The Yeltsin Center will be located in Moscow with all the amenities

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

By the end of 2017, the Presidential Administration (UDP) will reconstruct the Dolgorukov-Bobrinsky estate in Moscow, where a branch of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center Foundation (Yeltsin Center), established by the Presidential Administration (AP), will be created.

The estate will house a museum and exhibition complex, a library and a restaurant. The former office of Boris Yeltsin from the 14th building of the Kremlin did not fit there. The contractor of the project worth 1.33 billion rubles. selected by OOO Remtechnik

According to the government procurement website, in September of this year, UDP selected contractors for the reconstruction of the Dolgorukov-Bobrinsky estate on Malaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow - a monument of federal significance. This is one of the few architectural ensembles of the 18th-19th centuries that have survived in Moscow; it includes the Main House with state interiors, the Coach Barn, the East and West wings, a fence with a gate, and sculptures of Elena and Paris in the front yard.

In mid-September, the UDP transferred the powers of the state customer for the construction to the subordinate FSUE "Construction Association", which transferred a contract worth 1.33 billion rubles without bidding. Remtechnik LLC. The contractor was selected based on the request for proposals, for which less than a week was allotted; its only competitor was Strategy LLC (formerly called Clean City), a contractor for other large construction projects of the UDP and the Moscow government. This company, according to "Kartoteka.ru", is headed by the owner of the winning contractor Mikhail Trunin. According to the procurement documentation, the project developed by MV-project LLC (owned by Dmitry and Oleg Shurygin, in the portfolio - 55 state contracts in the capital), UDP should be implemented by 2017.

The Yeltsin Center was created in accordance with the 2008 law "On the centers of the historical heritage of the presidents of the Russian Federation who have ceased to exercise their powers" - for the preservation, study and public presentation of the heritage of the first president of the Russian Federation (including museum items and archives) "in the context of the modern history of the fatherland, the development of democratic institutions and the building of the rule of law ". The founder of the center is the AP, and the head of the AP, Anton Vaino, heads its board of trustees. Many projects of the center were initiated by the private Yeltsin Foundation, founded in 2000, headed by the daughter of the first president, Tatyana Yumasheva. Located in the building of the former Synod in St. Petersburg, the Yeltsin Presidential Library is not part of the center. The Yeltsin Center is now open to visitors in Yekaterinburg.

As the executive director of the Yeltsin Center, Alexander Drozdov, told Kommersant, the building of the Dolgorukov-Bobrinsky estate is under the operational management of the Yeltsin Center. After the reconstruction, a public museum and exhibition space will be created in the estate, where changing expositions will be placed and chamber evenings will be held, part of the premises will reflect the Moscow period of the first president's life, as well as the historical "Pushkin trace" (the poet visited the estate). The center will be open to the city, public programs will be implemented here, in winter they want to flood an ice rink in the yard.

The Yeltsin Center has agreed on a project for the reconstruction of the estate for a branch of the center with the Moscow Heritage Committee and Glavgosexpertiza, says Mr Drozdov. Now its implementation is completely under the jurisdiction of the UDP, which has been allocated funds within the framework of the federal targeted investment program. According to UDP, the building area will be 2 thousand square meters. m, the total area of buildings - 6, 7 thousand square meters. m, including the ground part - 4, 8 thousand square meters. m. The building will be designed for 69 employees, 40 visitors to the exhibition complex, 8 library readers and 65 catering seats. The historical layout of the Main House should be "as close as possible" to the decisions of the mid-19th century, but an elevator will be built into the western part of the building, which "did not have artistic decoration". The second floor will house the center's representative premises for receiving officials and honorary visitors, management offices, a library and a multifunctional hall. On the third floor, only the historical corridor will be preserved, the rest of the premises will be redesigned for modern offices. The eastern wing will be given over to the museum and library zone, while the storage facility will be located in the basement. The restaurant will be located in the West Wing, under which workshops of the "catering enterprise" will be arranged, in the former Karetny Shed there will also be a buffet for employees. It is planned to give the interiors the look of the early 19th century. The northern courtyard with an exit to Granatny lane is used to accommodate a guest parking lot, areas for recreation and public events, including the installation of a Christmas tree and a skating rink. An underground floor with a parking space for 53 cars will be arranged under all buildings, and a wine and wood cellar will be restored there.

The third floor will house the office of the Yeltsin Center (now the organization rents premises from a commercial structure), where the private Yeltsin Foundation, headed by Mrs. Yumasheva, will also move. At the same time, the former office of the first president in the Kremlin, restored by the Ural Art Fund, remains on display at the center in Yekaterinburg, Mr. Drozdov clarified, explaining that the office occupies an area too large for a Moscow estate of 100 square meters. m (one fourth of the exhibition premises of the branch). During the work on the site of the 14th building, it was not planned to preserve the historical interior of the office, and it could have been lost, but by the time the premises were demolished, it had not yet been repaired, so the decoration and furniture of the office were removed and restored.

"With the 14th building, where the offices of Stalin and Yeltsin were, many significant events of Soviet history are connected, from which pages cannot be pulled out. In any case, this is a historical monument, even if it did not have the status of a cultural heritage site," says the Russian ICOMOS expert (International Council for the Preservation of Monuments and Sites) and Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage under the Government of St. Petersburg Mikhail Milchik.