Let's take a walk in Moscow's old town today. Yes, in Moscow, as in any normal European city (St. Petersburg does not count), there is an old city that we have lost. More precisely, it was not so much lost as it was taken from us and will not be returned in any way. The old city of Moscow is the Kremlin, officially the largest medieval fortress according to the Guinness Book of Records and a completely closed area almost 100 years ago, which is no longer perceived as a district.
But everything is in order.
Here, for example, is the hem of the Moscow Kremlin in the 17th century
A wonderful painting-reconstruction of our contemporary - the artist Sergei Glushkov.
As you can see, living in the center of the city then meant living in the Kremlin, i.e., as in many European cities, within the historical part of the city, surrounded by a fortress wall.
By the 20th century, the population of the Kremlin, of course, had somewhat thinned out, but still the Kremlin remained a full-fledged district of the city, all the gates were open, and the Tainitsky Garden was one of the favorite places for leisurely walks with a beautiful view.
In the background stands a monument to Alexander II, which the Bolsheviks, of course, dismantled almost immediately after the revolution.
Among the greenery you can see a small dome of the Church of the Annunciation on Zhitny Dvor.
This is how this church attached to the Kremlin tower looked until it was demolished in 1932.
Some completely cozy provincial corner, even the bench picturesquely squinted.
The temple stood on the site of an old grain yard, where unground grain was brought from state lands - live, as well as hay, oats and other supplies, which were then distributed among the "sovereign people". Such, in the most direct sense, is an old Russian state feeder. A stone church was built here in 1731, and even before 1831, next to the tower in the wall, there was a Port Washing Gate, through which the Kremlin washerwomen went to the river to wash the sovereign's trousers.
View of the garden, now equipped with a helipad
Again, pay attention to the whitewashed tower. As today's experience shows, something unpainted in Moscow by local authorities has always been considered a mess, borders are still being painted, the Kremlin is still being painted, but if earlier it was whitened from time to time, then the Bolsheviks who came to power began to paint it red color. You will be near the Kremlin, pay attention - most of the walls and towers do not have the original brick color, but are painted red.
And here is the territory completely closed to the common people on the back side of the Spasskaya Tower and the unpreserved church of St. Catherine of the Ascension Monastery.
The most perfect center of the city, a passage yard. Walk through any gate and also exit
Spassky Gates - exit from the Kremlin to Red Square.
Now permanently closed and only for employees of the FSO and the Presidential Administration
Here in the Kremlin, the fabulous view of the Chudov Monastery has not been preserved.
The Senate building... The courtyard is now completely closed, and there are not even modern photographs.
Interestingly, the dome was originally crowned by St. George the Victorious, striking a snake, but during the war of 1812 he disappeared. They say that the French took it as a trophy, and when the District Court was located in the building, it was crowned with a crown with a brief inscription under it LAW. To which the Muscovites replied with an epigram: There is no law in Russia, but a pillar and a crown on the pillar.
In Soviet times, even the inscription "LAW" was dismantled
What is most interesting is that in our time the historical truth has been restored and St. George has been erected again.
What else is hiding in Moscow's old town?
Here, for example, the Amusing Palace of the 17th century
Absolutely amazing old photo. On the one hand, the old palace, and on the other - living quarters, even the laundry is dried.
Now here, again, an absolutely closed territory, and the commandant's office of the Kremlin is located
Modern look
We can not see in our old city and the amazing arches of the Arsenal. Again the area is closed.
And no one will let you on the wall in your own old town.
Before the revolution, the Kremlin even had a winter garden, please come and enjoy
The funny thing is that it still exists, but the territory is so closed that no one even really suspects its existence.
And before, even in a cab it was possible to famously ride around the Kremlin? Who did it bother?
Some beggars are sitting at the Tsar Bell. The city lives its own life.
Speaking of beggars
Here, for example, the legend of Art Nouveau, the artist Alphonse Mucha, walked around the Kremlin and took a photo:
He returned home, developed it, twisted it back and forth and as a result painted the painting “Winter Night”:
There was a great lively old town, but as you know, everything changes when they come. Bolsheviks.
To begin with, to knock out the junkers, the Kremlin was shelled. Here, for example, how the Small Nikolaev Palace looked like as a result, which was eventually demolished and a large administrative building, now occupied by the Presidential Administration, was built instead of it and the monasteries
Sent by the Germans in a sealed Lenin, he fulfilled his promise, the government was overthrown, but for some reason his comrades-in-arms were in no hurry to get out of the First World War, which was so necessary for Germany, which was already barely fighting on two fronts, but nevertheless actively advancing deep into Russia, which is why the Bolshevik government was seriously frightened and decided, just in case, to move from Petrograd to Moscow. Peace was nevertheless concluded, but then it turned out that there were much more threats to the power of the Bolsheviks inside Russia itself than from outside, therefore, according to the old Russian tradition of appanage princes, the Bolsheviks entrenched themselves in the Kremlin. The old city was closed to ordinary people, and the Spassky Gates were slammed shut and are still not open.
