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High-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment 1 15. How to buy an apartment in a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. Political views or banal hooliganism

I've been wanting to post it for a long time, but only now got around to it. Today we see another Stalinist high-rise building - a residential building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Everything here was not as simple as on Kudrinskaya, but that only made it more interesting) main feature The foray was that I decided to go to the wrong place, and just go here for reconnaissance, so I went alone, and as a result, I ended up conquering it in splendid isolation =) Details of the history and photographs are under the cut.

It all started with the fact that I didn’t know how to spend the day, it was the height of August, vacation - on the eve of a trip to Voronezh (by the way, expect continued reports from there). The weather was not very good, well, how can I say not very good - haze and a barely visible blue sky. I decided to go and try to photograph Moscow from the house on Kosmodamianskaya Embankment, and at the same time see what it was like on the Stalinist high-rise. But on the way to the first goal, I decided to look here first. Remembering how, a couple of days before the visit, the concierge Diman Fat and his company were cheerfully trolled here, it was clear that it was useless to try to go through the main entrance. So I decided to take a closer look. A quick solution was found, luck played a little into our hands, then we ran up the stairs, the first climbs, a little climbing on walls and the like. After about 20 minutes I was already climbing up the central staircase. Going upstairs, I saw the castle and was not at all surprised - they sealed it, I thought. I decided to go down a little lower and saw a small open door. She led me to some crazy technical rooms. Here I specifically curled up, because I found myself in an incomprehensible triangular attic room with a huge pipe in the middle with cables and windows to the outside. Oh yes, there were also 4 doors. Since they told me that it’s “high and difficult” to climb the cable here, I thought that they were really stubborn to climb such a hellish pipe and some kind of left walkers behind the doors. After fiddling around there for about 15 minutes, I decided to take a photo from this level and climbed out to the highest residential floor. I was about to despair, but then it dawned on me - damn, there are 3 stairs, how could I forget. The third, main one took me higher, even higher, even higher, a couple of flights of stairs in complete darkness with a phone and a flashlight going down - it’s fun. But here is the hatch, and we go straight out under the star. The star is beautiful, but I liked Kudrinka better. This one is painted silver. The site is very crowded, but you can take photos calmly. A terrible wind was blowing, the weather was deteriorating. The blue sky was barely visible from the side of Ostankino and Paveletskaya, but not from the side of the Kremlin - an epic fail. But what difference does it make, I thought and started taking pictures. I liked climbing more than taking pictures. But before you see the photos, I’ll traditionally give you a little historical background.

“The residential building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment in Moscow is one of the “high-rise buildings”, built at the mouth of the Yauza in 1948-1952. The authors of the project are D. N. Chechulin, A. K. Rostkovsky, engineer L. M. Gokhman. Supervised the construction, including, Lavrentiy Beria insisted on choosing a site for the construction of the house.
The house, which closes the perspective from the Kremlin to the mouth of the Yauza, was built in 1938-1940, 1948-1952. The central volume has 26 floors (32 including technical floors) and has a height of 176 m. The high-rise contains 540 apartments, of which 336 two-room, 173 three-room, 18 four-room and 13 one-room apartments. Adjacent to it is the “old”, 9-story residential building overlooking the Moscow River, designed by the same authors in 1938 and completed in 1940. In total, the building contains 700 apartments, shops, Postal office, cinema "Illusion" (basic cinema of the Gosfilmofond; opens onto Bolshoi Vatin Lane), museum-apartment of G. S. Ulanova."

And now the photos

1.Before the conquest. Yes, yes, we need to go exactly to the star, to the very top;)

2. Having made a long way to the top, we begin to take pictures of the views. Photo towards the Kursky station, in the foreground is the Filippov-Goncharov estate and the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity, on the right is a green area + the territory of numerous well-known abandoned buildings, on the right is the Yauza River, the Tessinsky Bridge, on the left in the distance are visible 2 other high-rise buildings - the "Red Gate" (which many rufili 2 weeks ago) and "Leningradskaya", we send greetings to these high-rise buildings.

