The reason for the sudden and rapid eviction of the Central Scientific and Restoration Design Workshops from the buildings on Shkolnaya Street was the improvement of Shkolnaya Street completed in 2019. The street became pedestrianized, and while inspecting the improvement work in August, Sergei Sobyanin said that it was necessary to "breathe life" into the street, "so that the premises on the first floors would turn into restaurants and cafes."
In December, the restorers received an order from the Ministry of Culture to relocate to two separate buildings: on Goncharnaya 16s1 and Yauzskaya 1 / 15s1, very beautiful buildings, monuments, but their total area is four times less than the five buildings that the TsNRPM occupies now. In addition, the buildings proposed by the ministry are occupied by tenants, and it is prescribed to move from February 10 to March 1, that is, in less than a month (sic!). The workshops, however, need to transport: employees (which, apparently, will not fit, since the premises are much smaller), computers and networks, a chemical laboratory, a library and, importantly, an archive containing more than 250,000 items.
In short, this threatens the collapse of the organization, which since its inception in 1947 has been engaged in the country's most valuable monuments, including ancient ones. Moreover, it was the specialists of the TsNRPM who restored, in fact, preserved Shkolnaya Street in the late 1980s: then it was assumed that all of it in the upper floors would be occupied by various restoration workshops, and the lower floors (even then) were intended for public spaces. Now of all the workshops that settled on Shkolnaya in the late 1980s, only the TsNRPM, the most significant and professional organization in its field, has survived.
TsNRPM employees and their colleagues, experts in the field of protection of monuments and restoration, sent a letter to the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova - with a request "to find an opportunity for a compromise between the plans of the city authorities and the possibility of preserving the Central Scientific and Restoration Design Workshops in the premises they occupy on Shkolnaya Street." … The letter lists the most famous monuments with which the TsNRPM worked, among them the Grand Kremlin Palace, Pashkov's House, St. Basil's Cathedral, Arkhangelskoye and Kuskovo, Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, and many others. TsNRPM is rightfully considered the creator and custodian of the Russian scientific restoration school, only here a collection of specialties is published, conferences are held. After all, the TsNRPM is currently carrying out projects in the Kremlin, Novodevichy Convent, Solovki and throughout the country, a traumatic move to a smaller area and threatens with a complete stop of work and many losses. Also posted on change.org
petition that can be signed. We publish the letter:
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zooming 1/7 An open letter from the staff of the Central Research and Development Ministry to the head of the Ministry of Culture OB Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
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zooming 2/7 An open letter from the staff of the Center for Strategic Research and Development of the Head of the Ministry of Culture O. B. Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
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zooming 3/7 An open letter from the staff of the Central Scientific and Practical Center of the Ministry of Culture to the head of the Ministry of Culture O. B. Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
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zooming 4/7 An open letter from the employees of the Center for Strategic Research and Development of the Head of the Ministry of Culture O. B. Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
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zooming 5/7 An open letter from the staff of the Central Scientific and Practical Center of the Ministry of Culture to the head of the Ministry of Culture, O. B. Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
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zooming 6/7 An open letter from the staff of the Center for Strategic Research and Development of the Head of the Ministry of Culture O. B. Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
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zooming 7/7 An open letter from the staff of the Central Scientific and Practical Center of the Ministry of Culture to the head of the Ministry of Culture, O. B. Lyubimova, 2020-05-02 Courtesy of TsNRPM
Below are the comments of experts: doctor of art criticism Andrey Batalov, chief architect of the TsNRPM Sergei Kulikov, restorer of the highest category Sergei Demidov.
Andrey Batalov,
Professor, Doctor of Arts, Member of the Presidium of the Scientific and Methodological Council under the Ministry of Culture and Head of the Architectural Monuments Section, Deputy General Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums for scientific work:
“The central research and production restoration workshops, which are inherited by the VPNRK, are the main architectural organization in Moscow, which has been engaged in restoration for 75 years. All her activities are associated with the work of restorers who determined the development of the profession, starting with Lev Arkadievich Petrov, who was the director of the TsNRPM during its heyday. Leon Arturovich David, Sergei Sergeevich Podyapolsky, Boris Lvovich Altshuller, Georgy Alekseevich Makarov, Nikolai Sergeevich Romanov, Yuri Petrovich Mosunov worked at the TsNRPM - these are only those whom I met. Now their students work at the TsNRPM, many of them are restorers of the highest category. This is the leading organization that is engaged in the restoration of the oldest and most valuable monuments, preserving the continuity of the school and the approach based on the scientific research of the monument. The Russian restoration methodology was written by the people who formed the core of this organization.
Now that over the past 30 years the school has been practically destroyed and the criteria for restoration are becoming more and more blurred, the CNRPM is the only organization that preserves tradition and professionalism. It is no coincidence that the Scientific and Methodological Council of the Ministry of Culture is two-thirds either of the current employees of this organization, or of those who have worked there for a long time, for 50 years.
