“Historians have not found documentary evidence of the functioning of the retractable roof

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich recalls the past of the famous building in Moscow.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has finally announced the fate of the famous Udarnik cinema, which is located to the left, when looking at the facade from Bolotnaya Square, from the no less famous House on the Embankment. The restoration of the cinema will be completed by the end of 2027, as reported on the mos.ru website.

The cinema restoration project has the status of an investment priority project. The volume of investments is estimated at 9 billion rubles. This status will reduce the tax burden on the investor, that is, on Leonid Mikhelson, the owner of the neighboring GES-2 and the new Udarnik: income tax will be 13.5%, property tax – 0%, and the rental rate for the site – 0.01 %.

The cinema was built from 1927 to 1931. It was considered “the largest sound cinema in the USSR with a hall for 1,500 seats.” It was opened on the 14th anniversary of the October Revolution, November 7, 1931, with the film “Golden Mountains” by Sergei Yutkevich.

I remember the cinema from childhood: it was considered too pretentious, we didn’t go there often. In the 1990s, it went through the thorny path of all Moscow cinema establishments: a furniture showroom, a car showroom, a casino… In 2012, it was rented by Breus, the former owner of the legendary ArtChronika magazine, the founder of the Kandinsky Prize, which, by the way, is here in “ Drummer,” and handed it over. Shalva Petrovich wanted to turn this building into a Museum of Contemporary Art. I remember I asked him: “Are you going to restore the retractable roof?” Shalva responded emotionally: “Of course!” In 2017, the lease agreement with him was terminated.

Now another creator of a contemporary art repository is dismantling the dilapidated roof and is also going to restore the sliding mechanism, which, by the way, is not so simple. In one of the documents signed by B.M. himself. Iofana mentions a “sliding metal skylight” built on the roof of the cinema in the first half of 1931.

Historians have not found documentary evidence of the actual functioning of the retractable roof. I heard another legend: it was opened once, after which it was broken forever. Let’s see if Leonid Mikhelson can restore something that in fact may not have existed at all.