3. The first frame, which conveys height, is also the title frame. The place where the high-rise transitions into the neighboring residential building is clearly visible, ultimately forming a single complex. Notable are the peaks of the towers in the shape of ice cream cones :) And other tops in the form of golden stars.

4. The report from the Stalinist high-rise would not be a report if there were no photograph from the star - here it is. That's how she is here. Since I didn’t have a wide one at that time + I didn’t really want to stand on the sides, it turned out that way, the hammer and sickle aren’t particularly visible, but still) At the base, by the way, there’s a huge ball.

5. There was a terrible haze towards the Kremlin, so, alas, I can’t show anything more intelligible than this shot. So, in the foreground is the Bolshoi Ustinsky Bridge, to the left of it is the Moscow Bridge State University design and technology. Such an absurd wasteland No. 1 is the site of construction of another office and hotel complex (at the zero stage of development). The large building on the left is the Ministry of Economic Development, the most famous sights of the capital are visible in the distance, I won’t list them. Dull wasteland No. 2 on the right is the site of the demolition of the Rossiya Hotel - another spot in the center of Moscow. In the background, under the clouds, is the slowly growing Moscow City.

6. Now let’s go around the spire and take a dizzying shot in the other direction straight down - you can see the courtyard + residential building of the cooperative RZhSKT “Wool Worker”, 1929-1930. right on course

7. Now the frame is wedged not from the spire, but from the attic, but at the level of those very small spiers, on the left - the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul at the Yauza Gate

8. Let’s take a closer look at Ustinsky Square and the monument to the border guards of the Fatherland against the backdrop of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity

9. Meanwhile, along the Moscow River, in the rays of the sun of such an irregular yellow color, boats with people are sailing, who do not even suspect that they are in the frame of a curious photographer

10. Views towards the Bolshoi Krasnokholmsky Bridge and the Swissotel Red Hills hotel, on the right is a beautiful square-shaped building - the headquarters of the Moscow Military District, in the distance - Paveletskaya metro station.

11. And here an interesting area came into the frame - the Metochion of the Athos St. Panteleimon Monastery and the city estate of B.K. Milhausen, and in the left corner - the temple of St. Simeon the Stylite

12. It’s nice and warm under the stars, despite the terribly blowing wind. I just want to stay here, sit with my friends and wait for sunset...

But, alas, it’s time to go home, dust ourselves off and get out. I decided to leave directly through the concierge through the central hall. I was lucky, the concierges were not there, but I thought for a long time which door to open, and they came, I pretended that I had just entered and, sad about the topic, what a pity it was that I couldn’t take pictures of the interiors, I went home, they kindly showed me the way. Like this)

", having an apartment in any of which was considered a luxury, practically inaccessible to an ordinary resident of the capital.

The construction of the magnificent building lasted several years. Started in 1938, it was completed only by 1952. The house has 26 floors - an unprecedented height at that time. But there are various rumors about the number of apartments. For some reason, the data from different documents does not coincide with each other, and even the building management itself does not know exactly how many separate premises there are. They name different numbers: 540, 450, and 700... Perhaps such confusion in numbers is associated with numerous redevelopments, excitedly carried out by new residents.

The construction of the house was supervised by Beria. A considerable part of the apartments in elite housing were given to NKVD workers. Then the military, as well as scientists, cultural and artistic figures, began to move in with them. After some time, the entire cream of the Moscow intelligentsia gathered in this house. Among the residents of the high-rise were:

  • actors (Nonna Mordyukova, Klara Luchko, Faina Ranevskaya, Alexander Shirvindt);
  • writers (Vasily Aksenov, Alexander Tvardovsky);
  • ballerina (Galina Ulanova today there is a Ulanova museum-apartment in the house);
  • trainer (Irina Bugrimova;
  • singer Lyudmila Zykina...

We could go on and on about the names that are familiar to every Russian. Ranevskaya received an apartment here on the second floor, above the bakery and the Illusion cinema (operating to this day). The sharp-tongued actress called her home located “above bread and circuses.” And in Vasily Aksenov’s apartment, according to rumors, for a long time there was an inscription on the wall, scratched with a nail: “Built by prisoners.” Indeed, during the construction of the house, prison labor was actively used here.

