It sounds incredible, but in Moscow in Soviet times, multi-storey buildings weighing tens of thousands of tons were moved. Movements were most often carried out at night. The serenely sleeping tenants did not even suspect that they would wake up in another place.
History
The movement of architectural forms has a long tradition. So, in 1445, the Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti moved the bell tower of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiorn by more than 10 meters, and in 1812, the Russian master Dmitry Petrov decided to move the wooden church in Morshansk. “I'm wondering something. Where have you seen that churches go by self-propelled? - the headman declared to him. But Petrov turned everything right. As a result, the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, together with the worshipers inside the parishioners, moved 30 meters.
In 1898, the Russian engineer Fedorovich performed a much more difficult job - in Moscow on Kalanchovka - he moved a two-story brick house weighing 1840 tons. A year later, on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street, engineer Rosten had already moved two buildings that interfered with the construction of the church. In performing such complex work, both were guided by the experience of American specialists.
However, more ambitious projects for the movement of buildings began to be carried out already in Soviet times. In 1935, a plan for the general reconstruction of Moscow appeared, which provided for the demolition of many buildings located near the roadway. It was decided not to demolish some of them, but to move into the depths of the quarter.
For these purposes, a special office was created - the Trust for the reconstruction and relocation of buildings, which consisted mainly of metro builders. First, as an experiment, they moved six small houses, and then proceeded to more massive objects.
Promotional video:
Technology
At first glance, it seems impossible to just take and move such a colossus as a multi-storey building. Of course, this is a very laborious process, the preparation of which took weeks or even months, but if all the technologies were followed, the “resettlement” of the house was painless.
Before moving the house, it was separated from the foundation with the help of special cables, after placing the structure on powerful jacks. Then, along the outlined direction of movement of the house, trenches were punched into which sleepers were laid on a solid concrete base, and rollers on top of them.
And then the house, dressed in an iron frame, placed on I-beams and finally separated from the foundation, rolled in the right direction. In this case, he was assisted by winches that towed the building forward, and jacks that pushed him from behind.
This is how this process was described by the correspondent Viktor Tolstov in his report “The House Set Out”: “At five in the morning, when the dawn was just beginning over the city, the final preparations were completed and the command was given to turn on the compressors. The arrows on the devices showed an effort of 170 tons. The powerful shiny cylinders of four jacks rested on the steel beams on which the house, ready to move, rested, and it slowly rolled along the rails along the main street of Moscow. Thick steel rollers rotated with the speed of a second hand, and almost imperceptibly the colossus of the building floated towards Mayakovsky Square."
Didn't even notice
In the fall of 1937, it was decided to move a five-story residential building consisting of four entrances on Serafimovich Street (house no. 5/16), which interfered with the construction of the Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge. The work was supervised by the largest Soviet specialist in the movement and straightening of buildings, Emmanuel Handel. On his account were such operations as straightening minarets in Samarkand and bell towers in Yaroslavl and Bolshiye Vyazyami.
A feature of the movement of this residential building was the need to lift a structure weighing 7,500 tons to a height of almost two meters. Despite the fact that the ground under the building was unreliable, it moved so smoothly that in some cases, residents did not even immediately notice the beginning of movement.
“Life in the house being moved is quite normal. There is a telephone, running water, electricity, gas,”the Izvestia newspaper noted. All this became possible thanks to the decision of the management of the trust to connect all communications to the house using flexible cables.
Surpass America
During the reconstruction of 1938-1940, some buildings on the even side of Gorky Street (now Tverskaya) had to be slightly displaced. Insignificant buildings were mercilessly demolished, but house No. 24 (the former Savvinskoye courtyard) was lucky. Residents persistently asked to preserve the architectural masterpiece in the neo-Russian style. The letter got to the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU (b) Nikita Khrushchev, and he gave the go-ahead. They decided to move the house.
The main difficulty in transferring the building was its weight - 23 thousand tons. But this was almost the decisive factor in the transfer of the building. In the United States, by that time, the largest displaced building was the eight-story telephone exchange in Indianapolis, which weighed only 11,000 tons. Why not surpass America?
Residents, concerned about the outcome of the operation, asked to warn them about the beginning of the move at home in order to wait out the turbulent period with relatives. However, the employees of the trust deliberately gave false deadlines for moving the house in order to complete the final stage of work at night. The result of the move impressed everyone: many of the tenants noticed the change in the location of the house only in the morning. According to rumors, the house was going so smoothly that in one of the apartments a small tower made of cubes by a child survived.
Today, the former Savvinskoye courtyard is hidden between house No. 6 on Tverskaya Street and the new building of the Moscow Art Theater on Kamergersky Lane. The entire scale of the displaced structure can be photographed only from the southeast end.
Complications
The displaced buildings also had sad fates. For example, in 1939, residents of the recently moved house No. 77 on Polina Osipenko Street (now Sadovnicheskaya Street) complained that after the move, their house was never connected to the gas network. The problems were later resolved.
The troubles did not end there. The house, located on a muddy place, covered with sand, soon began to sink and collapse. The workers drove powerful piles, tamped the soil with tons of imported soil - there should be no more problems.
However, on the eve of the new - 1968 - a tragedy occurred. Inside the first building of house No. 77, two deafening explosions suddenly thundered. And then, according to eyewitnesses, something that defied explanation happened: the three upper floors of the building separated from the lower structure, rose up, hung in the air, and only then collapsed down.
The shock wave was so powerful that many residents with fragments of the house were thrown to the Krasnokholmsky Bridge, one of the women landed on the Garden Ring together with the balcony. Many of them escaped with minor injuries. However, all residents of the upper floors - 147 people - were killed. The official version of the tragedy is a domestic gas explosion. They also considered versions of a terrorist attack, the explosion of a bomb left over from the war, and even anomalies in the bowels of the earth.
New achievements
The more movements there were, the more difficult the tasks became. One of the most time-consuming crossings involved the building of the Moscow City Council, where the mayor's office of Moscow is now located (Tverskaya, 13). In connection with the expansion of Gorky Street in 1940, the building had to be moved 14 meters deep. The uniqueness of the work was that the house moved along with the basement, while the officials continued to work in their offices.
As a result of the operation, not a single official was injured. They decided to add two more floors to the building, and this, perhaps, was superfluous. Cracks appeared along the walls, and the structure began to creep apart. To avoid destruction, the workers urgently had to strengthen the building with metal columns.
Even more difficult work was done when relocating the building of Moscow's oldest Eye Hospital, located at the corner of Gorky Street and Mamonovsky Lane. The house was not only removed deep into the block, but also turned 97 degrees - so that the facade of the hospital began to look at the alley.
The practice of moving buildings continued in the post-war years. So, in the fall of 1958, two buildings were simultaneously moved: NII VODGEO and NII Promstroyproekt (now these are houses 42C2 and 42C3 on Komsomolsky Prospekt). Both buildings were moved approximately one hundred meters.
In 1979, the office house of the book publisher Sytin, which was blocking the newly built Izvestia building, was moved almost 30 meters to the side of Nastas'iny Lane. The house was badly damaged during the move. In 1983, Moscow engineers moved the building of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, while expanding the space between the stage and the hall.
This work was the last in a unique series of relocations of Moscow buildings. Perestroika soon began, followed by a crisis. Such projects proved to be too costly, and they had to be stopped.
