The overhaul of discord: who stands behind the dismantling of the historical interiors of Moscow State University

Irina Mishina

It seemed that time had no power over the main building of Moscow State University. In terms of the number of authentic, historical elements of furnishings and decoration in Moscow, it is difficult to find a more integral ensemble. The audiences of the "skyscraper" on the Lenin Hills remember the lectures of academicians Kolmogorov and Aleksandrov, the "Russian Darwin" Karl Lurie, the inventor of the first Soviet antibiotic Georgy Gauze. During the heyday of the Stalinist Empire, it was customary to decorate buildings with various decorative elements. The best Soviet architects and sculptors of that time - Vera Mukhina, Georgy Motovilov, Alexander Deineka - were involved to decorate the interiors of the main building of Moscow State University. The status of a historical and cultural monument of regional significance, it seemed, was supposed to guarantee the university the invariability of every corner. But the overhaul ordered otherwise.

It all started with a complete dismantling in the Big Biological Auditorium and in other rooms at the Faculty of Biology, and continued in room 01 and the premises of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, located in the Main Building of Moscow State University. “All this led to the actual destruction of the original historical interiors of classrooms of the 50s with preserved furniture and decoration made of Carpathian oak and beech. They are fully included in the subject of protection of the complex of buildings of the university, which is a historical and cultural monument of regional significance, and are subject to mandatory preservation. Their barbaric destruction is a criminal offense and cannot be the subject of government contracts. Nevertheless, this is exactly what is happening now simultaneously in several buildings on the Lenin Hills", - is said in the petition "Stop the destruction of the historical interiors of Moscow State University!"

More than 750,000,000 rubles were allocated from the budget for repairs and "restoration work" in the main building of Moscow State University. On August 11, 2020, an act of state examination was drawn up for the restoration of classrooms No. 1408, No. 1610, No. 1624. The customer of the examination is the construction company Renaissance-Restoration JSC. By the way, in this act, the restoration technique is quite correctly indicated with the preservation of all the original elements. According to materials published on the public procurement website , the winner of the tender for the repair contract at Moscow State University was the company "Kromservice" with an authorized capital of 20 thousand rubles. This company has many impressive orders. But one draws attention to itself: by an amazing coincidence, it was Kromservice who was involved in the restoration project of the notorious Kuznetsov's House of Porcelain. The consequences of this "restoration" raise a lot of questions.

But the most interesting thing is different: in the terms of reference attached to the tender, in the section of requirements for the performance of work, there is strangely no point on the preservation of the surviving varnish coatings of wooden parts, as well as on the restoration of furniture and solid oak products. In addition, the document does not specify in detail the methodology for the restoration of wooden parts. Apparently, this freed the hands of the contractor.

“The works indicated in these sheets have nothing to do with what is described in the methodology of the project terms of reference and directly contradict them. Nevertheless, the project, together with these statements, in violation of the current legislation, passed a historical and cultural examination and approval of the Department of Cultural Heritage", - explained Nikita Inozemtsev, a graduate of Moscow State University, an activist of Arkhnadzor, to Novye Izvestia.

“Oak furniture was made to order for the size of specific auditoriums at Moscow State University. But from the classrooms of the Faculty of Biology, this furniture was thrown directly into the trash, this fact was recorded. They are planning to replace this historic furniture with products made of chipboard, unique parquet will be replaced by cheap laminate”, - said Yelena Petrova, an employee of the geographical faculty of Moscow State University, city rights activist.

The design documentation was for each audience. Everything that was associated with the objects of the protected monument had to be recreated and restored in an identical form. However, the contractor instead took a primitive path - he simply destroyed everything that came before. To the ground, as is customary. It's easier and faster this way.

“All this goes absolutely against the project documentation. For example, the parquet had to be preserved and recreated according to the historical pattern. This required strengthening, grinding. Costly and time consuming work. But this is time and money. Or faculty furniture. These are actually museum exhibits, it had to be recreated according to the project, restored with the preservation of the original material. As a result, the so-called "defective statement" appeared, in which you can see a table with an estimate of the work. These works do not correspond to either the terms of reference or the project methodology”, - explains Nikita Inozemtsev.