There are various interesting rumors about the internal structure of the house. So, they claim that there is secret room equipped with special equipment. Once it was arranged here for Stalin. Aksenov used these rumors in his novel “Moscow Kva Kva”, where he described the death of the leader of the people in a secret shelter at home on Kotelnicheskaya.

They talk about secret passages that security officers allegedly could use to penetrate from apartment to apartment and eavesdrop on residents’ conversations. They even claim that according to Stalin’s plan, the house was supposed to be connected by an underground passage to the Kremlin. Today we are unlikely to know whether this is true. But, for example, this absolutely real fact is known: each high-rise apartment is equipped with an additional “back door”. And thieves took advantage of this circumstance in 1981, when perhaps the most brazen robbery in the history of the house (and perhaps the only one) was committed. IN new year holidays Guys loaded with a Christmas tree and decorated boxes approached the concierge, introduced themselves as employees of the State Circus and asked permission to leave gifts at Irina Bugrimova’s apartment. She, not suspecting anything wrong, allowed it. And when a lot of time had passed, she became worried and decided to go up and see why the guests were so late. A picture appeared before her eyes: the door of the trainer’s apartment was open, there was a Christmas tree inside, and there was no trace of the “circus performers”: they left through the “back door”, taking a good collection of diamonds.

Once upon a time, the house was a completely separate “city in miniature”: it housed shops, a laundry, a hairdresser, an atelier, and a cinema. In winter it was possible to sled and ski on the roof; there was a private skating rink in the yard.

Today, the magnificent “shard of the past” is gradually deteriorating and collapsing. Apartments here are no longer considered elite; actors and singers of our time are trying to buy other housing that is more in line with modern ideas about convenience and comfort. And the old giant, like a retired nobleman of the former emperor, lives out his life without losing his greatness and dignity.


March 7, Saturday
13:00 Timiryazev Academy (NEW EXCURSION)
Meeting point: Petrovsko-Razumovskaya metro station, exit No. 5 (last car from the center)

14:00 Lubyanka quarters: Myasnitskaya and Milyutinsky
Meeting point: Lubyanka metro station, exit to the Biblio-Globus, near the entrance to the Mayakovsky Museum

March 8, Sunday
13:00 Khamovniki: “Red Rose” and surroundings
Meeting point: at exit No. 1 of the Park Kultury metro station (circular and radial, exit to Zubovsky Boulevard)
The tour is led by Alexander Ivanov

March 9, Monday
13:00 Avtozavodskaya and Simonovo: from antiquities to avant-garde
Meeting point: Avtozavodskaya metro station, last car from the center, exit to the right (exit No. 2)
The tour is led by Alexander Ivanov
14:00 From Arbat to Ostozhenka
Meeting point: Smolenskaya metro station (blue), at the entrance to the Smolensky grocery store (Azbuka Vkusa): go to the Garden Ring, cross the road, walk to the corner of Arbat
The tour is led by Alexander Usoltsev

Kremlin at sunset

What’s most offensive is that all these views open not from a dangerous roof, but from a good observation deck on the house, which would be nice to open for general visits, but not at all:

The stars on the towers are three-dimensional

Here once stood the Rossiya Hotel, but for now it is perhaps the world’s largest and most expensive vacant lot in the city center.


They promise that there will be a park here, but nothing has moved forward yet

In the central high-rise under the spire there is another observation deck that is closed even to residents

But let’s go down again to the central hall, where a specially selected and especially stern type of concierge sits, often strictly screening out even guests, not to mention curious tourists.

Let's go to the left wing of the central building

Here all the conditions were created for the residents of the house and even children can be taken to the club and today they can be taken in slippers

For a change, let's go up the stairs with elements of former greatness...

...and today's not very good condition

Hall with apartments

Apparently, the tile floor is more recent and this area is rather an exception, because most of the areas in the high-rise are parquet, like on the next floor:

Most of the doors, nicely, are old, solid wood with slots for letters and newspapers. According to local residents, the local postman still delivers mail to each apartment.

Let's take a look into one of the surviving apartments

The parquet has been preserved from the very beginning, and the wooden doors have never been changed.


