Petropavlovskaya Sloboda

A project under
Dutch-Russian Shared Heritage Programme
Yaroslavl Art Museum
Petropavlovskaya Sloboda
The Concept of an Industrial and
Park Compound of the 18 th century in Yaroslavl
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The purpose of the future museum is to preserve the industrial, cultural and natural
heritage of Petropavlovskaya Sloboda (or in Russian Peter-and-Paul Settlement, hereinafter
also referred to as "the Sloboda") and also to return its territory to modern culture through
activating the Sloboda's social role and interpreting it by the means of modern art. In our
view, the only way to develop Petropavlovskaya Sloboda is to make a museum of it. A
"museum route", with some determinant sites of the display core, is to be laid upon the territory.
Some individual "displays" are to be connected by a transcontextual idea that could be
interpreted by different means and media: from a historical document to a performance. The
display sites or “belts" will gradually encompass new areas of the Sloboda's territory.
Key Objectives:
- Explore the history of Petropavlovskaya Sloboda, visit the production workshops and the
museum at the textile mill. Collect information on the history, toponyms and architectural
monuments of the Sloboda; state the events.
- Develop a new understanding of the arts and culture-studies display: identify the notional,
spacial and time foci.
- Reconstruct the park and create a dynamic "indoor" display.
- Make a description of the Sloboda's symbolic resources and explore the urban space
through marking the monuments.
- Identify target groups and work out a plan for attracting visitors.
- Utilize as much as possible the presentation function of the museum as of a new cultural
institution.
- Work out a plan for PR campaigns and identify target groups.
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Semantic, Spacial and Time Foci:
Dutch-Russian Relations
Czar Peter's visit to the Netherlands in 1697 is considered the starting point of bilateral relations between Russia and the Netherlands. However,
even before that there had been diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries. Ivan's the Terrible representatives and Dutch
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tradespeople established first contacts in the city of Arkhangelsk, north of Russia, in the 16 century.
The northern expedition, led by Willem Barentsz in 1596-97 and aimed at exploring north-east routes to the Far East, carved their way through the
most mythical areas of the Dutch heritage: Medvezhy Island, Spitsbergen Island and Novaya Zemlya Island. Dutch tradespeople lived not only in
Moscow's Nemetskaya Sloboda (or German Settlement) but also in Yaroslavl, Novgorod and Vologda.
When Peter the Great unofficially stayed in the Netherlands, he studied shipbuilding, and carpentry in Zaandam and Amsterdam. Nicolaes Witsen
the Mayor of Amsterdam, a cartographer and expert in Russia, helped the Russian Czar to get a job at the shipyard of the Ost-Indian Company. In
modernizing Russia, Czar Peter introduced the above Dutch crafts and trades in his homeland, and especially in St. Petersburg, his new capital
city. On his second visit to the Netherlands in 1717, Czar Peter met many Dutch painters and also Frederik Ruysch, an anatomist, from whom he
bought a "cabinet of curiosities" with many anatomical preparations. That scientific collection was the basis for Russia's Academy of Sciences and
is now on the display at Cabinet of Curiosities in St. Petersburg. Many Dutch scientists, military officers, counselors, experts and artists came to
Russia as Peter the Great was favourably disposed toward them and their homeland.
The Dutch-Russian relations especially strengthened under Emperor Alexander I of Russia, after the liberation from Napoleon's regime in 1813.
The marriage of King William II of the Netherlands to Russian princess Anna Pavlovna connected the Royal families of the two countries. The
Russian revolution in October 1917 and the assassination of Emperor Nikolai of Russia and his family disrupted diplomatic relations between the
two countries. Many Dutchmen who had resided in the Russian Empire had to leave the unstable communist republic. The two countries reth
established diplomatic relations only in 1942, during World War II. After the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Russia celebrated the 300
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anniversary of Czar Peter's visit to the Netherlands, in 1996, and the 300 anniversary of St. Petersburg, in 2003, the two countries intensified
their relations and co-operation in the field of culture and shared heritage.
Now one can find the material evidences of Dutch history in many parts of Russia -- and mostly in its north-west regions: Arkhangelsk, Murmansk,
St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Novgorod and Moscow.
There is an area in the south-west quarters of Yaroslavl that tourists visit very seldom, and few locals choose it for their family recreation and
walks. Yet these are very picturesque places with unique landscapes, rich history and traditions.
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The Yaroslavians began to settle in this area on the right bank of the Kotorosl river in the early 16 century. The Monastery of St. Nicholas
Skovorodsky was built to the west from the place where the Kavardakovsky brook flows into the Kotorosl river. The monastery was intended to
protect Yaroslavl from south-west. Soon, next to the monastery there appeared a little settlement. The inhabitants of the settlement tanned skins.
