Pomerantsev, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Father N. N. Pomerantsev is a Moscow architect who accepted the rank of priest ^[2] . Nikolai Nikolaevich graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium in 1912, and the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University (Department of Technical Chemistry) in 1918. He studied at the conservatory in the composition class of A.T. Grechaninova .

From 1918, an employee of the “Commission for the Preservation and Disclosure of Ancient Monuments” under the leadership of I. E. Grabar , from 1919 to 1934 worked in the Moscow Kremlin as an art critic, guardian of the Armory , head of monuments to the Kremlin. At the same time he was engaged in museum activities, organized local museums on the basis of the Don and Novodevichy Convents, in Zvenigorod , Volokolamsk and other ancient cities.

All the icons, utensils, archives of the Kremlin monasteries were actively helped by Nikolai Nikolaevich Pomerantsev to save the blessed memory. Nikolai Nikolaevich managed to gather restorers and begin to remove the famous frescoes of the Chudov Monastery , which all Russian historians of the 19th century wrote about. But when the restorers came to work on the morning of December 17, they saw a pile of stone at the place of their work - at night the cathedral was blown up ^[3] .

Understanding the impossibility of saving the Ascension Monastery from demolition, Pomerantsev, who headed the commission of Kremlin experts, organized architectural measurements and photographs of the monastery, examined burial sites and removed sarcophagi in the dungeon of the Archangel Cathedral , and kept icons from the Resurrection Monastery dating from 1679 in the Twelve Apostles Church Armory funds ^[4] .

In January 1934 he was arrested in the “ case of central restoration workers ”, accused of trying to discredit the Soviet government by opposing the demolition of “unnecessary monuments of antiquity”. In May 1934, sentenced to three years of exile to the North, served his sentence in Velsk . ^[2] In Velsk, Pomerantsev is actively engaged in flower cultivation, arranging gardens and malls, is building the first greenhouse in the city, works as the music director of kindergarten No. 2, opens a choir club, collects and records folk songs ^[5] .

There were camps where re-educated so, not particularly dangerous believers, camps in which they forced to mine gold, washing it off the background of the icons. Pomerantsev was saved by the iconostasis of the Resurrection Monastery ... he managed to exchange it for ... the iconostasis, which Nicholas I - the last of his acts in 1855 - ordered for the Church of the Twelve Apostles in the Moscow Kremlin. The iconostasis of the middle of the XIX century. It had large surfaces of gold - and as you can see from this book, the Ascension iconostasis of the 17th century, on which paradise was carved - there are continuous curls, gold is more difficult to wash off ^[6] .

After the end of the term he settled in Zaraysk, then was forced to move to Kaluga. He taught physics at school, worked in a museum. He returned to Moscow, in the same Central Restoration Workshops (later - I.E. Grabar All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center ), only in 1946.

Since 1954 he regularly went on expeditions to the Russian North (“Onega expeditions”), restored the Ferapontov Monastery , the Solovetsky Monastery , the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and other monuments ^[7] . He advocated the creation of restoration workshops in provincial cities ^[8] , a participant in the creation of VOOPIiK in 1965. In 1966 he organized the release of the first record of Russian bell ringing in the USSR. He organized exhibitions at which for the first time in the USSR were exhibited icons stored in vaults, Russian wooden sculpture.

He was buried in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery ^[9] .

The first wife is Raisa Ivanovna, nee Kotovich, in his first marriage Borisyak (1895-1923), a talented artist, student of K.S. Petrova-Vodkina, a participant in the exhibitions of the World of Art , died in childbirth.

Daughter - Raisa Nikolaevna (1923-1989) - the famous translator of English classical literature, the wife of Yu. I. Kagarlitsky .

The second wife is Galina Evgenievna, nee Mitrofanova, a literary critic.

• Pomerantsev N. N. Museum-monasteries of the Moscow province. M., 1929
• Pomerantsev N.N., Practice of conservation and restoration of art monuments // Collection of articles. Messages of the Council for the Protection of Cultural Monuments., 1970, V. 6
• Pomerantsev N.N., Russian wooden sculpture, M., 1967, 1994

• Krylova L.N. Nikolai Nikolaevich Pomerantsev. Life and activity (according to the documents of the personal archive) // Preserved Shrines of the Solovetsky Monastery. - M., 2003. - S. 6-22.
• Pomerantseva N.A. Nikolai Nikolaevich Pomerantsev: the threads of life and milestones of the path. To the 100th anniversary of the birth // Carved iconostases and wooden sculpture of the Russian North. - Arkhangelsk, 1995. - S. 5-19.
• Pomerantsev, Nikolai Nikolaevich at the Rodovod . Tree of ancestors and descendants