And the original furniture has been preserved. The previous long-time residents worked a lot on the topic of the East, hence the corresponding things on the shelves and literature

People lived educated, and behind the book “façade” you can find, for example, Vysotsky’s poems in “samizdat” in the second row of books.

And even the windows work as before: for ventilation there is a lever that opens the transom under the high ceiling

In many parts of the apartment, old sockets are preserved, which is not always convenient these days.

Stalin's lamps at the entrance

Next to the bathroom there is a small door - the second exit from the apartment to the back staircase, as in the best pre-revolutionary apartment buildings

Back staircase between apartments.

Let's move to another apartment, where, by a happy coincidence, the situation is completely opposite: the rooms, on the contrary, have lost their color, but the kitchen has been preserved from previous times

But first, let's take a look at the interior doors along the way.

Initially, all the kitchens in the house, including those in very privileged apartments, were tiled, which is typical for post-war kitchens, compare with the kitchen.

There is also access to the back staircase here.

There is a garbage disposal next to the sink, which is no longer used, but in new apartments it is sealed up whenever possible; a lot of garbage has accumulated on the walls over the years, the stench of which goes into the apartment.

Meanwhile, night fell on the city:

The windows in the house lit up


As you can see, there is a colossal amount of empty space in the house, due to which in the 1990s new residents began to increase the height and breadth of their apartments.

The lights came on under the spire of the high-rise

With a wonderful view of the city

On the platform under the spire there are statues of a Komsomol member and a Komsomol member


A Komsomol member and a Komsomol woman with tense expressions on their faces are holding a sign with a hammer and sickle.

At the same time, not only the Komsomol member’s face is tense, but also other parts of her body, which upon closer inspection literally tear through her dress.


Thanks for the photo ivanscar

With this striking and frivolous detail of Soviet architecture, we conclude the publication, go downstairs and exit through the luxurious entrance:

Thank you for your attention!

Special thanks to the creators of one of the most Moscow Instagrams mos_photo for assistance in organizing filming. Subscribe, they are one of the few who show Moscow beautifully and without politics.

Modern apartment buildings, Stalinist high-rise buildings and high-rise buildings from the 1970s are not just residential buildings, but real city symbols. In the “” section, The Village talks about the most famous and unusual houses of the two capitals and their inhabitants. In the new issue, we found out what it’s like to live in a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment - one of the main symbols of Moscow.

At different times, his own architect Dmitry Chechulin lived in the house, as well as Alexander Tvardovsky, Faina Ranevskaya, Galina Ulanova, in whose honor a museum was opened in the high-rise building. Many may have seen the building in the films “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears”, “Brother-2”, “Hipsters” and in the TV series “Brigada”. In 2014, the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya was actively written about when the flag of Ukraine was on its spire and the yellow star was half painted over in blue. In 2016, they began to talk about the high-rise in connection with another scandal: oppositionist Alexei Navalny, First Deputy Chairman of the Government Igor Shuvalov, owned ten apartments here with a total area of ​​more than 700 square meters.

High-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya

Address: Kotelnicheskaya embankment, 1/15

Architects: Dmitry Chechulin, Andrey Rostovsky

Construction: 1937–1952

Height: 176 meters 32 floors

Housing: 700 apartments

After the victory in the Great Patriotic War In Moscow, the reconstruction program continued, which was supposed to make the city the demonstrative capital of the world's largest power. The skyscrapers personified its greatness. And their number (eight) probably personified the first digit of the city’s age - the decision to build eight high-rise buildings was made in the year of Moscow’s 800th anniversary.

The construction of Stalin's high-rise buildings is a unique experiment: firstly, the buildings themselves are unique, and secondly, specific living conditions were created in them. High-rise buildings are the first Soviet skyscrapers in the modern sense of the word, that is, high-rise buildings on a frame. At that time, buildings were actively constructed in America in this way, but our engineers were able to introduce a number of innovations. For example, self-lifting cranes were invented, which significantly speeded up the frame assembly process. Or, for the first time in the world, welding was used in high-rise construction. Special foundations were also developed that made it possible to erect buildings on weak Moscow soils. I'm not even talking about such unique operations as soil freezing. For example, the high-rise building on Krasnye Vorota was built at a certain angle, so that after the soil under the left wing of the building defrosted, it would take a strictly vertical position.

