The history of restoration of merchant Ryabinin's mansion in Chelyabinsk

The team of the Tom Sawyer Fest Historical Environment Restoration Festival has been expanding its geography for a long time. At the end of 2020, professionals and those who are simply not indifferent to the fate of ancient houses in Russia returned the historical appearance of the merchant Ryabinin’s mansion in Chelyabinsk. But the history of the building did not end there.

Ekaterina Goncharenko

This project is nominated for the AD Design Award 2021 in the category “Heritage Preservation”. You can vote for him or other nominees you like here.

The fate of this ancient mansion in pseudo-Russian style is similar to the fairy tale about the “Teremok”: the specific year of its appearance is unknown, but the first mention of it is found in the appraisal list of Chelyabinsk houses for 1885; the mansion also had a lot of owners and tenants. In 1911-1916, the house was rebuilt (at least three more rooms and a basement were added to the original premises), then the philistine Alexander Lukich Ryabinin was considered the owner of the house. It is his surname that the mansion is now named, and it was this reconstruction that formed the final appearance of the building.

Photo before restoration.

In 1978, Ryabinin’s mansion was given the status of a cultural heritage site of regional significance, but behind the pompous title of the walls were hidden offices of small offices. All this led to the fact that the building was slowly but surely being destroyed: news appeared about the collapse of part of the southern firewall and the mysterious loss of the original masonry.

Photo before restoration.

The townspeople could not ignore this. Since 2018, the All-Russian festival of restoration of the historical environment “Tom Sawyer Fest” has been held in Chelyabinsk, specialists and volunteers jointly put in order the historical houses of the city. “The technology of selecting objects is very complex, we have several criteria for evaluating the building: the technical condition, the wishes of the owner,” says Galina Zubairova, organizer of the festival in Chelyabinsk. But this particular mansion was found by “Tom Sawyer Fest» himself. “I got a call from a girl Bella, whose husband was familiar with the owner of the mansion. They saw the potential of the building and decided to contact us,” recalls Galina. By the way, Bella is now a full—fledged organizer of the Tom Sawyer Fest.

Photo before restoration.

The owner could not restore the mansion on his own and even thought of opening a shawarma shop there. Since the mansion is a monument to the history of the XIX century, the licensed company has prepared a special project, not only for the restoration of the house, but also for the transformation of the intra—house territory (its area is about 1500 m2) with a stable, barn and bathhouse into a convenient urban environment. In the mansion itself, they planned to place creative workshops for residents of Chelyabinsk.

Photo after restoration.

130 volunteers joined the work. “Together we cleaned all the wooden elements, impregnated them with a protective compound, restored and changed carved decorative elements, for example, decorative peaks on towers, plastered the entire basement anew and assembled stained glass: we sorted through all the pieces of glass that were, their total number was 180 pieces,” says Albina Churakaeva, the architect of the project. Professionals were hired to work on plaster, another guy, a climber, worked at the top of the towers: it is by no means impossible to endanger the citizens, although initially the organizers conduct safety instructions during work on the construction site and always monitor the processes. The restoration attracted both those who were not indifferent and close friends of the organizers of the festival. “My friend’s five—year-old son also actively helped, painted the stairs in the courtyard,» Albina shares. — Probably, this is our smallest volunteer.”

Photo after restoration.

By joint efforts, the lost decorative elements and ceremonial appearance were returned to the mansion: peaks were installed on three towers of the house; the plinth on the facades was restored; carved elements, doors, windows and architraves were restored; the stained glass puzzle of the veranda was assembled and fixed so that the glass did not let wind and precipitation pass; finally, the details of the house that used to be it is impossible to see because of the dust and monotony of the tarnished wood.

Photo after restoration.

Unfortunately, the move did not reach the interiors. “This is a more delicate job that requires professionalism,» Albina explains. — Perhaps in the future we will train such specialists in our volunteer school. Since all the rooms of the house were rented out, their condition is quite tolerable, but, of course, it all looks like a typical office with linoleum thrown on the floor and oil paint on the walls. All the beauty was closed, only a Soviet-era fresco remained in one room.”

Photo after restoration.

So there was no happy ending after all. Moreover, the owners have already put the restored mansion up for sale — they do not have the opportunity to engage in further development of the house. “Now the mansion is empty, the mission to fill it with life has failed, but the story is not over,» Galina is convinced. — It must have a continuation and we are now actively looking for interested investors.” Let’s hope that the sequel of this “Teremka” will come out and even surpass the first part.

Photo after restoration.

Photo: Tom Sawyer Fest/Archive of the press service

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