Volunteers in St. Petersburg by the end of 2022 will create a database of the city's historical stained-glass windows

The project started with a study of stained-glass windows in the houses of the so-called old foundation on Vasilievsky Island.

The participants of the project for the inventory of old stained-glass windows in St. Petersburg, which started in 2019, plan by the end of 2022 to form an electronic database of all the surviving objects in the historical center of the city. TASS was informed about this on Thursday by the initiator and head of the project, art critic Tatiana Knyazhitskaya.

"We divided the city into four parts - this is Vasilievsky Island, Petrogradskaya Side, Admiralteisky District and Central District. These are four stages of our work. At the moment, half has already been done, we have crossed the" equator "- we have studied two districts, - said Knyazhitskaya. noting that the result of each stage is the publication of books with historical information on each object and the formation of a corresponding database. - Now the work is underway in the Admiralteisky district - it is already at the final stage, and we hope that the book will be published by the winter of this year .. < ...> We plan to complete the book on the Central District by the end of 2022 ".

According to the art historian, the relevance of the project is related, among other things, to the fact that St. Petersburg has a unique body of Russian stained-glass windows. “No other city in the country had so many stained-glass windows. There were many circumstances - both the fact that the city was the capital of the Russian Empire, and the fact that glass production was developing here, a large number of tenement houses were built. We have hundreds - and there were thousands - stained glass windows, this heritage is unique, significant for the whole country, in fact, St. Petersburg stained glass art forms the face of Russian stained glass art ", - she explained.

Heritage is near

The project started with a study of stained glass windows in the houses of the so-called old fund on Vasilievsky Island in 2019, this stage continued until the beginning of 2020, and during this time its participants managed to clearly work out the algorithm of actions. “We threw a broad cry on social networks, and this is how a volunteer community appeared,” said the agency's interlocutor. It currently covers over a hundred people.

"This is a Petersburg project, and most of our volunteers are also Petersburgers. Most of all, probably, are students and pensioners. Many people from our close professional spheres are artists, restorers, historians, art critics, many students from the Stieglitz Academy. There are doctors, economists, builders ", - said the project manager.

According to the data she cited, 43 addresses with stained-glass windows were recorded on Vasilievsky Island, about 110 on the Petrogradskaya Side, and about 80 in the Admiralteisky District. the fifth book, dedicated to the outskirts and outskirts of St. Petersburg (where historical buildings have also been preserved - TASS note), "Knyazhitskaya added. Only part of the stained-glass windows are in buildings that are protected objects and are registered with the committee for the protection of monuments. At the same time, there is a large body of stained-glass windows, which are located in buildings that are not architectural monuments, but this is also part of the heritage, the interlocutor noted.

Research materials collected by volunteers - photographs, historical references - are gradually introduced into scientific circulation, and are also published on social networks, on various electronic resources, the project participants tell about the results of their work at lectures and excursions. “We are trying to convey the idea that historical heritage and artistic values are not only in museums, they are within walking distance,” Knyazhitskaya said. The project participants distribute books about the surviving objects to management companies, housing offices and condominiums of those houses where there are stained-glass windows. “We hope that in this way we will save them at least from unconscious destruction,” she added.

Organizational support for the project is provided by the Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments of St. Petersburg (KGIOP), as well as the city branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. In addition to publishing books, the creators of the project expect to place the electronic database formed on the basis of its results on official resources. "The Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture, KGIOP, Mayakovsky Library is showing interest in this," Knyazhitskaya noted.

Source: https://tass.ru/