Secondly, for residential buildings like the high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, it is especially important that the buildings receive the most modern filling. They were the first in Moscow to have central heating and hot water supply from the city heating network, and not from the boiler room in the basement of the house. The houses had running water, sewerage (in those days, not many Moscow houses could boast of this), air conditioning, and even such an outlandish thing as central dust removal - a special outlet in the wall to which you need to connect a hose and vacuum the apartment with it.

The decoration of public spaces in each Stalinist high-rise is unique, since all the buildings were designed by different teams of architects. In the central foyer of the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya, the mosaic on the ceiling and marble cladding have been preserved. However, the original decoration of the apartments is not. Even in Ulanova’s apartment, which is preserved as a museum, the decoration dates back to the 80s.

In an architectural sense, the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya, in my opinion, is one of the most elegant and subtle. Its author was the chief architect of Moscow at that time, Dmitry Chechulin, who oversaw the construction program of eight high-rise buildings. The high-rise building seems to refer us to Moscow architecture of the late 17th century, tower-shaped churches like the Intercession in Fili. However, the elegance of proportions often comes at the expense of living comfort. The small size of the floors in the upper parts of the building made many apartments small and awkward in layout.

From an urban planning point of view, the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya is contradictory. On the one hand, it creates a powerful high-rise accent on the embankment and forms an arrow between the Yauza and the Moscow River. On the other hand, hidden behind the high-rise building is another excellent view of the city: Tagansky Hill, or Shvivaya Hill. With the advent of the high-rise, it was completely excluded from Moscow panoramas.

Nevertheless, we must admit: the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya has firmly become a postcard view. Now it’s hard to imagine our city without her. It is as significant as the Kremlin or the main building of Moscow State University.

Pavel Gnilorybov

historian, Moscow specialist, head of the Mospeshkom project

The high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment has an interesting location - the city was often photographed from here in the 19th century; here, behind the Yauza River, one of the best panoramic views of Moscow opened up. At that time, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, as well as the part of Balchug Island facing it, was built up with pompous houses in the Stalinist Empire style. For example, 14-story buildings were erected on nearby Goncharnaya Street.

Architect Dmitry Chechulin built a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya as a continuation of the nine-story residential building he designed before the war. It is noteworthy that for the construction of Stalina it was necessary to destroy several alleys of old Moscow.

The idea of ​​social and living complexes, whose residents do not have to walk a kilometer to the nearest bakery, is typical of Soviet architectural thought of that period. But if in the communal houses the idea was implemented somewhat straightforwardly, then in the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya a modern concept of public and commercial functions of the ground floor was actually created. Not only shops are important, but also the Znamya cinema, which in 1966 was renamed Illusion. All this emphasized the high status of the residents of the house.

The history of the settlement of the high-rise is associated with the thaw. If houses in the “river” part were given mainly to scientists and state security workers, then in the “land” part they housed the creative intelligentsia: actors, writers, composers. It is difficult to say how many times the building is mentioned in literature and memoirs. And the events of Vasily Aksenov’s book “Moscow Kva-Kva” actually take place near the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya.

Oleg Borodin

artist, rents an apartment in the main building of the high-rise

Three rooms

85 square meters

I rent this apartment with my boyfriend and girlfriend. In Moscow, it’s hard to find a three-room apartment with white walls and wooden floors, so when a year ago we accidentally found out about this option, we didn’t think twice about it. Of course, due to the status of the building, we had to pay a little more for rent than we expected, but it was worth it.

Everyone knows that the capital began because of Shuvalov (I.I. Shuvalov - First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. - Ed.). Moreover, residents pay for it - the corresponding line is on the payment form. The quality of repairs varies everywhere. Historical things like statues, ceilings and stucco are being restored well, but the entrance is being renovated in a rather strange way. Something is constantly falling off in it. We recently painted the walls, then we started doing the wiring, and, naturally, we had to paint everything again. Repairs happen very slowly: for example, a new elevator takes more than a year to complete. The completion date for the renovation is constantly being postponed: according to the latest information, it was supposed to end in December 2016.