For tanning, they used pounded bark of oaks and willows. That local trade gave the name to the settlement: Tolchkovskaya Sloboda (or Pounders'
Settlement).
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The Polish invaders burnt the Monastery of St. Nicholas Skovorodsky at the "Time of Troubles", the period of the Polish and Lithuanian invasion of
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Russia in the early 17 century. The Church of St. Nicholas at Melenki was there built later instead of the monastery; the Church of St. Nicholas
on Penye and the Church of Our Lady Fyodorovskaya were built at the opposite border of the settlement. The Church of John the Baptist, a most
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gorgeous and impressive masterpiece of Russian architecture, was built in the centre of Tolchkovskaya Sloboda in the second half of the 17
century.
First Large Industrial Enterprise
Peter the Great issued an edict stipulating the Yaroslavl Textile Mill (YaTM) to be set up by Ivan Zatrapeznov, a Yaroslavian merchant. As a
young man Zatrapeznov, among eighteen young Russians -- future entrepreneurs and industrialists, had studied "linen business" in the
Netherlands. An ardent admirer of Peter the Great, Zatrapeznov implemented the Czar's plan to "spread linen industry in Yaroslavl" and became a
companion of Ivan Tames, a russianized Dutch entrepreneur.
In 1727-1731, the companions set up the largest in Russia combined textile mill, south-west of Tolchkovskaya Sloboda on the Kavardakovsky
brook. The textile mill consisted of two industrial compounds and one dwelling compound.
- YaTM Industrial Compound One (for linen, silk and cloth), with a manor and a regular park, was located near the brook's source.
- YaTM Industrial Compound Two (for paper manufacturing with a saw mill, an oil mill / churn and back buildings) was built west of the brook's
outfall. Windmills and water mills drove the big mechanisms. Some dams, that made a cascade of mill ponds, provided the water mills' operation.
A drain system helped to drain the bogged area around. The serf workers manually cleaned the drain system once a year. The first mill pond was
quite deep. It was called the "dirty" pond; people used to launder and bathe there. Next to the pond there were: an alabaster-grinding mill, a bath,
eating-houses and a shop. The second mill pond, called the "clean" pond, though in a public access, was mainly used as a water source. The third
and the fourth ponds made the park's central part. People used to fish for the "master's table". The fifth pond, directly bordering with the manor,
was picturesque. A male bathing hut and a female one were built there. The fifth pond got the water from the local springs. The springs were
cleaned regularly.
The workers assigned to the textile mill settled south of Tolchkovskaya Sloboda and the Melenki village. The Church of Peter and Paul was built
for the workers in the park near the brook's source in 1736-41. This church is a unique piece of architecture for Yaroslavl as it was built in the
"Peter-the-Great baroque" style.
The composition core for the two industrial compounds and the dwelling compound was a "European" regular lay-out with straight streets, roads
and paths. The main street, linking the Church of Peter and Paul and the Church of St. Nicholas at Melenki, was named Shirokaya (or Wide
Street). Another street was named Lekarskaya (or Hospital Street), after the YaTM Hospital. Some streets were named after the local residents:
e.g. Zakharov Street, and some, by their situation: e.g. Perednaya (or Front Street) "in front of the garden"; Vetoshnaya (or Tatters Street) was
situated near the site where paper was produced out of tatters. The production compounds of the YaTM were built out of bricks or wood, and the
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dwelling blocks were built out of wood. The engraving Yaroslavl in 1731 by A. Rostovtsev has survived. It shows the whole Yaroslavl Textile Mill
with its clearly seen regular lay-out. The Zatrapeznovs had ordered this engraving as a present to Empress Anna Ioannovna of Russia.
A regular garden was developed along with the production compounds constructed in 1722-1733. The engraving by A. Rostovtsev clearly shows
the regular garden's lay-out: a so-called "double envelop" of paths that made an outer and an inner squares, both framing an eight-pointed star of
paths diverging from a pavilion in the centre of the garden. Hedges of neatly cut bushes made rectilinear "green parlours" with low (and apparently
fruit) trees that sparsely grew on the lawns. Fountains and nude sculptures decorated the path crossings. The garden's border on the east was
marked by a drain. A wooden fence surrounded the garden. There were two gates: one in the north-west corner and the other in the south-west
corner of the garden. Adjacent to the south-west corner there stood a windmill behind which there was the one-storeyed manor with eight windows
on its south façade. The manor's north façade faced the garden. Most probably this was Ivan Zatrapeznov's manor. It looks like a typical country
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manor designed by Domenico Trezzini whose architectural projects were offered as models in the early 18 century.
In "the Dutch" baroque, a manor usually was visually separated from a garden by clumps of high trees. At the Yaroslavl Textile Mill, between the
garden and the manor, there stood the windmill that pumped water for the fountains in the garden; this windmill and the garden fence made the
garden even more separated from the manor and the production compounds.