Interestingly, the Latvian riflemen guarded the Soviet government, which was very convenient. Firstly, they are non-local, they don’t have relatives in Moscow, they don’t go home, they live right there in the Kremlin, they don’t have friends among the local population, therefore, in the event of any mess, they will shoot at Muscovites without a twinge of conscience. Secondly, many do not even speak Russian, so it will be difficult to negotiate with them locally, in which case. Mercenaries are mercenaries. For the same reason, the Vatican is still guarded exclusively by Swiss mercenaries from the German cantons, who do not speak Italian.
Latvian riflemen suppressed uprisings in Yaroslavl, Kaluga, Murom and other cities. Theodors Eichmans, one of the Latvian shooters, subsequently made a dizzying career, was one of the initiators of the Stalinist repressions and the first head of the Gulag. So once again, when Latvia starts crying about Soviet repressions, remember these facts.
But we are talking about the old city. New owners have arrived...
... and completely closed the whole area of the city. Of course, inside the fortress walls it is somehow calmer.
The first Soviet leaders both worked and lived in the Kremlin. In general, they almost never left it without protection.
There was even a kindergarten for the children of party workers on the territory:
The Kremlin was closed throughout the 1920s, throughout the 1930s, throughout the 1940s… Muscovites have even become accustomed to the fact that the Kremlin is the residence of the authorities and have finally ceased to consider it as a district of the city.
The Kremlin was opened to the public only under Khrushchev, in 1955, or rather, a small part of it was opened with passages to Cathedral Square. In fact, what is now open, and most of the original area of the city is still closed. At the same time, it was forbidden to live in this area, while the last residents were discharged from the Kremlin only in 1961. The Kremlin finally turned into a museum in which not only you can’t walk freely, but even restrictions on photography were lifted only a few years ago.
To finally finish off the old city, the old buildings of the Arsenal were demolished:
And in their place, in a huge pit, the Grand Kremlin Palace was built.
Okay, they destroyed part of the old city, but at the same time, even in the Soviet photo on the right, the city is still alive.
As you can see, he is alive both along the walls and in the closed territories now occupied by the commandant’s office, but, alas, as almost a hundred years ago, the authorities prefer to live in a state of siege, holding the defense inside the fortress walls.
It's better to look at an old postcard.
White Kremlin, white garden, ice on the river. Old city! Love Moscow!
After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 « » no longer felt safe because of the hostility of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, so they had to move from Petrograd to Moscow.
Upon arrival in Moscow, the Bolshevik leaders settled in the National and Metropol hotels, since work had been uninhabited for a long time and had only just begun. Kremlin after the Bolshevik shelling, Chudov Monastery:
Consequences of the Bolshevik "Maidan". House on the square near the Nikitsky Gates:
But soon Ulyanov, Bonch-Bruyevich, Flaxerman and others moved into apartments set up near the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Gradually, a dozen administrative buildings and the Kremlin monasteries (Chudov and Voznesensky) were populated by them. Ulyanov and a hundred other people became residents of fashionable apartments in a building that received the name « »
.
Moscow, immersed in darkness, and only the Kremlin stands out thanks to electric lighting - such a picture is fully consistent with the realities of the civil war and the realities of those exceptional conditions in which the "guardians of the people's welfare" lived in the midst of general chaos and poverty.
In the Cavalry Corps, high-ranking officials such as Bronstein, Yenukidze, Vorovsky, Tsyurupa, Mordukhai-Boltovsky (Kalinin), Dzhugashvili, Radek, Krestinsky, Fotieva, Bonch-Bruevich, a total of 94 people, occupied 73 rooms, next to which there were small rooms for service personnel (69 people). In the Ascension Monastery, persons of national importance and servants also lived under the same roof.
Ulyanov and Bonch-Bruevich in the Kremlin:
In the autumn of 1920, this democratic hostel is extended to 505 rooms occupied by families, of which 56 belong to the higher hierarchy and 234 to service personnel: housekeepers, workers, technicians, medical personnel, etc., - the principle of camaraderie did not prevent leaders from surrounding themselves with servants...
Almost a thousand soldiers defended the territory and the lives of the civilian inhabitants of the Kremlin, of which there were 1112 people. The construction of the personnel of the 1st Autocombat Detachment of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Sverdlov:
Party members (1082 people) and non-party members (929 people), civilians and military men worked side by side, argued about politics, sorted out relations with each other, shared the concerns of material life, health and education of children (259 people). They lived in a communal climate, not in a communal apartment, but in a small closed town. The meeting of the Bolsheviks in the Kremlin (drawing from the Moscow Museum named after V.I. Lenin):
Of the five gates of the ancient Kremlin, only one of the Trinity gates was open, but it was not easy for visitors to pass through them. Checking the identity cards, papers and seven types of passes sometimes took a very long time. Showers and disinfection of clothing, mandatory for some categories of visitors during the Civil War, could additionally delay the visitor.