Due to renovations, the entire house is dusty, noisy, and has trash scattered around. Therefore, many residents decided to take advantage of the situation and carry out renovations in their apartments. If you look at the windows of the high-rise building in the evening, it becomes clear that many residents have temporarily moved out. On each floor, at least two apartments are in a state of repair, meaning the building is approximately half empty.

About the apartment

We moved into an empty white apartment with a minimal amount of furniture. I only brought a table and a mattress. Although over time we have a lot of good Soviet furniture that our neighbors throw away. The apartment has three rooms, a balcony, a dining room and two storage rooms, one of which opens onto the fire escape and a sealed garbage chute. There is no garbage chute at the entrance: here it is located inside the apartments, but most residents closed it due to the abundance of cockroaches. We practically did no repairs - we just repainted the walls and ceiling.

Our dining room has a strange fate. At first I was glad that the apartment had a common area for lunch and meetings. But the room turned out to be not very comfortable, and now we rarely spend time in it. Most often our guests sit in the dining room. I prefer to eat in the room or on the balcony, on which we hung a small hammock last summer.

I work freelance and spend a lot of time at home. It’s mentally and physically difficult to get out of a high-rise building onto the street - it’s as if you’re sitting in a fortress, and you don’t want to go anywhere. The elevators in the building are quite slow, and the walk to the metro is long. In the summer, I am saved by the bike rental, which is located right next to the cinema.

Of course, there are inconveniences in the apartment, but they are not critical. Since ancient times, large black cockroaches have been found in high-rise apartments. The poet Yevtushenko, who lived here, even has a poem “Cockroaches” dedicated to them. I caught them too. They are more than three centimeters, calm and hang out only on the floor. They didn’t bother me, and the previous residents even liked them; their dog loved to play with the cockroaches. However, after we established ventilation in the apartment, they began to appear much less frequently.

In the summer there is a constant draft in the apartment. It often happens that when you enter an apartment, the balcony door slams so hard that the glass breaks. This happened three times during the year, and once during my breakfast on the balcony - then the glass fell right on me. During the recent hurricane in Moscow, due to strong winds, I simply could not close the window.

Also in the apartment there is a slight problem with the sound insulation of the ceilings and floors. In the morning, I clearly hear the neighbor upstairs cleaning and Bach ringing on his phone. The neighbor below me also said that he could hear what I was doing.

About the view from the window and seagulls

The apartment windows offer a view of the whole of Moscow, but I got used to it in just a couple of months. I don’t have the feeling that I live in an apartment, because usually trees, houses, streets are visible from the window, but here I seem to be at an abstract point at a height. From here the city is perceived differently: everything seems chaotic and standing on top of each other.

There is a constant traffic jam near the high-rise building, and before moving I was afraid that the sounds of cars would disturb me. In fact, it turned out that most of the unpleasant sounds and car fumes did not reach my floor. I live above the tenth floor, and it is much quieter here than on the street. I often sleep with the window open and perceive the noise of the city as the noise of the sea. This is also facilitated by the seagulls that periodically fly past my window.

The only problem related to sound arises in the summer, when tourist ships sail along the Moscow River. As a rule, they always play loud bad music. The sound reflects so well from the water that it feels as if Kirkorov or Leps is singing in the next room.

About parties, neighbors and the area

From time to time, my neighbors and I organize parties, dinners, and work shows in the apartment. contemporary art and small electronic-acoustic apartments of musician friends. We warn neighbors about such meetings in advance and try to finish everything before 11 pm. The owner of the apartment is not against parties, he loves artists, and trusts us. But the concierges worry if more than 20 people come to us. After one incident, I even had to meet the local police officer.

In the main building of the high-rise there are three buildings, each of which has its own entrance and its own concierge, but while renovations are underway, only the central entrance is open and the three concierges sit together. They are vigilant and may not allow guests in without the presence of the owners, because tourists and people who want to climb to the roof often try to get inside.