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Today, the Textile Mill compounds, as built in the late 19 century, still operate as the Krassny Perekop Factory for industrial fabrics. The area
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of the 18 century production compounds has been neglected. Now, to inspire new life into the former industrial compounds of the 18 century,
we again need enterprising and stirring people like the Russian merchant Ivan Zatrapeznov and his Dutch companion Ivan Tames, so that we all
could make good use of the huge historical potential of this most picturesque quarter of old Yaroslavl.
Semantics of the Garden
The garden was developed in "the Dutch" style. Ivan Zatrapeznov idolized Peter the Great, and the Czar's favourite gardener was Jan Rosen, a
Dutchman. The Czar disliked French gardens for their excessiveness and pomposity. He preferred Dutch gardens for their intimacy and cosy
"green parlours" with plenty of flowers, and a manor standing apart from the garden.
The garden served two key functions:
Function one was reception of eminent guests. Ivan Zatrapeznov hoped that royal persons and dignitaries from St. Petersburg would visit his
textile mill. Like the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg, the regular garden of the Yarolslavl Textile Mill was designed to receive honorary guests
and also to host assemblys. That's why the garden featured some magnificence and ostentation; it was quite big too.
Function two was family recreation.
The engraving by Rostovtsev shows an octahedral pavilion in the garden's centre. The pavilion had a dome and a spire. Each side of the pavilion
was in the perspective of a corresponding path. The pavilion looks like a typical project of garden pavilions by Domenico Trezzini. Most probably
the pavilion functioned as a "hermitage". Some historical evidences proove that in the garden there was an exquisite brick "hermitage" with
deliberate "austerity and poverty" inside: a simple wooden table and wooden tableware. However, there was a bench or "oak sette" with chains,
pulleys and a special driver to lift the bench so that the dignitaries in the “hermitage” could avoid on-lookers’ eyes.
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There were fountains and sculptures at the crossings of the paths in the garden. As per the canons of the garden- and park-lay-out art of the time,
“those are the sculptures of either pagan deities and heroes of antiquity or allegoric characters; that’s why they must be placed in appropriate
places; water deities, like Naiads, Rivers and Tritons, belong to fountains, reservoirs and ponds”...
From the perspective of the garden space semantics, the “hermitage” pavilion in the centre of the garden was a distillation or a “philosophical”
aspect of the idea of solitude while the “green palours” of the regular garden expressed the same idea in a palyful and less concentrated form.
Petropavlovsky Park in the 20th century
The garden lost its regular lay-out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It turned into a landscape park with the house of A. Gryaznov, the
YaTM Managing Director. Common workers could enter the park only once a year, on Easter.
The Church of Peter and Paul had been there for the orthodox workers of the YaTM for 150 years. Next to the church, in a two-storeyed building
there was an alms-house, where the aged workers could find peace and asylum. The Textile Mill was nationalized in 1918. That church was
forcedly closed and turned into a pioneers’ club. Mikhail Nevsky, the well known in Yaroslavl priest, gave his life for the church.
In the time of the Soviet Union, the Petropavlovsky Park was open for public as the Culture and Recreation Park named after the 16th Congress
of the Communist Party. Some attempts were made to reconstruct the park’s regular lay-out, however, those attempts were not aimed at restoring
the original look of the park.
In 1986-91, the Regional Department of Culture developed a restoration project for Petropavlovsky Park. Many known art experts, restorers and
specialists in gardens and parks discussed that restoration project. Among them was Dmitry Likhachev, the world-renowned art expert, public
figure and author of the book Poetry of Gardens. The concept of restoration of Petropavlovsky Park as "a monument of the art of park landscapes
of the 18th century" was approved, however, not implemented because of drastic political and economic alternations in the country.
The Church of Peter and Paul was returned to the Yaroslavl diosese on the turn of the millenium and is now being restored.
The reconstruction of the regular garden of the 18th century at the Yaroslavl Textile Mill must be performed considering the garden’s
original semantics. Not only the park’s regular lay-out but also other details shall be reconstructed in order to restore the park’s original look: the
“green parlours”, the “hermitage” pavilion, the fountains and the sculptures. This is the only way to render the spirit of the time separated from us
by three centuries, otherwise the restoration will be pointless.
However, it doesn’t mean that new implications and values should not be added to the semantics of the garden. We now live in different
conditions so we need to consider the new realities. The regular garden of the 18th century is a kind of a precious casket, and by opening the
casket one gives life to a whole series of projects connected with the development of Petropavlovskaya Sloboda as a historical and
ethnographical compound.
It is possible to turn the restored regular garden of the YaTM into the semantic core of a large display.
