^[10] by the name of the type of transport that operated in Kazan before the revolution, including at the flour market located here.

It is planned that after restoration and reconstruction, the building will house a modern hotel with three restaurants on the ground floor. In addition, it is planned to completely restore the original writing club named after G. Tukai, which was located on the fifth floor. Its premises can be used as a conference room. The building also plans to house a museum and an art gallery with portraits of famous people who visited the Printing House ^[8] .

In addition, the Writers' Union of the Republic of Tatarstan appealed to Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov with a request to keep the bookstore, which was located on the ground floor of the Press House. The general director of Svyazinvestneftekhim confirmed that a bookstore will be opened in the restored building, but of a much smaller area ^[11] .

• The Press House blocked International Street (now Kavi Najmi Street), which approaches Bauman Street under the transitional galleries and loggias of the building.
• The space in front of the Press House is known as the “Book” and serves as a gathering place for representatives of youth subcultures ^[12] .
• Near the Press House in 1999, the Kazan Zero Meridian was installed - a stone index of the city center and its distance from various cities of the world.
• During the reconstruction of the Press House in 2012, a collection of teeth and bones of mammals of the ice age (the lower jaw of a mammoth baby, the skull of a horse of Stenon , the skull and bones of a woolly rhinoceros) was found in the basement of the building. The collection was transferred to the Geological Museum. Stukenberg, Kazan University ^{[9] [11]} .

• House of Printing of Tatras Republic [Designed by S. Pan]. - Kazan, 1932 .-- 12 p.
• Gafurov V.Z., Miftakhov Z.Z. Development of printing and printing in Tatarstan. - Kazan: Publishing house of Kazan University, 1977. - 268 p.
• Ostroumov V.P. Kazan. Essays on the architecture and layout of the city. - Kazan: KSU Publishing House, 1978. - S. 159.
• Ostroumov V.P., Halikov A. Kh. House of the Press // Kazan in the Monuments of History and Culture / Ed. S. S. Aidarova , A. Kh. Khalikova, M. Kh. Khasanova, I.N. Aleeva. - Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, 1982. - S. 107.
• Love Ageeva. Printing House on Bauman Street // Kazan Stories. - 2013. - August 13.

• Kazan House of Seals // Site about Kazan Rustem Akhunov.