Kekin’s house: revival of former splendour

Havoc of palace

Communal apartments. Enduring heritage of a century-old past. There was nothing that neighbours wouldn't know. They are aware of everyone's life. A common corridor, kitchen, lavatory, and poky living cubbyholes actively multiplied by partitions. And it's a historic building, pure and simple, a cultural monument of federal significance. People had been living for many years in the centre of the city, in the house situated in the arrow-shaped intersection of Gorkogo and Galaktionova streets still bearing the first owner's name – millionaire merchant Kekin. It was a veritable bug cluster. The house represented a completely flyblown communal apartments, dull corridors reeked of goodness knows what,' Makhmut Afliyev, the director of Kekinhouse, describes the building before the restoration.

The architecture of the house combines motives of Islamic East and elements of the Gothic and the Baroque styles

Constructed more than a hundred years ago, the building was a novelty for that moment. Leonty Kekin built the house using his own brick that meant to be the best in the district of Kazan. What is more, the construction was round-the-clock, at night electric light and huge fires were used for illumination with the help of special lenses. This fact was an innovation for the building area of the 20^th century. The design belongs to talented architect Henry Rush, creator of the Alexander Passage, the bell tower of the Epiphany Cathedral and the Admiralty hospital… This building was the architect's last project.

Extraordinary Henry Rush created a figured building that has neither rectangular nor triangular rooms inside because they are all untypical. Its spacy rooms form a real labyrinth of corridors, stairs and halls. The house always was an enigma.

Kekin didn't live in the house. The merchant leased the apartments. During the Soviet era, the revenue house was nationalized and became a dwelling house, exclusive of the first floor. During that period, all historic interiors and ceiling mouldings were destroyed.

The building with a century-old history remained in disrepair

'Once in my childhood, we had a pioneer raid in the attic of that house, where one of our schoolmates lived. The shock of the elegant facade and the awful shabby attic full of bottle boxes instead of furniture was one of the fascinating impressions of my adolescence,' Farida Zabirova, an honourable architect of Tatarstan, says.

In 2000-2001, the last residents were rehoused by the programme of slum dwelling leaving the views on washed undergrounds, despair and total desolation. But 'a monument of federal significance' sounds too loud. The government never has enough money for such buildings. The building with a century-old history remained in disrepair in recent years. As technical findings presented in July 2000 by specialists of Kazan Giproniiaviaprom Closed Joint-Stock Company state that 80% of the constructions were worn. There were offers to demolish Kekin house. The cultural heritage site was pulled down, but the first President of the republic Mintimer Shaimiev and Kamil Iskhakov, the mayor of Kazan at that moment, decided to save the jewel of the crown of the city image by means of private funds. Then a painful search for investors began. There was no one who would like to help: financial and physical expenses for the reconstruction exceeded the erection of a new building. Finally, after long negotiations, the authority managed to persuade TAIF to undertake the reconstruction of the monument. To do it they had to buy the building up.

The city needed to restore the monument to its original condition that it maintained before the revolutionary turmoil

Reloading

So, the TAIF Group of Companies bought the building up in 2000. Kekin house PJSC with the authorized capital of 100,000 rubles was created. There was a huge amount of work, and only common efforts could manage it. The administration of the difficult project was headed by Rafkat Sultanov, former deputy director general of Construction and Major Overhaul of TAIF PJSC, and Ilgiz Latypov, who was the director of the Kazan Production and Construction Enterprise, the main construction company of the holding. They coordinated and united a team of real professionals: architects, planners, designers and constructors.

The worked out plan on the revival of the house presupposed a solution of two problems. Firstly, the city needed to restore the monument to its original condition that it maintained before the revolutionary turmoil. At the same time, the interior space of the establishment was to be useful or have a business application. The perfect variant was to lease it as offices and shops. The project prepared by Kazan Giproniiaviaprom under the auspices of Ravil Shamsutdinov satisfied the requirements. And Kekin house PJSC along with the collective of ZABIR company undertook the restoration of the building.

After long negotiations, the authority managed to persuade TAIF to undertook the reconstruction of the monument, and they had to buy it up for that intention

After the inspection, it turned out that the building subsided at 16 cm. To start with, they needed to drain the underground and strengthen the foundation. The thing was that the underground was regularly awash with industrial, rain and melt waters. Moreover, during 10 years sewage permanently flowed to the underground undermining the foundation. Taking into account that the terrain under the building had drops, waters leaked into the soil and continued flowing somewhere, no one knows where. The residents tolerated that pest hothouse. It is told that once a plumber ran away in panic. The invited specialist started to explore drainpipes in the underground. When he understood all pipes were destroyed, and the guttering simply went to the ground, he felt under par. And no one would envy the workers who undertook the preparation of Kekin house for the restoration. Products of human activity and filth from the underground of Henry Rushe's handiwork needed to be drained.

The constructors fixed 900 piles in the perimeter of every room of the building. The machine bored boreholes 12-15 m depth. That bore was reinforced. Later cement mortar was injected under pressure. It guaranteed that the house would stand for a long time. Hydro insulation of high penetration saved the underground from industrial waters. And the roof was completely removed and reconstructed. New rafters made of deal timber and covered with antiseptic and antipyretic were set in place of partially rotten roof trusses.

During the inspection, a number of splits, fractures, including through-the-wall cracks were detected

The walls and the intermediate floor of the old house left a lot to be desired. During the inspection, a number of splits, fractures, including through-the-wall cracks were detected. A top coat of layer of the plaster was damaged, and the blanket of vault masonry was wrecked. Practically in all parts of the building cross load-bearing walls were separated from longitudinal load-bearing walls because of the unequal settlement of the foundation.

To strengthen the brick walls under the ceiling through bores were holed in order to set sleeves from steel seamless pipes. They tensioned steel ties from reinforcement steel through bolt sleeves. Supporting elements were installed along ties; they served as catches. Then the specialists started clumping the building. The tightening was executed manually with the help of the dynamometer, which regulates the drawing power. The oblique blind holes were bored to get rid of fractures. Holes were filled with fastening plaster under pressure.

The geometry of the roof was completely preserved

During the reconstruction, the facade was restored, and stuccoworks were recreated according to the patterns. The roof geometry was completely preserved. The plinth built of white stone was also restored and covered with water-repellent plaster. According to archive recordings and iconographic documents, door and window assemblies were substituted. It is interesting that every floor has different window forms. For instance, the second floor is characterized by arches of lancet fan-shaped windows, the third floor has rectangular windows framed with head mouldings while the fourth one represents round-headed windows with simple forms of architraves. By the way, more than 300 square meters of marble was used to face the window sills on the grounds that the walls were massive and jambs, according to old fashion, opened inwards.

The total cost of that piece of work was 280m rubles

Rafkat Sultanov's team of professionals brought the original function of the revenue house back providing its historic continuity. Engaged in that complicated and laborious process, people understood that the conservation of the architectural monument is not only a conservation of the building but also a bridge between the present and the past.

The total cost of that piece of work was 280m rubles. Once Kekin house was erected against the clock working day and night. In almost one century the story repeated. Within five years Kekin house, which was on the verge of demolition, was completely repaired and thoroughly restored to its original appearance. The building was put into operation and met the millennium celebration of Kazan as befits one of the best houses of the city that regained its splendour. And today Kekin house is the most attractive business centre with elite offices and retail spaces.