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Hello! We are the pupils of the 7th form, school 274, St. Petersburg, Russia. We’ve decided to tell you about the most beautiful city – St. Petersburg! But our story isn’t about well-known palaces and monuments. It’s about a little bit forgotten, but beautiful places of our city. They are profitable houses of St. Petersburg.
What is a “profitable house”? The PROFITABLE HOUSE is a type of an architectural construction. It’s a semi-de tached house, con-structed for delivery of apartments in employment. (The Big Economic Dictionary, A. N. Azrilijan, 2002) The characteristic features of profitable house are the identical flats, which are situated around staircases or corridors. (The Encyclopedia of the Businessmen. S. M. Sinelnicov, SPb, 1994). The construction of profitable houses in St. Petersburg began during the rule of Emperor Peter the First. At first, in the city 2-3 storey residences for rich and notable families were being built (Sheremetev, Shuvalov). Those buildings had elegant facades, they were situated on granite quays and beautiful areas, paved by stones. But in the beginning of the 19th century the image of the city began change. Craftsmen, merchants, official, petty bourgeoisies, priests, became owners of the profitable houses. They were called “inhabitants” and the persons who rented flats were called “lodgers”, they were people who were living in St. Petersburg constantly, but they didn’t have their own estate. In 1750 there were 38 thousands of owners and 37 thousands of ledgers. Till October revolution, St. Petersburg was the most “rented” city. Handed over apartments gave the large income and soon the whole city was full of such buildings. The epoch of construction of profitable houses is not an ugly page in the history of Petersburg’s architecture. A lot of famous architects work in this field: Leonty Benua, Feodor Lidval, Vladimir Shchuko and others. Profitable houses are interesting as well to that a lot of well-known people lived there in different times: composers, architects, poets, writers, musicians. The poetess Anna Ahmatova, the composer Rimskyi-Korsacov, the poet Alexander Pushkin, the writer Feodor Dostoevsky, the poet Joseph Brodsky and many other famous people rented flats.
Here we shall tell you about some of such houses... |
Design by Andrey |