Those who have visited the northern capital and wish to take a look at the Egyptian house can ask passers-by for the address. It is well known to the townspeople: Zakharyevskaya street, house 23.
This is one of the few buildings that is named not by the name of the architect, but by the characteristic features of the building.
It is very possible that this attraction is the most unusual and original in St. Petersburg. Yes, there are many beautiful buildings in this city, but only when looking at the Egyptian house, even an uninitiated person will inevitably have associations with the ancient world, pharaohs, sphinxes, tombs and Egyptian gods.
First stone
The history of this building is very interesting. It began in 1911. The famous St. Petersburg architect Mikhail Songailo was approached by the widow of a lawyer and real state councilor Alexander Semenovich Nezhinsky. After the death of her husband, Larisa Ivanovna, who apparently received a rather large inheritance, wished to invest in the constructionanother tenement house in the city. And there would be nothing unusual in this desire, if not for one requirement of the client. The future building, she said, should not be just a typical rental house, but one that would in itself create a sensation with the local public. An architectural event was required, something that would indicate the originality of the building. A mystery to behold.
Fashionable at that time architect Mikhail Alexandrovich Songailo was a well-known adherent of neoclassicism and modernity in architecture, and interest in the mystical, occult, ancient, like most intelligent representatives of that time, was not alien to him. So, you don't have to look far for originality.
Opening a house
Two years later, in 1913, in the city, where there were already "Egyptian traces", a house appeared, which became an event for the residents of St. Petersburg and its guests. Everything happened as the customer wished: this house became a kind of corner of Ancient Egypt. Onlookers specially came to him, stood for hours, looking at the bas-reliefs on the walls of the building with the faces of the mythical creatures of Ancient Egypt and sculptures, as if transferred to the present from the banks of the sacred Nile.
Needless to say, the house was striking in its appearance. And besides, he had a rational thought-out layout. It even had a technical innovation - an automated elevator with a push-button control system from the Milanese Stiegler plant.
Whatis it the Egyptian house on Zakharyevskaya street, 23?
Building features
This is a five-story residential building with an attic superstructure and a semi-basement. The whole house, including the facade and the courtyard-well, is decorated with bas-reliefs and other "architecture" in the Egyptian style. It would be more correct to say - fantasies on this theme, so fashionable at the beginning of the 20th century.
The main decoration of the facade are monumental columns, the upper part of which is decorated with bas-relief faces of goddesses. In the center there is an arch that leads to the courtyard-well. It does not cause much enthusiasm, since it is a gloomy and rather common place for St. Petersburg tenement houses. Although there are friezes under the cornices - architectural decorative masonry in the form of stripes.
In addition, in the courtyard at the entrance above the elevator were sculptures of Pharaoh Ramses II and his noble wife Nefertari. The elevator is currently modernized, of course, but everything else is intact.
Decoration and interior
There were two symmetrical entrances on both sides of the arch. At each of them, as if near an ancient Egyptian tomb, the architect placed two statues of the god Ra with crossed arms in loincloths. Such sculptures were placed by the ancient Egyptians at the entrances to their famous tombs. The hand of each of the statues of the Sun God compresses the ankh symbol (Coptic cross). It had many other names: "Key of the Nile", "Key of Life", "Knot of Life" and others.life in the afterlife.
Directly above the entrance, the solar disk seems to soar, spreading its wings. Similar decorations can be seen on the walls and ceiling of the arch. Throughout the facade, including the architraves, there are other "Egyptian" decorative elements, as well as bas-relief scenes from Egyptian life.
By the way, due to the large number of snakes depicted on the facade, the Egyptian House in St. Petersburg is called the "most snake building" in the city.
Above the arch you can see a decorative balcony, the capitals of the columns are the faces of the ancient Egyptian goddess of love, femininity and beauty Hathor.
The doors, as they were originally made - with intertwined reeds and hieroglyphs, unfortunately, have not been preserved. Instead, they put the usual remake.
In general, with its facade, the house vaguely resembles the outer wall of the Temple of Hathor in Dandara (a city on the west bank of the Nile), if it were not for the obvious bust with details.
Most of the interior is subordinated to the Egyptian style - from the gate grille to the railing in the entrance.
History of the house
Before the First World War, the building housed the embassies of Romania and Belgium. Then - the editorial board of the magazine "The Art of Leningrad".
After the revolution, the house was nationalized, and most of the building was given over to communal housing.
In addition, in 1939 (then the street was already renamed in honor of the revolutionary I. Kalyaev), the Egyptian House housed the Post Office, in the 70s - the Lyra club (at one of the housing departments of Dzerzhinskydistrict). At that time, of course, it did not occur to take care of the preservation of the building as a historical object.
It is known that in 1941 a machine gun was installed on the roof of the Egyptian house in order to fire on German bombers making air strikes on the city. The most surprising thing is that the house itself did not undergo any significant damage during the entire war. For some adherents of mysticism, this fact even suggested the special magical properties of the structure.
Home restoration
The building was restored back in 2007. The funds for this were found thanks to the city's program for the restoration of historic facades.
There is evidence that the original restoration was carried out with obvious violations, since the fastenings of scaffolding were driven directly into the elements of bas-relief decorations. Thanks to the intervention of specialists, the tactics of repair work have been revised and become more gentle.
But then the hands never reached the courtyard-well. Its appearance left much to be desired: plaster continued to fall off, cracks were forming.
Present
Today the courtyard is in proper shape. Directly opposite the arch is the entrance to a modern elevator. Pharaoh and his wife, "guarding" the old Stiegler, remained in place.
A glazed shaft remained in the back of the courtyard - apparently, this is part of the old elevator, which is no longer in use.
Egyptian house in St. Petersburg today is considered an elite residential building. We althy people live in it. You can enter the courtyardto be curious, but you won’t be able to wander along the entrances.
The appearance of the building is completely preserved from the time of construction, except for a few windows that appeared in the basement.
Part of the premises in the basement were rented out as a weapons store and a cafe. The central entrance serves as a passage to some notary's office. Part of the building is occupied by a hotel.
The roof of the Egyptian house was not so long ago very loved by St. Petersburg romantics and extreme people who make excursions on St. Petersburg roofs, but the visits were stopped, and the attic window through which these sorties were made was boarded up (for safety and maintaining a calm environment).
This is interesting
According to one of the urban legends, lovers who are about to get married should definitely kiss in the arch of this house. It is believed that then the god Ra himself will guard the union, and the joint life of the spouses will be long and happy.
How to find
It is quite easy to get to the Egyptian house on Zakharyevskaya street. The nearest metro station is "Chernyshevskaya". Then you should move along Chernyshevsky Avenue, cross Furshtatskaya and Chaikovskogo streets and go straight to Zakharyevskaya. Turn left on this street. After passing one building, go to the Egyptian house on Zakharyevskaya, 23. From the metro station, go only five minutes.
