Why here?
You can write about Petersburg every day, especially about various oddities. Just get up at the beginning of Nevsky and walk. You will have to stop at each building. Either the granite decoration is jewelry, then the next basement floors with a layout like those of the ceremonial halls and the foundation closer to the center of the Earth. For fun, you can take a historian with you, who will mutter all the time about cellars-refrigerators, the great masters of stone crafts of the past and about ten thousand soldiers moored to each brick to lift it. And, of course, the cultural layer.
If you listen to experts, then the whole life of our ancestors was put on the altar of a single purpose - to produce the maximum amount of garbage and crap in order to lay aside such a powerful cultural layer that will bury the entire city at least up to the second floor. Why did they then carry out sewerage with water supply? This same amount of good was wasted. They would shit in pots, so that then carefully spread the collected, cultural layer around the city. Maybe they would have made it to the third floor.
It's funny, but already boring. A place where it is right to build houses on piles or pontoons from floods, the first thing, of course, is to equip a residential basement half a house in height. As a child, I wondered why the entrance to the Hermitage, aka the Winter Palace, begins with a basement and a wardrobe. How so? Are we at the royal palace or visiting the hobbits? And I didn’t know that there are deeper floors after the basement. Some kind of burrowing mania! At the kings. Build a huge city in 20 years, and go through the basement yourself.
The cathedral
But this is about the global, about the city as a whole. Today, our goal is to quickly run on top of St. Isaac's Cathedral, which I personally consider the most beautiful architectural structure in the city. Previously, it was probably the largest, but now we have a Gazprom tower, it is "a little" higher. Incidentally, I am not an enemy, I would have put it on Okhta. It would be even more consistent. After all, we found a foundation near the Smolny Cathedral for a 150-meter bell tower, which means that a high-rise dominant was already assumed in that direction, it was necessary to follow the ideas of the ancestor. But we have all the smartest, they collected signatures. What nonsense? The city must develop! Or let's get it all fucked up, again. In 200 years we will be happy to find it. We will dig with enthusiasm.
To take a closer look at St. Isaac's Cathedral, you must first look at its architect, and he is a person no less fascinating than his buildings. Remember how he caught a 700-ton block in the sea, and then put it on the Palace Square with a world record in time and without any technical devices. With hands and ropes, like a primitive man. Even the Thunder stone was carried, on some kind of copper-bronze mythical balls. Here, a miracle on a wooden platform. fireworks of muscle strength possibilities and a parade of capstans with ropes. And it's worth it. Without any support.
Promotional video:
Montferrand
Maybe Monsieur Montferrand is not French at all, and not Montferrand, but, for example, Gandalf? And why not, if the entrance to the palace of the kings is designed like a hole in a hobbit hole?
What other oddities does the personality of the creator of two, almost the main attractions of St. Petersburg contain?
Firstly, he is not an architect, in the sense that even his contemporaries confirm that he came to St. Petersburg as a young man and was an excellent draftsman, but had no experience in construction, even transformer booths. And the ability to build a booth is from the century forever, it was considered the basis of building art!
Secondly, it is not even clear what kind of education he has, where did he study and where did he come from? Nailed to the troops returning from Paris? Homeless or what? And all of a sudden, such a brilliant career with cutting-edge engineering. This is me about the roof of the Cathedral where Montferrand "used" the newest double-domed system, which is only in one more churches in Europe. Peter's in London.
By the way, the refusal to bury him in St. Isaac's Cathedral indirectly confirms that he was only restoring it. And the praise from the king, "Montferrand, you immortalized yourself," is already seen in a different light. As a friendly banter, over a man who was hired to sweep around, but then they decided to change the story a little and hung his name as a builder.
Another proof is the publication of two graphic albums on the construction of the Column and the Cathedral, in France. Only in France !!! How can this be explained from the point of view of the customer - the Russian autocrat? You have built a monolithic wonder of the world. The tallest pin in the world, which, moreover, stands by itself without any devices (I'm not talking about Viagra now), and is it no longer necessary to release the documentary “How cool I am, I have a pin!” With documentary evidence?