Repair at Moscow State University, if you delve into the details, is generally full of strange patterns. For example, expert Olga Zamzhitskaya was involved in signing the acts of the State Historical and Cultural Expertise on the auditoriums of the "skyscraper", who recently literally sentenced the Demidovs' mansion wing of the 18th century, located on Myasnitskaya Street, to be demolished. The design documentation for the overhaul of Moscow State University was approved by the First Deputy Head and Chief Inspector of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the city of Moscow, Sergey Mikhailovich Mirzoyan. And here a logical question arises for the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow. How did it become possible to completely dismantle and redesign historical auditoriums that are part of a cultural heritage site? "NI" was asked to provide an explanation on this score from the leadership of the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage. Here is the answer of the Moscow City Heritage Site in full.

It is noteworthy that at the end, the department's management nevertheless admits:

“Indeed, initially there was a mess on the site during the work. These are the dismantled late interiors of the 1970s. In this regard, the contractor was punished. Also, the Moscow City Heritage Agency sent a warning to Moscow State University about the inadmissibility of violating mandatory requirements in the field of protection of cultural heritage objects".

However, graduates of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University and city rights activists doubted the veracity of the statement of the Moscow City Heritage Agency regarding the dismantling of exclusively "late interiors of the 70s". “The documentation indicates that furniture and interior items are dated to the fifties of the 20th century, there is no mention of furniture and interior parts of the 70s, which, of course, are of no value. Everywhere it is argued that there has been no renovation in the buildings of the main building of Moscow State University since its foundation, since the 50s of the last century. Where did the "interiors of the 70s" come from? In addition, we recently found the very same old oak furniture of the 50s in the trash heap”, - says city rights activist Nikita Inozemtsov.

The customer of the scandalous reconstruction was Moscow State University. We turned to the administration of Moscow State University with a request about the reasons for such a careless, to put it mildly, attitude towards historical interiors. We did not receive a response at the time of publication. There are no telephones by which one could contact the administration staff or the press service of the Moscow State University, on the official Internet resources. Just some kind of top secret organization! If the answer is still received, we will certainly publish it.

In the meantime, on the Facebook page of the press service of Moscow State University, you can read:

“There is a major overhaul program at Moscow State University. The assembly hall of the main building has recently been restored, the dorm rooms are being updated. The renovation of the auditoriums has now begun". And the plot of "Vesti" is attached, in which professors and restorers emotionally convince the audience that the oak panels, bronze lamps of 1953 will be preserved, and also "full historical correspondence" will be observed.

“These auditoriums are imbued with the spirit of the times, but over time the parquet has rotted, the ceiling has cracked. Rumble from desks, and this is 6 pairs a day, 6 days a week, ”one of the teachers complained to the camera.

In social networks, estimates of the overhaul in the "skyscraper" of Moscow State University are ambiguous.

Lyudmila Balaeva: "Procrustean bed", not benches ... after the lecture, everything ached".

Anton Bakuntsev: “The assembly hall was restored very decently - taking into account the peculiarities of the style of the“ original source ”, which I personally do not like at all. And what, sorry, is valuable in GZ furniture? I lived for 2.5 years in a hostel there, in a room furnished with that “historical” furniture, and I don't feel any nostalgia for it. Furniture is like furniture, nothing special. Personally, I would radically update the interiors at the GZ. So that it was both high quality and beautiful. And to correspond to the level of the largest university in the country”.

Olga Suslova: “The University exists primarily for students and teachers. If new furniture makes the educational process more comfortable, let them change it".

But there are other opinions among the comments of the staff and graduates of Moscow State University .

Yulia Rumyantseva: "Behind all this, the younger brother of Vice-Mayor Pyotr Biryukov - google ... Just money, and nothing else".

We decided to find out who could personally initiate the scandalous repairs at Moscow State University. The statements suggesting the dismantling of the security items of the Moscow State University were signed by the chief engineer of the Moscow State University, Viktor Grachev . It was he, by the way, who demonstrated a school desk made of chipboard at a meeting with students of the biology department as an example of restored furniture. Surely, the situation with the overhaul is in control, and perhaps, the head of the department of capital construction, repair and infrastructure development of the university, Alexey Pavlovich Biryukov , who was recently appointed to the post of vice-rector of Moscow State University, is the brother of the all-powerful and irreplaceable head of the Moscow housing and communal services department, Peter Biryukov, who is in charge of this.

Apparently, in connection with the arrival of this manager at Moscow State University, a period of "improvement" and "prettierness" began. It's just a pity that hundreds of millions of budget rubles are spent not on educational and research projects, but on controversial construction work, which allows for "disorder" in the dismantling of interiors.