It is clear that now the conversation is not about the direct destruction of this organization, although, like any FSUE, according to the presidential decree, now it must be corporatized, which also puts it at risk. But corporatization is a solvable task, and the move of the TsNRPM is a blow to all its activities. They carry out many important projects only in the Kremlin: the Assumption Cathedral, the Archangel Cathedral, the most brilliant restoration of recent decades - the Annunciation Cathedral, the Palace of Facets, the walls and towers of the Kremlin; Now the development of the project for the restoration of the building of the Armory has begun. They are also restoring the Novodevichy Convent. All the oldest churches in Novgorod, as well as the relatively recent restoration of the Euthymius Chamber in the Novgorod Kremlin. No matter what the most important object we will take - all this is the work of the restorers of the TsNRPM. To put them now at risk of relocation means blocking the work in the most important points of the country.
In addition, the building from which they are now planning to evict the TsNRPM, the restorers equipped and equipped with their own money, with the money earned by the organization. The conditions for effective work have been created there, in particular, for people to work without interrupting their archive, because the archive for restoration is the most important thing. If hundreds of thousands of archived units are in one place, and architects in another, it will paralyze work.
I am amazed at the very formulation of the question: why should the oldest restoration organization in the country not be located on Shkolnaya Street? Should there be tenants, boutiques, restaurants in its place? This decision demonstrates shifts in consciousness and culture: trade and entertainment are put higher than the preservation of national monuments. In this case, all the talk about the primacy of culture, about the preservation of heritage, is all just demagoguery and pharisaism. Because in the end it turns out that you can throw the most important restoration organization into the street. Share it, scatter it over a heap of small buildings unsuitable for it. And how will it end? People will start leaving.
If this organization is now thrown out like this, ruined, then it will be possible to forget about scientific restoration in our country”.
Sergey Kulikov,
chief architect of TsNRPM, architect-restorer of the highest category, chairman of the Technical Committee "Cultural Heritage" of Rosstandart of the Russian Federation:
“Firstly, these buildings on Shkolnaya Street are actually an alma mater for several generations of restorers. Secondly, TsNRPM is a systemic organization in the field of restoration, which arose in the middle of the last century and keeps the traditions of the national restoration school, regardless of whether someone likes it or not. Back in 2009, there were eleven such organizations, but now we are the last. This is the place of meeting, discussions, round tables, conferences, and above all the annual "David's Readings", the place of work of the Technical Council of the Ministry of Culture of Russia and the Technical Committee of Rosstandart. The last public space fully associated with the profession of a restorer.
The third point is that in 1987 we created this space ourselves, with our own efforts and money - as a complex of buildings fully adapted for the work of a scientific restoration design institute. Laboratories, workshops are equipped here, a scientific and technical archive of restoration documentation, a library and so on are stored - all these are necessary units, they are included in the design process chain. All this is part of a system that works, as in all similar institutions in Italy, France, Spain - this is how restoration institutions all over the world are arranged.
We are now carrying out many projects, restoring the Novodevichy Convent, the objects of the Solovetsky archipelago, the Moscow Kremlin, in the end. We design innovative cultural centers throughout the country. Research and design work If the technological chain in our work is broken, all activities will stop - and we are offered exactly this, it will move into two buildings, whose area is four times smaller than the one we occupy now, and on top of that, which are located on different addresses. After all, the area that we now have, I must admit, is not enough for us, especially the archive, it occupies 700 m2 and that's not enough, it has over 250,000 storage units.
In fact, this is a collapse, a stop of the organization, some people in this situation will go out into the street, it is not clear where to place the archive … The buildings are not prepared. Moreover, other people are still working in the buildings that were offered to us for resettlement, in other words, in order to place us there, we must also expel them.
One of the two buildings proposed by the TsNRPM for the move is located on the Yauzskie Vorota (see below in the center of the panorama), the other is in Kotelniki. Between them 10 minutes walk [approx. ed.]
In a word, this whole situation, smacking of voluntarism, completely unprepared or specially provoked by someone, does not rely on a real assessment of the needs of the organization and its structure. If we were told that a suitable restoration palace awaits you there, where you will be accommodated normally, move there in an organized manner and will work normally, we might be happy. And it is simply impossible to move in 1-2 months. Moreover, I do not really understand the meaning of such a resettlement - we are an effective organization, we have never asked anyone for money, we earned ourselves in Soviet times, and we earn now, we participate in competitions, we do projects and research, we carry out work. We also did all the things related to social, publishing, educational activities at our own expense, for our own money. At our own expense, we publish the annual collection "Restoration and Research of Cultural Monuments", as far as I know, the latest industry collection. Why ruin it all, who needs it, what's the point?
Moreover, we can join the public area of Shkolnaya Street as a part of the whole, which was assumed by the project of its 1987 restoration. Then it was planned that it would be a "city of craftsmen", where, on the one hand, people work, and on the other, there are bookstores, cafes and restaurants. That was the point. Large windows in the lower floors were intended for public spaces; somewhere this was realized, as far as I remember, in the 42nd house, in the 48th, where the hotel arose. A functional zoning was made, the school entity was separated into a separate sub-section within a large project called district # 1.
