Abandoned houses on the Ferry embankment

Greetings friends, a couple of months ago I walked along the right bank of the Neva River - where the construction of the new bridge started. This time I decided to walk along the opposite, left bank. There are several old buildings in the construction zone. According to the plan, all the old houses were to be demolished. The Committee for the Protection of Monuments had objections, and it seems that some of these buildings will be preserved. But there is no final information yet. Today I propose to look at two old residential buildings that have been resettled and are being prepared for demolition.

I want to start by giving a general idea of the neighbourhood we will be walking through today. This is an old industrial neighbourhood, industrial enterprises were built here in the 19th century. Some of the old industrial buildings have been preserved and are now protected as architectural monuments. Residential buildings in this neighbourhood were designed for workers and employees. Apart from old houses, there are also quite a few buildings of the XX and XXI century. In general, the architectural landscape is quite colourful.

I started my walk from the factory administration building - it is on the top photo. This building was built in the middle of the 19th century and then rebuilt several times. In front of the building there is a monument to Vladimir Lenin. From this building I walked along Obukhovskaya Defence Avenue past the one-storey building of the workshop of the iron rolling plant. Above the roof of this building you can see a piece of a modern multi-storey apartment block, and between the old workshop and the modern house there are trees. At first glance it looks like one of the city's gardens. But if you turn off the path and walk past these trees, you can get to the embankment of the Neva River - to the area where the construction of the bridge has started and where the resettled houses are standing.

I have not found any information about the time of construction of these buildings, nor about the architects who were involved in the development of the site. Apparently, both buildings were built in the late 19th century - at least they look very similar to buildings from that period. Maybe very early, early years of the 20th century, but more likely late 19th century. One of the buildings looks quite simple, it is an ordinary multi-storey apartment building with plastered walls of yellow colour. The house has several blocks, in one of the blocks of this house people still live. The other blocks have been empty for a long time. All doors and windows of the ground floor are bricked up.

The second house looks more interesting, the facade is decorated with brickwork ornamentation. This decorative technique is characteristic of late 19th century buildings - inexpensive, practical, durable. Even in its current sad state, the facade of the building looks attractive. The windows and doors are also all boarded up, but someone removed a sheet of iron from one of the windows, so I was able to look inside. However, there is nothing interesting inside: no mouldings, no fireplaces, no decorative elements. Just ruin, desolation and traces of fire.

In the courtyard there are several other small service buildings: barns, transformer box, garages and the like. Some of these walls have been used by graffiti artists, I didn't come across any particularly outstanding works, but some of them look quite nice. In addition to the drawings, there are texts. The main inscription reads: "It will be seen".