I'm in good relations with neighbors in the building: everyone here is friendly and doesn’t mind chatting in the elevator. Residents of the high-rise have their own community on Facebook, where they discuss renovation problems, follow publications about the building and discuss news in the area. Of course, I met wealthy people among the residents of the building, but still, the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya is not an elite housing stock. Mostly elderly people live here, exactly the same as at the River Station or anywhere else in Moscow.

I don’t walk around the area much, I mostly spend time either in the apartment or for work I go to the printing workshop on my street. I also like the high-rise courtyard; in my youth I often spent time there. In the courtyard there is an underground garage, on the roof of which there are former tennis courts. The yard is due to be restored this year. Now it's a little shabby, but it's still nice and cozy. To some extent, it replaces the park for me.

Recently, after restoration, the Illusion cinema opened, and it still has an excellent repertoire: they often show classics, films from European festivals, films from film, films with live sound and music. In addition, it is also cheap: on weekdays tickets cost about 100 rubles.

Ksenia Vechtomova

brand manager of Wonderzine, rents an apartment in the side building of the high-rise building

Two rooms

80 square meters

70 thousand rubles per month

About moving

In my youth, I spent a lot of time on Taganka and always thought that I wanted to live in a Stalinist high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya. Not in any high-rise building, but in this one. I remember her from my childhood films: “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” and “Brother-2”. Every time I pass by it, there is a feeling of greatness inside. Last year I decided to rent an apartment in Moscow and, as soon as I saw the offer in this building, I immediately came running.

Rent costs 70 thousand rubles per month. I don’t rent a room alone, but together with my boyfriend and his friend, so we didn’t bargain. True, two months after moving in, I saw an advertisement for renting an apartment in the next entrance for 50 thousand rubles.

My apartment was rented practically unfurnished: only the kitchen was furnished, and in one of the rooms there was a double bed. Initially, I wanted to change a lot in the apartment, but I soon realized that it was quite difficult to do this. Firstly, the owner forbade changing the wallpaper because it is dear to her, and she says that there are some kind of gold threads sewn into it. And secondly, the wall has long been rotten, and if you tear off the wallpaper, it will begin to fall apart. But the apartment has high ceilings, original chandeliers, and an old mirror in an amber frame hangs in the bathroom.

About the apartment

There are only three outlets in the entire apartment, so I have extension cords laid out all over the floor. Moreover, the sockets are located in the most inconvenient places, and in the kitchen there are none at all - a wire from the corridor stretches here. As far as I understand, this is the situation in all high-rise apartments.

If you are renovating an apartment, you must start by replacing the wiring, which has not changed here since the building was built. It's so bad and old that the light bulbs burn out every other day. Of the five light bulbs in the kitchen, only two are currently working, the rest are broken, and I’m just tired of endlessly buying new ones. The owner of the apartment advises buying cheap light bulbs and not sweating. And she doesn’t care about the fact that it can short out at any moment.

There is no refrigerator in my apartment, but in the kitchen, since it was built, there has been a small cabinet with several shelves under the window sill, the outer doors of which can be opened, and the food that is in it will appear on the street. In winter, the cabinet does a great job: keeping food cold and keeping the kitchen warm. In the summer, of course, you shouldn’t store perishable food in it, but I usually eat at work or in a cafe, so the lack of a refrigerator is not a problem for me.

Another feature of the apartment is its unique audibility: for example, not a single sound can come from the kitchen, but every rustle can be heard from my room. Also, thanks to the old ventilation, I can clearly hear what is happening in the neighboring apartments. Sometimes I wake up at five in the morning because someone from the next apartment is playing the anthem Soviet Union or the “Mushrooms” group. More often I still hear birds singing and bells ringing. The windows of my room overlook the courtyard, behind which the monastery is visible, and to the left rises the main building of the high-rise building. I've been living here for almost a year, and I'm not tired of the view from the window - largely because of it, I love smoking on the balcony so much.

Many of my friends ask to visit - everyone is interested in what it’s like to live in a high-rise building. But when they come, they are not delighted - there is nothing special to see. Life in my apartment is like life in a museum. Everyone wants to look at you, but you sit inside all crooked.