The same is with St. Isaac's Cathedral. 40 years of construction, 100K dead builders (this is a separate story of not quite sane historians), a lot of money and even a commemorative booklet? Poor Montferrand had to trudge to Paris to get at least someone to sniff his drawings. And I just don't know that, maybe he released these albums at his own expense. Well, it's a shame! I drew, drew, invented, invented, and here on you, no one is interested.
Apparently, the customer had doubts either about the content of the sketches, or about the reality of the methods that Montferrand came up with in the drawings to describe the construction technology.
The Draftsman's Legacy
And, by the way, it is not unreasonable. Albums of Montferrand clarify a lot in the "real" course of events.
Let's now recount some of the inconsistencies in the official statements and find flaws in the explanations for the oddities. Less text, more pictures!
According to official history, the Cathedral of Montferrand is the fourth reincarnation of a church institution in this place.
This is the first cathedral. More precisely the church. but Isaac Dolmatsky. The first drawing of Montferrand, then a model of the cathedral museum, and then some kind of rural church from Canada. I understand that Montferrand did not see the first version of the church in the eyes, but what did he draw then?
Number two. There is no Montferrand hand here, he decided to ignore this cathedral. Probably just not figured out what kind he should look like. As for me, the model from the museum of the cathedral itself is closer to the yellow submarine than to the church in general, and than to both in the drawings.
A boat in the middle of the capital was a shame. I had to do something. Kings, queens, and courtiers stirred. Well, that is, they started to move on paper.
And here it is number 3. At the top left - the museum model, at the top right, it is on the engraving, in the middle of the composition is a drawing of the temple as it stood on the square. According to the official version, of course. Now take a look at the bottom row. On the left is a mock-up of Rinaldi's idea, which is said to have been cut, on the right is a drawing by Montferrand. He is going to remodel the temple. Why is he sketching a version with which he will not have to work? Maybe, like the first temple, which does not look like a model at all, he did not see it in his eyes? But according to legend, there should be a source code, so he copied the layout.
Battle for a row
In 1809. and 1813. a competition was announced for the reconstruction of the cathedral. Pay attention to the king's note. He asks to slightly improve the existing structure, because this is a GREAT MONUMENT. What about the fact that there is not a single kind word in the official history about the third council! Except as Mr. …, allegorically, of course, no one names him.
Many architects take part in the battles for the budget. Moferran and Voronikhin reach the final, but the second is weak and is already going to the next world, and the Frenchman is young, vigorous and flexible. Nothing that only knows how to draw, the question is not about construction.
Now look at the designs of both finalists. For me personally, it seems that it is easy to determine what they had to work on.
The upper two are the variants of Manferran, the lower Voronikhin. We see that they are the same. But at Voronikhin, the columns were supposed to move apart and build a roof over them.
Montferrand won. I don't know what criteria helped to tip the bubble in his favor. In general, fictional stories are hard to find logical motivation. Nevertheless, I will assume that they were not allowed to torture the columns.
Like, let them stand as they did. What if you drop it? Where will we recruit new ones for you? Themselves in Baalbek will go to collect in parts?
Well, that's if you stick to the theory that everything stood here for a thousand years. And if you remember that there is still a theory according to which all antiquity was built of concrete and soluble kranite 200 years ago, then, probably, they just got bored of casting a hundred sticks for the Kazan Cathedral and this time they told Voronikhin no.
Many believe that Montferrand did not sculpt any colons in quarries in Finland. Firstly, he could not, he could not, and the Gulf of Finland was not navigable at that time - the draft of the vessel would not have allowed. All sorts of stories about punt, just like from a children's counting room: "Three wise men in an empty basin, swam across the sea in a thunderstorm..". Secondly, why, if everything is already worth it? This, incidentally, applies to the Alexander Column.
