Central Market (Kaluga)

The central market is the market in Kaluga .

Since the 18th century, the market was located on one of the central streets of Kaluga - Sadovaya (now Kirov) and during that time was the main trading floor of the city. For more than a hundred years, there were hay, food and wood markets on Sadovaya Street. As noted by the famous Kaluga local historian Dmitry Ivanovich Malinin , for the first time the so-called "Meat Rows" appeared on the site of the modern market, that is, in the quarter between the streets of Kirov, Dostoevsky, Marat and Ryleyev, at the end of the XVIII century, being moved from Ilyinskaya Street (now Kutuzova) ^[1] .

The first regular market, consisting of wooden trading benches, was organized here in the middle of the XIX century according to the project of the chief architect of the Kaluga province Nikolai Fedorovich Sokolov ^[2] . The reasons for its creation were the completion of the construction of a stone ensemble of the gostiny dvor in Kaluga ^[3] and the desire of the city authorities to move trade from Old Torg Square , organizing it on Sadovaya Street, which became the widest and geometrically correct city street ^[4] . For the sake of its construction, a part of the channel of the Berezuisky ravine was filled up, which allowed raising the shopping arcade on the same level with the street (earlier it was located on the slopes of the ravine). At the same time, the Meat Rows themselves occupied a quarter between the modern streets of Kirov - Marat - Dzerzhinsky - Ryleev. The quarter between the modern streets of Dzerzhinsky - Marat - Dostoevsky - Ryleev occupied a square destroyed in the 19th century ^[5] .

Next to the meat rows, there was a trade in edible goods brought to Kaluga mainly from nearby villages. During fairs, food carts occupied all the surrounding streets. At the beginning of the 20th century, three more covered canopies were built to trade in vegetables and dairy products. Part of the territory on which trade was conducted was paved ^[4] .

The influence of the market affected the name of the streets adjacent to it at that time: the streets of Marat were called Novomyasnitskaya, and part of the Dostoevsky street was called Myasnitskaya or Staromyasnitskaya ^{[6] [7]} .

After the establishment of Soviet power in the city, the square of Kommunarov (now Theater Square) became the main trading area until the 50s of the XX century. However, in the same place, trade did not stop completely. And in connection with the construction of the Kaluga Regional Drama Theater in the 1950s, the main city market began to be located at the intersection of Kirov and Marat Streets ^[8] . At the same time, not only trade was conducted on the market, but also performances were held: circus tent was placed, riders were riding motorcycles vertically. For racing, a large wooden barrel was built in the center, inside which motorcyclists rode ^[9] .

In 1976, the building of a covered market was erected. It was opened on December 30 and totaled 600 places for trade. His project was developed 14 years earlier by a group of architects led by Nodar Kancheli . The first in this project was the Cheryomushkinsky market in Moscow. Experts put the sailing vault of the market building on a par with the constructions of world architecture stars - Alvaro Siza and Oscar Niemeyer ^[10] . At the same time, not only the main building was located on the territory of the market, but also a number of trading pavilions, as well as open trading places. To this end, the market was expanded to include a public garden, which since the end of the 19th century has occupied an area between Dzerzhinsky and Dostoevsky streets, on which, in particular, vegetable pavilions of the collective farm market were located ^[11] .

With the expansion of retail trade in the late 1980s, the market began to trade not only foodstuffs, but also industrial goods, and the trade territory increased due to sidewalks throughout the central part of the city from Plekhanov to Lenin streets ^[12] . A marked criminalization of trade occurred ^[2] .

Already in the second half of the 90s, the city authorities began to impose restrictions on places of trade in order to streamline and maintain the appearance of Kaluga in good condition. If in 1995 “remote” and “exit” trade was allowed on trays in the presence of one-time coupons ^[13] , then already starting in 1996 “trade from hands, land, boxes, boxes” was prohibited ^[14] . By the end of 2004, most of the mini-markets that had arisen in the previous decade were closed, and street trading was stopped ^[15] . The main markets of the city were the Central and the so-called “Belarusian Market” located in the neighboring quarter.

In 2016, the building of the Central Market of Kaluga turned 40 years old. The authorities of Kaluga decided to demolish the Central Market and move the main trade to another part of the city, but after numerous disputes and rumors, the historic building was decided to be left in its original place ^[16] . Since November 2016, trade (non-food products - completely) was stopped on open market sites ^[17] , and at the beginning of December trading places were dismantled, a number of covered pavilions and utility rooms were demolished ^[18] . March 31, 2017 - was the last day of the central market building ^{[19] [20]} . According to Vitaliy Chernikov (who headed Kaluga in 1990–1994), the trade cluster that existed on the market and adjacent territories created employment for about 5 thousand people ^[21] . Currently, trading is conducted at several sites in different city blocks.

On November 7, 2017, a city park was opened on the site of the open part of the market ^[22] . The building of the covered market after reconstruction, according to the Mayor of Kaluga Konstantin Gorobtsov , is supposed to be used as a children's cultural, entertainment and educational center ^[23] . However, despite the most diverse of the proposed options for using the market building, by the end of November 2018, its reconstruction not only did not begin, but the concept of the future project was not even formed. The building is severely destroyed ^[24] .