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Indoor Display. “Hermitage” Pavilion
1. Display on the history of the Yaroslavl Textile Mill showing original documents, cloth samples, paper and looms.
Strengths: - historical conformity,
- a possibility to go deep in history,
- a field for examination.
Weaknesses: - no genuine exhibits,
- a risk of projection from the current museum at the Krassny Perekop Factory onto the new display.
Opportunities: - co-operation with the State Historical Museum in Moscow,
- creation of replicas of old looms and machines.
Threats: high costs and inertia.
2. Modern Art as a Part of Production Process.
A changing display.
- a display from a collection of the State Museum as a starting point for a research into the history of Petropavlovskaya Sloboda.
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- Photography. Abstract Art. At the time of the Soviet Union, rapid macrofilming was used for observing and exploring the operation of looms.
Actually macro-phragments are abstract photographic pictures; those were the designers working with textiles who had a rear chance to develop
this artistic trend, moreover that abstract art was suppressed and survived “undeground”.
- Textile and paper designers’ displays.
- Video art.
- Actual art performances.
- Contemporary art display could be a core for all other cultural projects at the Sloboda.
Strengths: the permanently updated display allows to work with the local population more actively, attract mass media’s interest and be more
competitive.
Weaknesses: the display area is small.
Opportunities: it will be possible to co-operate with contemporary artists and spread the display outdoors, all over the Sloboda.
Threats: the pieces of contemporary art will stay unprotected if displayed outdoors.
Description of Territory’s Symbolic Resources. Exploration of Urban Space through Marking the Monuments
The new museum display is a focal point of the entire Petropavlovskaya Sloboda. That is to say that the sloboda's current lay-out, its architectural
monuments, toponyms and myths are perceived as objects for conservation. Public's interest in the heritage shall be inspired by arranging diverse
and properly scheduled events. For every individual project we shall organize:
- a consulting team,
- a marketing team,
- a PR campaign,
- programmes to work with children and adults.
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History
1. A series of TV programmes about the sloboda on the city
and/or regional channels
2. A travelling display of old photographic pictures in the
streets of the Perekop District of Yaroslavl
Contemporanity
1. Developing the mill's space through festival of contemporary art:
movement and experimental music.
2. Street Theory. Street Art Photography. Painters are invited too.
Semantics of Garden
1. Landscape Designers' Conference. Exchange of best practices.
1. Craftsmen's Settlement. Participants: local craftsmen.
Toponyms:
Zarechye,
Melenki,
Butyrki,
Tvorogovo,
Tolchkovskaya Sloboda,
Petropavlovskaya Sloboda,
Krasny Perekop
2. Land Art Festival: pieces of contemporary art make a new mapping and thus
state the monuments of the past.
3. Alternative festivals and holidays:
Curd Day
Flour Day
(Producers are invited to a trade show, "cows", "windmills"
and other objects are created;
programmes for children are worked out.)
Legends and Archetypes:
Kavardakovsky brook:
Territory of Petropavlovsky Park:
there had been a pagan temple there.
Ivan Kupala Festivals
Joseph Sagasser, the taxi driver,
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early 20 century:
was prototype of Adam Kozlevitch
and his car Antelope in a Soviet best seller Zolotoy Telenok
(Golden Calf) by Ilf and Petrov.
1. Ivan Kupala Festival (has been conducted for general public for some years
already. Explanations of our ancestors' customs and rites. Round dances and
other entertainments)
2. Water Festival (contemporary painters participate)
1. Monument to the first automobile
2. Rally of the Old Automobile Fan's Club
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"Hooligans' Perekop" is not a very positive reference to
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Sloboda in 20 century. Now this archetype gradually goes
away, as do communal flats in the workers' compounds. So
one may assume that this subject now needs to be explored
and shown in their new aspect.
1. A tour about communal flats, initiated and arranged
by Alexandr Prokhorov.
2. Outsider Art Show
Target Groups:
- Researchers,
- experts in the field of cultural heritage,
- PR managers, marketing experts and territory image makers,
- museum workers, librarians, artists and creative communities,
- school teachers, university lecturers and students of the humanities,
- tourist itineraries developers,
- young Russian people and general public.
Outcomes:
- The gap will be filled in cultural and semantic unity of the old city.
- People of any social groups and strata will have access to the cultural heritage to meet their educational, informational and tourist needs.
- The city will get new exhibition/display facilities.
- A new tourist itinerary will encompass recreation areas in the city.
- International cultural contacts will strengthen and develop.
- New designer solutions will emerge in the textile industry.
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Authors of Concept:
Ms. Alla Khatyukhina, historian and Director of Yaroslavl Art Museum
Ms. Irina Rekhovskikh, mathematician, art critic
Ms. Ludmila Makarova, art critic
http://artmuseum.yar.ru
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