The opening of the Tretyakov Gallery in Samara has been postponed indefinitely

The branch of the museum in the historical building of the factory-kitchen was postponed again

The opening of the Tretyakov Gallery in Samara has been postponed for the third time. Recently a message appeared that the promised presentation will take place not this year, as planned in the spring, but at the beginning of 2024. And now, a few days later, another postponement, now for an indefinite period. MK found out what went wrong with the restoration of the constructivist building in the shape of a hammer and sickle, erected according to the design of architect Ekaterina Maksimova in 1932.

The Samara kitchen factory, like other similar factories, is more than a place where food preparation was put on stream. In the 1920s, in the newborn Soviet state, the idea of ​​liberating women from “kitchen slavery” appeared. As Nikolai Semashko, People’s Commissar of Health of the USSR, put it, the kitchen factory is “a bomb thrown into the old way of life.” In Samara, the concept of “new life” was brought to life by Ekaterina Maksimova, one of the first female architects in the Union. She designed the building of the kitchen factory at the Maslennikov defense plant in the shape of a hammer and sickle. On the ground floor – in the hammer – there is a kitchen and technical rooms, in the sickle there is a wardrobe and three dining rooms (for children, factory workers and plant employees), and in the hammer handle there is a store and a post office. On the second floor there are technical rooms and staff offices. Moreover, ready-made food went from the kitchen to the dining room on a conveyor belt. The laconic and at the same time elegant building was decorated with stained glass windows and columns.

The kitchen factory ceased to exist along with the Soviet Union: the Maslennikov plant went bankrupt. In the 1990s, it was occupied by a shopping center, a nightclub, a bar, offices and shops. At the end of the 20th century, it was renovated, so much so that its historical appearance was almost destroyed: they covered it with siding, destroyed part of the ceilings, and replaced the roof. Then the constructivist building was bought by new owners and they were about to demolish it in order to build a high-rise building on the site of the factory-kitchen. The local community defended the monument, but in the end it was abandoned. In 2016, it began to be restored, but as a result it began to look even worse and was on the verge of collapse. In 2019, it was decided to turn it into a branch of the Tretyakov Gallery – restoration began anew. Architect Vitaly Stadnikov and employee of the Central Scientific and Restoration Design Workshops Irina Kalugina were guided by the original plans of Ekaterina Maksimova to return the building to its historical appearance. Two years later, a technical presentation took place: the monument of constructivism was put in order, all that remained was to do the “internal filling” and finishing. Namely – engineering communications, ventilation and museum climate control systems, exposure light, etc. And something went wrong.

In 2021, it was promised that by next year everything would be ready and the museum would open to the public. Since then, the deadlines have been shifted three times. The other day, State Duma deputy, native of Samara Alexander Khinshtein and Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Nadezhda Rev. visited the building of the future branch of the State Tretyakov Gallery from the inside. It turned out that with the “filling” everything is not simple – it is a very complex object. They have created a headquarters for accelerated completion of work, which will hold weekly control meetings with the contractor and provide design and technical supervision. “This is a unique building, 50 engineering systems will work here, everything needs to be coordinated, museum workers need to be given a certain time to test all communications, create a special microclimate so that works of art can be carefully placed,” Khinshtein said after a working meeting in the still cold walls of the monument constructivism.

Plans to hold New Year’s events inside the future museum have also been canceled; they will be taken outside – to the square of the fighters of the Revolution and the industrial park “Garden of Balance”, located next to the factory kitchen. The work will be carried out without stopping, and they will be monitored manually. And although they are now afraid to announce specific opening dates, Khinshtein said that the first Tretyakov exhibition in Samara will take place in the spring. The project will be called “Taste and Color”, it is dedicated to the theme of food in art. It is planned to bring about 170 works of masterpieces from Moscow, for example, “Girl with Peaches” and “Hunters at Rest”.