Arriving in Tula, tourists first of all inspect the Kremlin, going inside through the "floor" southeastern wall of the fortress. This is the tourist center of Tula. But the opposite, northeastern, wall of the Kremlin is now closed - until recently, the territory of the Tula Arms Factory was adjacent to the Kremlin.
The old bed of the Upa River, the main river of the city, flows here. Her story is not that simple. To the north of the Tula Kremlin is an island similar to the Moscow Gardeners, but smaller: a little more than a kilometer long. The first fortress of old Tula was founded on it (see old maps); Ivan III moved it to the left bank of the Upa, to the mainland, and Vasily III rebuilt it in brick; now it is the main attraction of the city. 200 years after the island was "liberated", Peter I founded a state arms factory there. It still works successfully; in the XX century he built up the whole island with his buildings and annexed the Kazan embankment to the territory - the very left bank of the Upa, next to the Kremlin. The border of the plant closed with the Kremlin wall, rarely where a medieval fortress is so closely adjacent to the industrial zone. For a Soviet metallurgical city, maybe it was not bad, but for modern post-industrial urbanism it is nonsense. The Tula region is successfully developing tourism: both cultural and ecological - it needs a decent center in the city. The driver of such development - in fact, the return of the historical center to the ancient city - should be the renewed, if not the revived, Kazan embankment of the old channel of the Upa River, the river itself and Metallistov Street, the former Pyatnitskaya.
As far back as the 1930s, the old left-hand channel of the Upa River itself was noticeably wider than the new, right-hand one. In the second half of the 20th century, the situation changed, the new channel expanded, and the old one, having become part of the plant territory, decreased, lost its current and began to swamp; the layer of silt at its bottom reaches 5 meters in places. There was no river behind the factory fence. For almost ten years the city has been discussing the possibility of "opening" the old channel and improving its embankment, and in early August the regional governor presented a project developed by the architects of the Wowhaus bureau, who are known for a number of sonorous works both in the design of urban public spaces in general and embankments in particular - for example,
Crimean, or Olive beach in Gorky Park. The total area of the improvement is over 20 hectares.
River and embankment
The Tula armory ceded to the city 12 hectares of its land on the left bank, but the project is also considering the old channel of the Upa. It was decided to clean the channel, deepen and fill with water, turning it into a channel about 10 m wide with an adjustable water inflow. The land, where factory waste has been accumulating for decades, is to be reclaimed and turned into a recreational zone. All this should have a positive effect on the ecology of the city center.
Thus, the concept proposed by Dmitry Likin and Oleg Shapiro considers the old river across the entire width of the old city. Considering that the river was the main formative artery, that at the beginning of the 20th century there was a pier on the Kazanskaya embankment, the revitalization of the river and embankments should return the historical city to its former structure and logic.
However, we are talking about typological, structural-figurative, and not literal reconstruction. The architects do not propose to revive the embankment "as it was" with a massive stone parapet, young ladies 'umbrellas and artisans' caps. Wowhaus proposed to make the left bank a two-level one: the lower promenade will run along the water's edge, and it will be supplemented with a beach made of wooden decking. The Kremlin wall retreats from the river farthest - by 46 m, in front of it there was a place for a lilac garden and other perennials that bloom throughout the summer, as well as for a series of view bridges with deep consoles of view platforms on supports above the bank slope - in their network of architects included two existing pedestrian bridges across the river. To the left of the lilac garden, it is planned to preserve two small factory buildings: they will mark the city square, they will be able to accommodate shops and restaurants. Behind the mini-square, at the junction with the Kremlin wall, next to the Myasnitskaya Tower, an open stage is planned, on the way down to the river - an open amphitheater.
To the east, towards the Proletarsky Bridge, there are playgrounds for children of two age categories and a sports area - it was developed in consultation with local sports communities, it includes bike and treadmills and a skate park. The bike path was also laid along the embankment and it was proposed to extend it, where possible, to other streets of the center of Tula. I must say that the architects worked on the entire project as a whole according to the principle of participation: they also consulted with the business community, local historians and activists: based on all the consultations, they finalized the project.