It was on this closed territory that the social environment was formed, which claimed to represent the mythical "power of the worker and peasant." The consolidation of this environment took place largely on the basis of life's banalities. Indeed, the conditions of everyday life improved inside the Kremlin walls and worsened outside them. In the configuration created in these first post-revolutionary years, a contrast worthy of attention emerges.
At first, the Kremlin was almost no different from other territories. Sanitary conditions there were poor. However, within two years everything changed, mainly due to the Medical and Sanitary Administration, created on February 22, 1919 by order of Ulyanov and Sverdlov. Doctor Ya.B. Levinson, head of Lechsanupra, began by equipping two disinfection rooms, baths, mechanical laundries, and a waste incinerator, the latest German model. By his order, the sewerage and water pipes were repaired, storerooms were equipped. After an inspection in December 1919, the kitchen in the Arsenal building was cleaned and the kitchen workers were ordered to cover their heads and keep their aprons clean.
Poor success in the extermination of rats and mice, organized in several stages. Nine soldiers bitten and tens of kilograms of spoiled food every year - these victims finally caused alarm, and the decisive battle ended the matter, worth in 1922 a thousand gold rubles. Quite quickly, everything necessary for the treatment of diseases and the maintenance of health was equipped. So, in 1918, a small hall with ten beds was replaced by a hospital with fifty beds. A pharmacy was opened, a laboratory for analyzes and a hall for combined procedures (electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, X-ray) were launched. The complex of medical services of the Kremlin completed a first - class equipped dental office .
"...By the way,- then Ulyanov wrote to the People's Commissar Dzhugashvili, - Isn't it time to establish 1-2 exemplary sanatoriums no closer than 600 miles from Moscow. Spend gold on this; we spend and will spend a long time on inevitable trips to Germany. But to recognize as exemplary only those where the possibility of having punctually strict doctors and administration has been proven, and not the usual Soviet bunglers and slobs.
And of course, such an invariable attribute of Soviet power as state dachas. In 1921, the first twelve dachas in Mamontovka, not far from Moscow, received one hundred and forty employees of the Council of People's Commissars. : “near”, “far”, on Rublevka, 4 dachas in Sochi, 2 dachas in Georgia, 3 dachas in the Crimea, 4 dachas in Abkhazia, etc. It is known that Dzhugashvili personally came to the construction site of the “near” dacha and constantly expressed wishes, which were satisfied to the smallest detail. But after 5 years he didn’t like the house, it was dismantled and a new one was built - with a corridor that led to a detached office building. Constant rebuilding and redevelopment on the "near" lasted almost until the death of Dzhugashvili, on the "near" they built on the 2nd guest floor with a huge dining room and bedroom ...
The end of the civil war in March 1920 made it possible to start a major overhaul of many apartments in the Kremlin, to install telephones, to furnish dining rooms and offices. Furniture came from outside, but some of those Kremlin requisites were also used, which should not have been used, being under the decree on the preservation of museum property. So, Vladislav Khodasevich noted in his memoirs the presence in the apartment of palace furniture, typical of the 80s. XIX century: "black, lacquered, upholstered in crimson satin." At Rosenfeld, his attention was drawn to "narrow faience cups with a bell at the top, with a thin gold rim and a black double-headed eagle." “As everyone knows, these are not served with tea: they serve for chocolate,” Khodasevich noted. “But it is possible that the Rosenfelds only got such when sharing,” or maybe the owners did not know etiquette.
One of the table sets that Joseph Dzhugashvili got:
In 1923, the Council of People's Commissars made a decision, marked as "top secret", to offer inkwells, trays, coasters, plates, forks, knives, paintings, candelabra, chess, etc. to the "Old Bolshevik Society". Ulyanov plays chess:
Decor details of the past, as well as former servants rehired by Bonch-Bruevich and Malkov, led to the restoration of a certain part of the past. Ulyanov's office in the Kremlin:
But most of all, one aspect of Kremlin life contributed to the “subversive work” that the past could do. This aspect is about nutrition. Upon their arrival in the Kremlin from Smolny, where they were already better supplied with food than everyone else, the representatives of the highest authorities were to receive their due provision. The task of providing material support to the residents of the Kremlin fell entirely on the Administration of the Council of People's Commissars. The archives contain many documents testifying to this side of his activity. In search of food and basic necessities, the Office of Affairs turned to various organizations. So, for example, on May 29, 1918, in a letter addressed by the ruler of the Office of the Council M.V. Komarintsev to the Moscow City Food Committee to Comrade A.B. “Classes in the SNK take place daily until 2 am. In view of this, it seems extremely urgent to put at the disposal of the dining room at the Council a certain amount, somehow ham, poultry, canned meat, cheese, etc.»
