Gorky Palace of Culture in St. Petersburg is one of the city’s famous theater and concert venues. And the building itself is the historical memory of St. Petersburg, associated with various events and destinies. Its first name, given from birth, is the House of Culture of the Moscow-Narva District.
In 1929 it was changed to the A. M. Gorky Palace of Culture. At the renaming ceremony was Alexey Maksimovich himself. Gorky Palace of Culture is located at the metro station at the address: St. Petersburg, Stachek Square , house No. 4, near the Narvskaya metro station .
Place history
Stachek Square and the area around it - the former working outskirts, located in the Moscow-Narva part of the city. One of the bloody events of the revolutionary years of the beginning of the 20th century, Bloody Sunday, is associated with a place near the Palace of Culture. It was here that the striking workers advanced near the Putilov factory. The procession was peaceful. He was led by pop Gapon. They went with the petitions to the king to the Winter Palace, but were met here by fire opened by the tsarist army. That is why the Narva Triumphal Gate, erected back in 1834 by Vasily Petrovich Stasov, is now considered not only a monument to the victories of the Russian army in the war of 1812, but also a reminder of the terrible events of the bloody massacre of 1905. And the section of the pavement covered with the blood of the rebels, and a century later, remains red. In memory of the shed blood, he is systematically painted brown, as a reminder of the innocent victims of Bloody Sunday.
Under the building of the Palace of Culture of Gorky in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), a place was allocated next to the Tarakanovka river, more reminiscent of a vacant lot and built up with rotten houses. There was a dilapidated building of an old mansion and a dilapidated tavern, which even before the revolution served as a place where workers left their meager earnings for simple meals, card games and booze.
The building of the Gorky Palace of Culture
The building for the Gorky Palace of Culture in St. Petersburg was built in 1925-1927 according to the project of the famous architect A. I. Gegello in collaboration with A. I. Dmitriev and D. L. Krichevsky. It was built "by the whole world" and often during subbotniks. The simplest and junk materials went into action. Rails from tram tracks were used as beam structures . For building material, a brick was taken from dismantled buildings. It is made in the style of constructivism, as the most rational and functional for a new lifestyle and a new state.
The building is sparingly decorated: the main decoration is the contrast of dull brick walls and large glazed surfaces. Architects did not use other decor. In the central, most light-colored rectangular solution, there is a cozy auditorium for 1900 people. In the towers - stairwells. In the side rooms with a small number of windows there is a library, a cinema hall and a sports hall, as well as a Small Concert Hall.
The Grand Hall of Gorky Palace in St. Petersburg looks ceremonial and solemn. The seats of the stalls and amphitheater gradually rise up the ramp, on the sides on both sides they are framed by a row of lodges called "swallow's nests", two of which are illuminating. Above is a comfortable and light balcony.
Palace of Culture - a new type of complex
Gorky Palace of Culture in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad, was the first in the USSR House of Culture created for the Soviet people. For residents of nearby residential buildings erected on the Serafimovsky and Krylovsky districts and a secondary school on the corner of Stachek Avenue with Tractor Street, such a new type of cultural and leisure center was simply necessary. It was not only a club of interests, but also a comprehensive center for education and raising the level of culture of the population.
Even in tsarist Russia there were attempts to create something similar, but these were small "people's houses", the purpose of which was, first of all, to distract the working people from drunkenness and revolutionary actions. Such institutions usually provided a small number of services: a reading room, a cinema hall with a stage and a tea room (sometimes a dining room), several make-up rooms and a room for the administration. And the slogan of the Workers' Palace: "The cultural construction of the life of the proletariat!"
DK Gorky: military life
During the Great Patriotic War and the blockade of Leningrad, the Palace of Culture kept its watch, like a real fighter. Under the bombing, in cold and hunger, he did not stop his work to maintain the unbroken spirit of Leningraders. Performances and concerts continued to go on its walls, films were shown. And one of the winters, or rather January 2, 1942, the palace staff even held a children's Christmas tree.
House of Culture: yesterday and today
The first ballet studio in the USSR was opened in the Palace of Culture. From here began their career Claudia Ivanovna Shulzhenko, Leonid Utesov, Arkady Raikin, Alisa Freindlikh. In honor of A. Raikin, a memorial plaque was even installed on the wall of the building.
On the stage of the Palace of Culture, troupes of famous theaters of the country performed, for example, the theater of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Theater and film actors shone: I. Ilyinsky, A. Mironov, E. Garin, E. Leonov, O. Basilashvili, V. Zolotukhin, G. Khazanov, I. Churikova, O. Yankovsky, N. Karachentsev and others. They performed with concerts by I. Kobzon and E. Pieha, Dean Reed, Duke Ellington. And nowadays there are concerts and performances with the participation of famous actors and musicians, as well as young and talented performers.
The Palace of Culture belongs to the department of trade unions, and now it is in the process of modernization. However, visible results are not yet visible, and overhaul in the building has not been made even once for the entire time of its existence. Now Gorky Palace of Culture in St. Petersburg, at 4 Stachek Square, continues its traditions: there are more than 80 amateur and semi-professional groups in it.