However, it should be mentioned that the place in which we are located is not a “mecca” for tourists, and not a tricky way even for Chinese tourists. School Street fills up in the morning and evening as people go to and from work. There is not a large number of people eager to sit in restaurants and cafes, as in the Italian and Spanish seaside cities.
As far as I understand, the TsNRPM moved to Shkolnaya from the Andronikov Monastery in 1987-1988. But now it is also said about moving from the Novospassky monastery in 1990. Who moved from there?
The Novospassky monastery housed the management of the Soyuzrestavratsiya association, a chemical-technological laboratory, and separate production workshops of the association, which was also evicted in the late 1980s. By the way, GosNIIR was also located there.
When the laboratory was relocated to Shkolnaya Street, part of the equipment died, because the premises were not ready and it was not possible to install it, but even then the authorities did not hear us and were in a hurry to hand over to the Russian Orthodox Church, since then this process was supervised by Raisa Maksimovna Gorbacheva, and As usual, the officials defrauded and simply did not give time.
Why didn't Shkolnaya Street work in the 1980s when it was being built?
We completed the project in 1987-1988, this time fell to the scrapping of eras. Then all the houses on Shkolnaya Street were occupied by the All-Union Union "Soyuzrestavratsiya", which was still subordinate to the Union Ministry. Then, in the early 90s, the association disintegrated, and of all the organizations that were part of it, only we, the design institute, ultimately survived. The production workshops that occupied the rest of the space along Shkolnaya Street ceased to exist. We only occupy a part, from 16 to 30 houses; buildings up to 48 houses on our side are occupied by other organizations, including the Ministry of Culture. The second side, where the production workshops were located, was rented out long ago. The nineties were a difficult period. We went to work at our own expense in order to save a place, to meet and communicate, And we did what we could earn. For example, I, the chief architect of the project then, was engaged with friends in the restoration of artificial marble on orders in individual churches. Then in the late 90s, in the early 2000s, we began to rebuild, and step by step recreated the institute, the number of employees increased. The local prefecture began to use Shkolnaya Street itself, to arrange weekend markets, some other pretty fairs. Even then, she worked as a public space. But now, after granite was laid on a length of 780 m, lanterns, benches, and some small forms were installed, a rather pretentious desire arose to continue transformations and further, probably to give an infrastructural brilliance in the form of a certain economic model of the street justifying the costs incurred by introducing restaurants, shops, etc. But there is not enough clientele here, not the right place. Many restaurants opened here before our very eyes and closed soon after. There was even a gypsy theater here. Urbanism is, forgive me, not lanterns and shops, it is, first of all, the economy of the urban environment and the calculation of the potential resource of a place.
Do you know the reason for the proposed relocation?
Probably, at least this follows from his interview, the reason was the visit by the mayor Sergei Sobyanin during the inspection of the completed new landscaping of Shkolnaya Street. Then the phrase sounded: and now we will revive it, saturate it with infrastructure in the interests of the townspeople. The mayor asked the question: who is sitting in these buildings? The accompanying officials answered him: some various small counters are sitting. So the idea arose to relocate everyone, to do, so to speak, "everything in an adult way," on a large scale and on a grand scale. Then there was, apparently, some kind of discussion at the interdepartmental level, and now we received an order to move out. Although they tried to evict us before, repeatedly, since the 2000s, both the municipalities and the prefecture. Everyone likes the beautiful houses in the city, which we have defended all these years, in which we worked for the benefit of our city and country, and in fact, which has become our home. And leaving here is the leaving of the organization to nowhere, while, of course, each of our specialists has a choice and I hope so, but it seems that TsNRPM does not have it left”.
Sergey Demidov,
architect-restorer of the highest category, member of the Scientific and Methodological Council of the RF MK, work experience in the specialty for 50 years:
“Firstly, there is nowhere to move out, the buildings that are offered to us are occupied. Secondly, they are much smaller in area than we need. Thirdly, there is no infrastructure we need there. When we entered Shkolnaya, everything was ready, and now we are only offered corridors and stairs.
I must note that our workshop has been fully self-supporting since its organization, since 1947. We did not take a penny from the state for our maintenance, what we earned ourselves, and what we received.
TsNRPM keeps a huge archive, more than 250,000 items, priceless materials - measurements, historical information on the lion's share of Russian monuments. The archive has been collected since 1947, more than seventy years. In addition, each workshop contains collections related to restored objects, a kind of mini-museums: tiles, other finds … I have a wonderful collection of ancient valances from objects that I restored. All this must be placed somewhere.
By the way, earlier in the Andronikov Monastery we had our own museum, which completely disappeared when we moved to School. There were tiles, some details, everything was gone. What can be lost now? Nobody knows.
We had an idea to make something similar to a methodological office on Shkolnaya Street, to collect all things together, but, unfortunately, it did not come to this, there are not enough premises. We now do not have enough space, but we are offered four times less.
But if you understand Shkolnaya Street as a public space, a museum there would be just appropriate …
The entire street is a monument, it was restored by our specialists, we have the documentation, including on it. I think we could even vacate some premises on the first floors, show both things and drawings - it would be very interesting for Moscow, but now, as you can see, on the contrary, the question of our complete eviction is being raised."