The list of products that is asked from the Board of the Central Workers' Cooperative ends with a wish to receive premium tobacco and 2000 cigarettes. As far as possible, through some organizations (for example, the Economic Department of the CEC), they provide themselves with rare products, such as caviar, wine, nuts, tobacco... recalled: “Ulyanov and I settled across the corridor. The canteen was shared ... Red caviar was in abundance due to the cessation of exports. It is not only in my memory that the first years of the revolution are painted with this unchanging caviar.
For shoes, clothes, watches, etc., go to Gosprodukt. They bought from private traders at free prices only as an exception. These worries are explained by the debate, especially heated since the spring of 1918, between the supporters of the "food dictatorship of the working class and the poorest peasantry" (in fact, the monopoly of the People's Commissariat of Food) and the defenders of some freedom of private trade. The second trend was expressed by the local authorities of Moscow and the commission headed by Rosenfeld, consisting of the communists of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Supreme Council of National Economy and the cooperatives. They opposed the dictatorship and, which the People's Commissariat for Food, with the support of the Council of People's Commissars, demanded exclusively for themselves. Relations between all these authorities were tense, and therefore it was necessary to act diplomatically and spare the vanity of comrades.
In 1919 the debate subsides, private commercial establishments (not just shops and stores, but restaurants, snack bars, canteens and even street vendors) are municipalized, nationalized, closed or banned, and the food dictatorship over the urban private trader becomes more and more definitely a reality. . The hesitations and scrupulousness that are felt in the documents of 1918 give way to "demands". SNK case management better defines the circle of its suppliers. In 1920 it may even count on its own state farm, Krasny Luch. The composition of rations is becoming more diverse, and prices are lower. Money is kept for rations, but less than their value. Most employees of the UD SNK pay approximately the same, while such prominent figures as Ulyanov, Bonch-Bruevich, Fotieva and others pay more, but in a differentiated way. Despite the improvement in the organization of supply, food difficulties remain significant. Those responsible for supply continue to expend a lot of energy to ensure the supply of products.
The state of supply requires the inhabitants of the Kremlin to be very actively involved in daily problems: they must constantly make sure that their name appears on the right list, seek some signatures, express in writing requests for the smallest needs, worry about answers, take advantage of the opportunity to buying or receiving something, defend one's rights or interests, monitor the order of distribution, fight against theft of food in canteens and warehouses, etc. In a word, fuss. At the same time, the petty and envious exhausted themselves with gossip about the difference in rations ... In the photo, the proletarian writer Demyan Bedny asks Yankel Movshevich Sverdlov to increase the ration:
In reality, this difference was small. Lists of privileged rations (July-August 1922) began with the name of Lenin, the only one generously endowed (3.2 kg of sugar and 1.6 kg of butter). It was followed by the names of secretaries and office workers, who all received approximately the same amount of food (500 g of sugar and 100 g of butter). The number of people on these lists varied, depending on the products, from 100 to 200 people. In contrast to this group, other residents of the Kremlin, over a thousand, received smaller but regular rations. Food norms did not differ much by categories of employees: for example, in the fall of 1922, according to the Administration of Affairs 5 pounds of fat, the same norm in the Sanitary Department of the Kremlin and at transport bases. At the horse base sometimes they gave out more, 7 pounds lard, 7 pounds sausage. The rates for corned beef and sausages were slightly higher in the Office of Affairs (6 pounds versus 4 pounds in Sanupra). At the same time, it should be noted that in 1921-1922 there was still a civil war and there was a mass famine in the USSR, which, according to official data, claimed the lives of about 5 million people. .
If inside the Kremlin they were distributed to everyone, if not quite equally, but enough, then the entire Kremlin, in comparison with the surrounding Moscow world, was a fertile oasis. The Kremlin was very different from the five Houses of Soviets (the National and Metropol hotels and three large buildings in the center of Moscow), where employees of central institutions lived. Their canteens and rations were incomparably worse than those in the Kremlin.
Here, for example, is what the Kremlin doctors recommended to the chairman of the Cheka: "1. White meat is allowed - chicken, turkey, hazel grouse, veal, fish; 2. Avoid black meat; 3. Greens and fruits; 4. Any flour dishes; 5. Avoid mustard, pepper, hot spices.
And here is the menu of Comrade Dzerzhinsky:
“Mon. Game consommé, fresh salmon, Polish cauliflower;
Tue. Mushroom solyanka, veal cutlets, spinach with egg;
Wednesday. Asparagus soup, bully beef, Brussels sprouts;
Thursday Boyar stew, steam sterlet, greens, peas;
Fri. Puree from flowers cabbage, sturgeon, maitre d' beans;
Saturday. Sterlet ear, turkey with pickles (urine apple, cherry, plum), mushrooms in sour cream;
Sunday Fresh champignon soup, marengo chicken, asparagus.