And he didn't sculpt anything out of concrete. Shrapnel wounds from German shells show that the columns are, indeed, made of whole granite pieces.
Russia is big, there are many things left there. From whom, however, it is not clear, but they do not mind yet, and silence is a sign of consent to use.
In favor of the fact that the cathedral already stood there in all its splendor, not only its twin brothers around the world speak. I'll show you a couple at the end. In the meantime, we lazily take our gaze away from St. Petersburg and look deep into the country. For example, to Simbirsk, which is now Ulyanovsk. And what do we see?
If this is not the twin brother of Isaac, the Pantheon and a bunch of other churches around the world (I will show a couple at the end), then this is the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin. But this cannot be?
If you look closely at the pictures, then little Lenin, of course, is not running there yet. But you can see cathedrals and churches, which were taken as the basis for all four St. Isaac's churches, on the Senate Square. So they stood there in a row. In Simbirsk. They did not live to see us. Lenin in one of them, when he was little, the priest bit, so the communists took them down in revenge.
Given the fiction of the entire official history, it is not even necessary to know what year of construction was attributed to the Ulyanovsk ensemble, it still stood there for a very long time.
40 years of drawing and decoration
Well, Montferrand, meanwhile, set to work. I started to paint. As already mentioned, he was a good draftsman, he transferred all the details from his head to paper perfectly. But, as one character from the movie "I walk across Moscow" said, there is no truth in life! Each sketch should have a dead worker, and if it took a whole day to sketch, then 8 at once! According to our historians, during the construction of the cathedral, which is 40 years, 100K people died there. Share! Montferrand? Where are the 8 bodies? do not substitute historians!
I would also like to know where is the 100K cemetery and what were all human rights activists like Pushkin and Co. doing at that time when the workers died in such numbers?
Here he separates from the rock huge geometrically correct figures. Yes, as in Baalbek, without a single trace of tools and immediately in a parallelepiped. Here he is sailing with columns on the sea, where even merchant ships do not go closer than Kronstadt. Well, snava spinning your favorite capstan to lift everything that comes to hand.
If I ever invent a drug that will beat Viagra, I will call it the proud name "Ratchet"! It will have to be taken in combination with "Rope" (many, many pills) and soluble "Levers" (powder of fucking strength). All this is in honor of the builders of the past!
The columns are "small", not a pillar. They can be rolled like balls. At least on the roof, at least on the ground.
By the way, not only the shallow waters of the Gulf of Finland would be an obstacle, pull yourself together, forgive God Montferrand, and in fact grind all your columns out of the rock. The natural instability of ships with such a cargo led to the fact that the ship that transported the Egyptian obelisk to the Freemasons to America was purposefully sawn during unloading. This was the only way to get the obelisk and not drown it.
While Montferrand is painting, let's look around! We do not have a time machine, so we will drive it with a sting by means of the same French album of the architect.
From Montferrand's album about the construction site of Isaac.
Why is this in an Orthodox country from head to toe, though in the capital of which the worker is busy with the head of Zeus-Jupiter-Baal, one cannot breathe from Masonic symbols? Probably, she was slightly scratched when the antique iconostasis was taken out of the third St. Isaac's Cathedral! Now he will correct it, screw it to the body and take it to Piotrovsky in the Hermitage. Then, after all, the museum was also in charge, someone from Piotrovsky's ancestor? They have the same transfer of the helm of the Hermitage, like the priests of Ancient Egypt - by inheritance.
So she stands in the basement hall, next to the cafe, if my memory serves me right. But it is not exactly. Some argue that on the throne with Nika and the eagle, in fact, Neptune and carried him from the spit of Vasilyevsky Island from the Exchange building. This was his residence, as it should be according to myths.
Do you see what is lying around the construction site? Superfluous details.
We've all seen it somewhere!
Yes, this is the Ancient Roman Baalbek!