Something constantly burns out and breaks in the apartment - and two months after moving in, I realized that the building was built for beauty, not for life. Yes, it is located in the center, but it’s a long walk from it to the metro. And to get around it, you need at least 20 minutes. I think living in a high-rise building on Krasnopresnenskaya is much more convenient: next to it there is also a cinema, there are many shops and restaurants, and most importantly, a metro station. My lease will end in the fall, and I will try to move there.

About neighbors and entrance

All residents of this house have a common feature, a certain Soviet sense of intelligence. It seems to be transferred with settlement or registration. For example, when you rent an apartment in an ordinary house, you are most often asked where you work and how much you earn, but here the landlady first of all asked me what school I went to. It was important to her that I graduate good school in the center of Moscow.

Last year, in another building of the building, Igor Shuvalov bought eight apartments - that is, the entire floor. After that, the entire house began to undergo major renovations. Moreover, the repairs were most likely done at the expense of the state, because the residents certainly did not finance it.

Mostly local residents over 40 live in my building; there are very few young people, and there are also those who rent an apartment. Most of the neighbors are nice and friendly. When Pyaterochka opened in our house, local residents came to the event and actively engaged in leisurely small talk. Meetings of residents of the entrance are held periodically between the seventh and eighth floors. I have never been there and don’t know what they are discussing, but I know that for many residents it was important that, as part of the renovation, all apartments were equipped with the same entrance doors and pens. Therefore, now I have the same pen as in Pyaterochka and like Shuvalov.

At the same time, quite vigilant people live here. My flatmate is Ossetian, and when we were moving, an unpleasant incident happened at the entrance. He was walking up the stairs with his bags, some granny started yelling at him, threatening to call the police, accusing him of organizing a brothel and asking him to show his registration. I remember he called me and asked me in a trembling voice for help.

The contingent of people who live in the main building and those who live here is different. Rich people live there who can afford to buy an apartment in such a building, and here we have successive Muscovites. The difference is visible even from cars parked in the yard. Near the entrances of the main building there are new high-class cars, and at the entrances of other buildings there are simpler cars, for example, like our hostess: a gold-colored Volvo from the year 2000.

Three security guards, who work in turns, keep order at the entrance. They spend the night in a spacious utility room, which even has a bathroom. In fact, they are more than security guards, sort of guard-dispatchers. They know all the residents by name and face, and guests are asked in detail who they are going to and why. You can come to them for any question. For example, if the water is turned off, the security guard already knows what’s going on and when it will be returned. Or if you need to fix something small, you don’t have to call a repairman, but ask the security guard. My favorite security guard's name is Andrey. He is tall, stately, sits with a straight back and wears a suit.

About the area

It’s quite a long walk from the high-rise building to the entrance to the Taganskaya metro station, so I use a taxi. But there are constant traffic jams in the area due to the construction of Zaryadye Park. No matter which way you go, there are cars everywhere. There are eight kilometers between my place of work and my home, and the journey usually takes an hour, so I start working right in the car. The maximum time I spent on the road was an hour and a half. Sometimes I go to the Lenin Library and take a taxi from there for a hundred rubles - it’s faster and cheaper.

In warm weather, I like to walk along the embankment or along the wonderful bridge to Novokuznetskaya or Kitay-Gorod. The Powerhouse is a five-minute walk away, but there's not much else to go. The nearest cafes and restaurants are located near Taganskaya, and there aren’t very many of them. The situation in Kitai-Gorod is much better, but we still need to get there.

Things are even worse with stores. It seems like you live in the city center, but there is no infrastructure nearby. In winter, a funny store “Pyaterochka” was opened in the building. Its ceilings and walls are covered with marble, and inside there are advertisements for potatoes for 40 rubles. But such surreal aesthetics don’t bother me.

The nearest 24-hour pharmacy is located near the Proletarskaya metro station. If things get bad at night, there's nowhere to go. Sberbank in a high-rise building is open from 10 am to 5 pm, which is inconvenient. Although older residents probably live comfortably here: everything is at hand and works during the day.