In the autumn of 1920, four Kremlin canteens (Sovnarkom, All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Central Committee of the Party, Comintern) served the residents of the Kremlin, but also many other dignitaries who did not live within its walls. So, the dining room of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee did not refuse employees of the Arsenal and the Military School and received comrades from the Socialist Academy, the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspectorate, archives, the garage of the Council of People's Commissars and the Commissariat for Nationalities.
In January 1921, in one of his reports, Yenukidze stated that the quality of food in this canteen had declined due to the large number of customers (four thousand instead of five hundred people). In the canteen of the Council of People's Commissars, the same trend is revealed (in February 1921, employees of the Council of People's Commissars were given 463 meals against 270 given to business travelers). However, despite the fact that the official inspection notes a decrease in quality, the menu of these canteens remained very rich for that time. Here you can find a large selection of meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, butter, eggs, cereals, deli products such as caviar, sausage and rare fish. The dining room of the Council of People's Commissars was best supplied, followed by the dining room of the Comintern, the dining rooms of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Committee belonged to the third category.
In the Houses of Soviets, rations were poor, people stood in line for hours to get the simplest products: bread, sugar, flour, herring, dried fruits and candies. These products were supplied irregularly, and canteens did not save from a life of starvation. In the dining room of the Metropol, inedible dishes were served; in the third House of Soviets, the dining room was punished for the very poor quality of food. At the National Hotel, conditions were relatively acceptable.
Ultimately, the food in the Kremlin canteens was beyond competition. Everyone tried to get access there by all possible means. The gap that existed between the position of the privileged inhabitants of the Kremlin and the representatives of power living outside this coveted place gave rise to envy and hatred.
These strong feelings, as well as everyday chores, quarrels and worries about food, became obsessive, thoughts about food did not go out of my head. Most of the Kremlin residents fought to increase their meager rations. Among those who seemed to be well-to-do, some, such as Yenukidze, were looking for extras in order to offer their guests tidbits that they could not taste elsewhere. Others, like Rosenfeld, on the contrary, hid from the guests the richness of the Council of People's Commissars' rations. Khodasevich says that at the Rosenfelds he was treated to thin slices of black bread, barely smeared with melted butter, and dirty pieces of sugar, called "played sugar" because it was bought from the Red Army, who paid them off by playing with each other into cards. “They wanted to show us by the scarcity of treats that in the Kremlin they eat the same way as we do.” Since Ulyanov became addicted to tea, one of the first orders of the Soviet government was a decree on tea and the creation of "Centrochay", i.e. an order to confiscate and transfer into the hands of the Bolsheviks all stocks of tea in Russia.
Documents testify that the rations received by Ulyanov were not ascetic. Despite this well-known fact among him, legends circulated around his private life. One of them is especially famous because it was repeatedly told on the radio on the days of the anniversaries of the "leader of the world proletariat", especially in the 1970s, during the celebration of the centenary of his birth. Allegedly in 1919, his sister and wife asked the housekeeper to cook a birthday cake for Vladimir Ilyich from millet received by ration. But there were no eggs. The housekeeper, however, managed to get two eggs ... Having learned this story from his laughing women, Lenin, to their surprise, got angry: “There is nothing to look for, and there is no need to ask why the egg is not laid!” This legend relieves the conscience and, most importantly, spreads outside the Kremlin the desired, but far from reality, image of the leader, and at the same time of all his Kremlin relatives and neighbors.
Ulyanov's personal belongings - watches from a Swiss company Henry Moser & Cie, jacket (wool, silk), hat (felt, rep, silk), travel bag (leather, cloth, steel), boots (leather, cotton fabric, metal):
Ulyanov preferred to travel in rare and very expensive cars. One of the first cars that was purchased for the Soviet leaders was the silent Rolls-Royce 40/50 "Silver Ghost":
He did not disdain and "Renault 40CV", riding with relatives in the outskirts of the capital. The younger brother of the "leader" Dmitry Ulyanov recalled that he loved "ride with the wind" and regularly lamented the calm driving style of chauffeurs.
Personal cars of the members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (the first "personal cars"):
The Kremlin and the five Houses of Soviets housed the central government, which in two or three years becomes a closed world. Within it, a hierarchy is formed, indicated mainly by food rations. From the outside, this world seems to be quite unified and homogeneous, since it is judged according to one exact and harsh criterion: "fed" - and this despite the camouflage of rations and other benefits, the hierarchy of their distribution and ascetic legends.