Well, of course I'm kidding, I remember what the ruins of Baalbek look like, I recently wrote about them. Here, click. In principle, the Roman-Greek and up to the Etruscan design of the temples is very similar, so it could be taken from any place of that era. Took it from Lebanon, because the photos remained.
Is that what they do in Montferrand's album? Can you tell me? who put them there, along with the head of Zeus and antique statues? Imitators? Was it fashionable? One-on-one, like a printer, with technology and patterns. Oh well!
By the way, Montferrand did not throw everything out of the ancient past. Well, that is, he left it along with the entire cathedral as a whole.
If you look under your feet, on your next visit, you will see the ancient Greco-rian floor.
I would like to note! I do not want to say that our ancestors of the time of Montferrand could not do anything. They were able to do a lot, but in this case, unfortunately, they have nothing to do with it.
I am ready to agree to all sorts of assumptions and to withstand many incidents in the historical chronicles, but the absence of technical documentation for the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral, I cannot write off as an accident and restless timelessness of the "dark ages".
Montferrand Cathedral, what built it by eye? Measured with a brush on an outstretched hand, closing one eye, like a real artist? Well he is. More precisely, it's not at all okay, but let it be. And what were the contractors guided by when performing the subcontracting? On your fingers with gestures?
That is, he did not forget to hang this over the city, and whispered all the technical tasks in his ear in secret?
PedoMontferrand under the dome.
He was probably a good draftsman, he loved children. Well, the cathedral is well decorated - colorfully! Not all countries ennobled their St. Isaac's Cathedrals.
A bunch of. Infinity. Armada. The last picture shows the American Capitol in Washington. About 10 St. Isaac's Cathedrals will fit there, and even after that it will be relatively free there.
I stopped adding pictures of similar buildings when I realized that I was starting to get confused in them and at some point risked replacing the cathedral or the Capitol with the metro station Vosstaniya or Avtovo square. In short, in every city, there was, is, or even was and is, and sometimes two. This leads to some thoughts, but they are already beyond the scope of this note.
Who else if not the Yeti?
I don’t mean to say that everyone brought flying saucers here, put them on and off. And the cathedrals themselves, moreover, did not materialize.
Just if you look closely at the chronicle of historical events, then approximately from the beginning of the 19th century, huge holes and inconsistencies are noticeable. They naturally exist in earlier centuries, but historians recognize them, under the motto - one manuscript per hundred people, and that is written from the words of a distant relative who lived on another continent and drowned with Atlantis, before the beginning of our civilization. It is useless to climb there, there are only hypotheses and constructivism of realism, through myths and legends.
I would, frankly, gladly adhere to textbooks and sequential chronological structures, as in school, but you can't go against the obvious. Many already agree that even the reduction of history by 1K years proposed and actually proved by Fomenko and Nosovsky using mathematics and astronomy will have to be reduced to a very modest size. And for example, everything that we consider to be antiquity ran and fought with swords in iron armor, only 300 years ago.
But I'm not talking about that at all, I'm talking about Montferrand. He had already finished with the cathedral, walking, working in his free time from the cathedral, put the heaviest, highest, most unfastened at the base - corn in the center of Petersburg and is now ready to die.
In his notes, he often noted that his life would end with the final brick of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The author who came up with this character, through the lips of his hero, warned us that the young artist who appeared out of nowhere would disappear just as quickly and forever when his mission on the pages of the necessary documents was over.
After his death, there was no place for him in Russia, his wife took the ashes of the draftsman to France and buried there.
There are no identification marks or initials on the grave. Thus, even she, like everything in the life of a character named Auguste Montferrand, may turn out to be fictional.
In the history of the creation of St. Isaac's Cathedral, there are still many all sorts of mysteries - the appearance on the paintings of artists long before the end of construction, sunken one and a half meters of steps, the beginning of restoration work 25 years after the "construction" and much more.
In order for the size of the note to stop growing monstrously, you have to put an end to it and take leave of it.