On the opposite side, from the Kremlin to the Zarechensky bridge, there is a boulevard with three fountains; the curls of the bosquets are designed to divide his space into private zones. Closer to Spassky streets, a piece of the embankment becomes the Tula Gingerbread square, and the existing square with a monument to the author of the three-line rifle, Sergei Mosin, increases in size and is improved. It is planned to open the gates to the Kremlin from the embankment, which have been closed for almost a hundred years.
The opposite bank of the river, between the channel and the fence of the arms factory, will not receive an embankment, it will be a green slope. But the facades of the old buildings of the plant are planned to be restored and partially opened to the city, thus forming the complete look of the embankment. Perhaps the oxbow canal can be used as a large skating rink in winter. However, a filling skating rink with a Christmas tree is also provided on the square near the Kremlin wall.
Museum town
The river and the embankment are important, but not the only components of the concept: the architects also focused on Metalistov Street, the former Pyatnitskaya Street, stretched parallel to the river in the western part of the center. Now it is part of a through passage in front of the Kremlin from Mosin Street to Mendeleevskaya. Wowhaus suggested planting trees on Metalist Street and making it a pedestrian boulevard. The fact is that the street has preserved well the buildings of the 19th century, along its northern side - the one that is closer to the river, there are literally in a row mansions in the style of both late and mature classicism. Even now, in terms of the density of preserved historical mansions, it resembles Shkolnaya Street in Moscow; but in contrast to the erroneous strategy of Soviet restoration, this project has thought out in advance a lot of things that should help the pedestrian street "come to life" and attract people. All monuments are planned to be restored, in place of dilapidated buildings in the depths of the quarters - to build several public buildings, including a small theater. The courtyards will be open to a through passage, which will provide additional connections to the embankment.
In addition to the usual set of social life, the regional administration and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation have plans to turn Metallistov Street into a "Museum Quarter" - by placing a number of museums in historical buildings: Tula weapons and gingerbread, the Cossack Museum, the RVIO exhibition hall, as well as branches of the Yasnaya Polyana museums, Kulikov fields and Polenov. It is planned to host lectures, concerts and exhibitions in the courtyards. Some of the mansions, however, will be adapted for hotels and educational institutions. The first floors will be occupied by shops and cafes with summer terraces - the area should become, on the one hand, a cultural center, and on the other, an example and a "driver" for the development of the city's post-industrial microeconomics, a place for concentrated eye walking.
The round Krestovozdvizhenskaya Square at the corner of the Kremlin will also partially become a pedestrian - a kind of "point" at the end of the walking route. There will be new trees, paving and a small fountain. In addition, the existing entrance to the Kremlin will be made more convenient from the side of the square.
The passage in front of the southern wall of the Kremlin along Mendeleevskaya Street, however, will remain. According to Oleg Shapiro, transport experts are confident that the exclusion of Metallistov Street should not affect the car traffic, reorienting itself to other streets. In addition, it is planned that after the opening of a new bridge across Upa in 2019, the traffic load on the city center will decrease. But the new pedestrian route will radically change the center, turning it into a single permeable space and one of the main event centers of the city.
Wowhaus architects consider the main task of their project to return to the city the historical center, which they call the "new old city": restoration of the system of pedestrian, transport and visual connections, saturation of cultural and social functions with the highest possible density. “The park, huge in relation to the scale of the city, a lively embankment, a river and a museum quarter - all this together will become an important contribution to the development of the city. Various kinds of tourism are actively and rather successfully developing in the Tula region: cultural, ecological, gastronomic, and the city should become its semantic center,”Oleg Shapiro is sure.
The project is planned to be implemented in 2018. Now the first stage of design documentation has been completed, construction work has begun: cleaning the channel and laying engineering networks.