This demarcation line is being drawn by the poverty and hunger prevailing in the country. In the ancient Kremlin and in the immediate surroundings, power is being strengthened and rallied around the supply "trough". Inside, private life is mixed with public life. It can be thought that the appearance of the commissar in a leather jacket, captured by memory, newsreel and painting, was created in the Kremlin warehouse, where a wagonload of leather sets was driven from unknown roads.
The government of the "new type", through the Office of Affairs, dealt with economic issues as innumerable as they were incredible: to fix the clock, to take pictures, to go to the theater, to ride the tram ... It seems that there is no food, no clothes, no other things to do. something in private life was impossible without a mandatory application-petition addressed to Bonch-Bruevich, that is, entry into public life.
Does everything justify the circumstances? Of course, they must be taken into account, because they isolated the Bolshevik elite in a hostile environment. However, since 1922 there has been an economic recovery, the development of market relations, and it would be possible to change the order of life. Despite this, due to the abolition of wages in kind, they did not switch entirely to cash support. The United Kremlin Cooperative was born, with twenty thousand members from all central authorities. His task was to ensure, as before, a good food supply at special prices. With all evidence, this enterprise helped the political leadership not only materially, it gave reason to feel in the close ranks of its people. Under the heading "Top Secret" could go such, for example, resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars: "To release at the expense of the reserve fund of the Council of People's Commissars the paragraph Especially last according to the estimate of the Administration of the Council of People's Commissars for the quarter January-March 2 million rubles of issue of 1923 for the maintenance of the dining room and for medical assistance ". Thus, the scheme of a specialized “feeding trough” established in the Soviet Kremlin
For forty years now, in our New Year's mood, there has certainly been a wonderful film by the recently deceased Eldar Ryazanov "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!". It turns out that the legendary phrase “Every year on December 31, my friends and I go to the bathhouse” could have been uttered even in the pre-war years by quite numerous inhabitants of the Moscow Kremlin inhabited by the Bolsheviks, of which by the end of 1920 there were more than 2100 people. For such a not too limited contingent, baths were arranged right there, in the Grenadier Corps ...
This and many other archival details related to the Kremlin can be learned in detail already in January 2016, when the MediaPress publishing house publishes a unique book "", prepared by the creative team of the Center for Press and Public Relations of the FSO. Readers of "Motherland" are offered a magazine version of one of the chapters of the new edition, which tells about the sanitary and living conditions of the Kremlin population.
"Assign the Kremlin women all day..."
In the spring of 1919, the Kremlin got its own baths and laundry. Their device was caused, on the one hand, by the severity of the sanitary and epidemiological situation in Moscow, and on the other hand, by the objective need to create amenities for residents living in the Kremlin. "Proper setting up and organization of canteens, kindergartens, laundries, dryers on a cooperative basis will free responsible workers and their families from domestic and petty worries, where a lot of precious time and energy is wasted both by the workers themselves and their wives, who spend hours near stoves for cooking. Such an organization should create the communist way of life and the ideal to which we aspire," 1 said in a certificate prepared for a commission to examine the activities of the Administration of the Kremlin and the houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1924).
According to the annual report of the Kremlin's Sanitary Supervision Department for February 1919 - February 1920, first temporary baths were opened in the Kremlin in the Miracle Monastery 2 .
In March 1919, an estimate was approved in the amount of 120,190 rubles. 84 kop. for the reconstruction of the premises of the Grenadier Corps in the Kremlin for a walk-through bath 3 . In April, the baths and the hairdresser were able to receive their first visitors. In June 1919, the Kremlin mechanical laundry 4 was opened.
A bathhouse and a laundry were arranged in the basement of the Grenadier Corps. Documents dating back to the beginning of 1920 mention another laundry room, arranged on the first floor of the Ascension Monastery for cadets of the 1st machine-gun course 5 .
Kremlin residents could visit the bathhouse only on strictly defined days, according to a schedule, depending on the number of the house. In particular, at its second meeting on June 12, 1919, the Kremlin Sanitary Committee specifically considered the issue "On the rational use of the Kremlin walk-through baths." The following decision was made: “Get in touch with the medical and administrative staff of the institutions, find out exactly the days and hours when they will be sent to the bathhouse. Distribute tickets for the right to visit the bathhouses. days of visiting the baths, temporarily reduce to a minimum the number of heating days of the baths "6.
In December 1919, to the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars V.D. Bonch-Bruevich was approached by the female half of the population of the Kremlin with a complaint that the time allotted for them to visit the baths on Saturday morning was inconvenient for many of them. Most of the women worked, and "having washed themselves early in the morning in the baths, they have absolutely no time to dry their hair and go to work with wet hair," as a result of which many catch a cold. Bonch-Bruyevich offered Ya.B. Levinson to assign the Kremlin women the whole day so that "those who are in the service could wash in our baths after 4 o'clock, and those who live at home, there are also quite a few of them, could come to the baths in the morning and afternoon . For the rest of the Kremlin residents, who can wash in the morning and in the evening, you can set up a queue so that there is not a large crowd in the evening" 7 .
For being late for the bath - on trial!
There was a separate instruction for the use of the Kremlin walk-through baths for course participants: "1. By the appointed time, according to the schedule, the company commander is obliged to send a change of cadets to the bath no more than 30-35 people under the command of the platoon commander, who is obliged to ensure that all cadets enter the bath together; 2. Those who are behind and late to the bath are not allowed; 3. The platoon commander - the senior team must be present in the bath during the entire washing of his team and ensure that all cadet comrades observe the order and hygiene requirements imposed by the bath administration in the bath, would hand over linen for disinfection and not hide it in boots ... 5. For the team being late for the bath, even for one minute ... the perpetrators will be subjected to the strictest responsibility (up to and including dismissal from courses and trial); 6. Appointed to go to the bathhouse, comrade cadets are necessarily sent for washing, and no excuses from the cadets, such as not receiving linen from the laundry, are taken into account" 8.
On March 4, 1919, the first meeting of the Kremlin's Sanitary Committee took place, at which it was unanimously decided that "the use of the baths and the cell should be free of charge until the end of the typhus epidemic." With regard to the laundry, it was decided that "the use of the laundry must be paid ..." 9
The procedure for this payment was approved on June 12, 1919: "On the mechanical laundry. Confirm the decision of the 1st meeting of the Kremlin Sanitary Committee on the paid operation of the mechanical laundry. Accept the payment by the piece" 10 . Soon an approved price list appeared, for example: a men's shirt - 3 rubles, a pair of socks - 1 rub., a tunic - 4 rubles, a women's shirt - 4 rubles, a pair of stockings - 1 rub., a handkerchief - 75 kopecks, a sheet - 4 rubles, pillowcase - 2 rubles. eleven
Washing and laundry in the Grenadier Corps have become truly massive. During the year from February 1, 1919 to February 1, 1920, 35,138 people visited the Kremlin baths, 4,631 people received a hairdresser; about 40,000 items weighing 2,000 pounds were washed in a mechanical laundry 12 .
During the congresses, the baths worked at night
Baths were originally designed to wash 300-500 people a day, but this was not enough. At a meeting of the Sanitary Supervision of the Kremlin on June 3, 1920, it was decided to increase the throughput of the bathhouses and install a second Japanese-type steam-formalin chamber at the bathhouse, which could only allow "cadets and employees of the courses to skip 1,500 people a week after that" and significantly increase the possibility of visiting the baths by the residents of the Kremlin 13 .
"... On the occasion of a major overhaul, the Kremlin baths were closed for 2 1/2 months, however, the number of people who underwent sanitization, i.e. passed through the bath-disinfestation departments, rose from 53,848 in 1920 to 69,193 in 1921. The increase in throughput was achieved by increasing the number of work and organizing night work during congresses.
A significant number of primary infections, brought mainly by visitors, in the Kremlin and in the Houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, almost completely did not give secondary diseases, which characterizes the expediency of preventive measures "14," we read in the report of the Kremlin Sanitary Directorate for 1921.
Along with the baths, the laundry process was also modernized. "In view of the insufficient throughput of the existing laundry, it is necessary to rebuild it from manual to electric traction. For sanitary needs, the existing laundry room would be sufficient, but due to the need to service other institutions of the commissars and other residents of the Kremlin, it is necessary to increase the premises due to 2 apartments on the 2nd floor Grenadier building for the ironing department and the issuance of clean linen. Although this resolution of the issue may not be ideal in terms of the choice of premises, it is quite satisfactory and will resolve for a more or less long period the pressing laundry issue for the Kremlin "15, - reported on May 10, 1920 Mr. Levinson Bonch-Bruevich.
Who set the laundry on fire?
And at the beginning of 1920, two unpleasant incidents happened in the Kremlin laundry - a fire and theft of money in the amount of 7,000 rubles. during a fire. The fire caused significant damage to the premises and equipment of the laundry. The investigative department of the People's Commissariat of Justice closed both cases, citing the absence of corpus delicti in the case of a fire, as well as "failure to identify those responsible for stealing money." As a result, the stolen sum was written off as a loss to the treasury 16 . And according to the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of March 16, 1920, 120,000 rubles were released to the Administration of the Council of People's Commissars. for the repair of the same laundry 17 .
Options for equipping a mechanical laundry in new premises were considered. Based on the results of the examinations, a special act was drawn up: “On April 29, 1920 ... they examined the premises in the Chudov and Ascension monasteries and the premises in the Grenadier building in order to find out their suitability for the installation of a mechanical laundry. The premises in the Chudov and Ascension monasteries are certainly completely unsuitable, which As for the premises in the basement and partly on the 1st floor of the Grenadier Corps, although these premises are better than others, they are also extremely unsatisfactory, mainly in their layout. be given only temporarily, and therefore the commission considers the construction of a laundry in them irrational" 18 .
The decision was made at a meeting of the Sanitary Inspection of the Kremlin on June 3, 1920: “Recognizing the need for a laundry, the Kremlin should restructure and expand the Laundry as soon as possible. building, scheduled for the expansion of the laundry, to be released no later than Saturday June 5 and from Monday the 7th to start adapting them without stopping the work of the laundry. In the rebuilt and expanded laundry, linen of courses in the amount of 15 pounds should be washed daily (without ironing) " 19 .
The implementation of the project was delayed, and at the end of 1920, Levinson, in a report on the activities of the Sanitary Department of the Kremlin, noted: “The expansion of the laundry room does not tolerate any delay. The laundry room, in terms of its throughput, can hardly cope with its direct duty to serve the sanitary institutions of the Kremlin and the canteens of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The laundry situation for other institutions of the Kremlin and highly responsible Soviet workers living in the Kremlin is critical. The Kremlin's primary need for a laundry. The laundry, as far as it is physically possible, meets the requests, but can only meet them to a small extent and with a long delay. Constant fair criticisms, demands, threats will continue to occur until the main organic shortcoming of the laundry is eliminated. , its small capacity. All the necessary new equipment was received by the administration and brought to the Kremlin. After many months of effort, an additional building was also obtained. Now everything depends on the start of work, which is to be organized by the Administration of the Kremlin and the houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee" 20 .
Bathing ended in 1941
By the autumn of 1920, the situation with dangerous infectious diseases in the Kremlin had noticeably improved: “Thanks to the installation of walk-through baths in the Kremlin with complete disinfection of linen, clothes and those who wash themselves, we managed to ensure that already last year the incidence of typhus and relapsing fever in the Kremlin was completely stopped, and only there were cases of typhus brought by visitors from different parts of Russia, and these cases were immediately localized and limited only to those who became infected on the way.In no case did the infection spread to the inhabitants of the Kremlin. the best condition is our direct responsibility..." 21
In 1924, the issue of refurbishing the Kremlin baths began to be discussed again. In April, the Secretariat of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, at the initiative of the Sanitary Department of the Kremlin and the commandant's office of the Kremlin, issued a decree on the release of funds for the expansion and refurbishment of the Kremlin entrance baths in the amount of 79,646 rubles. The practical resolution of this issue was entrusted to the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The People’s Commissariat of Finance of the USSR, in its conclusion on the allocation of the required amount, noted that “there is no need to expand the baths, judging by their actual throughput. The financial situation of the State Treasury obliges the planned work to be postponed until a more favorable moment. administration of the Kremlin and objects to the release of any funds for these works" 22 . Thus, the new modernization of the bathhouse in the Kremlin did not take place.
And soon, from the mid-1920s, a gradual reduction in the number of Kremlin residents began, and with them the need to expand the bath and laundry space disappeared. During the Great Patriotic War, the usual rhythm of washing changed. In the autumn of 1941, during one of the most difficult periods of the war, in the Moscow Kremlin, as in all districts of Moscow, interruptions began in the supply of electricity, domestic gas and water. Since December, gas in the Kremlin was practically turned off, and all its inhabitants began to visit the city baths, of which there were only nine in the capital by that time. There is evidence that even the leadership of the Soviet state used the services of the Central Baths. Only the barbershop continued to operate in the Kremlin throughout the war, and the leaders of the country used the services of personal barbers. For example, in November 1941, A.P. visited the Kremlin 11 times. Matveev - personal hairdresser I.V. Stalin 23 .
The Grenadier Corps, which housed the Kremlin baths, which are exotic for today's reality, was demolished along with other nearby buildings during the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses in 1960 and 1961.
Notes
1. GARF. F. 1235. Op. 140. D. 156. L. 75.
2. GARF. F. R-1235. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 288.
3. RGASPI.F. 19. Op. 2. D. 218. L. 2v.
4. GARF. F. R-1235. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 288.
5. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 301, 302.
6. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 5 rev.
7. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 350. L. 90-90v.
8. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 350. L. 110.
9. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 25v.
10. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 5 rev.
11. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 3. D. 242. L. 8.
12. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 288.
13. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 314 rev.
14. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 6. D. 1076. L. 21v.
15. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 306.
16. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 382. L. 23-24.
17. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 382. L. 29, 30.
18. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 308.
19. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 314.
20. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 382v.
21. GARF. F. R-130. Op. 4. D. 617. L. 341.
22. GARF. F. R-1235. Op. 133. D. 197. L. 2-3.
23. The Moscow Kremlin during the Great Patriotic War. M., 2010. S. 113-114.
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