Description of the attraction
Gostiny Dvor in Kronstadt is an architectural and historical monument of the 19th century. The architect was V. I. Maslov. It is an object of cultural heritage of the Russian Federation and is under state protection.
Gostiny Dvor is located in the city center, occupying the quarter between Lenin Avenue, Grazhdanskaya Street, Karl Marx Street and Sovetskaya Street. Once there was another Gostiny Dvor opposite it. These were the so-called Tatar rows, but after the Great Patriotic War, residential buildings appeared on this place.
From the side of Sovetskaya Street, near the facade in 2004, a so-called "musical" fountain was opened, and not far from it - a memorial sign in honor of the 300th anniversary of Kronstadt. At the corner of Sovetskaya and Karl Marx streets there is the central city library, and across the road - Ekaterininsky Park (at the Obvodny Canal) and Andreevsky Square, in which a church in honor of St. Andrew the First-Called was once installed, is now destroyed. Only the chapel was restored. Through Lenin Avenue you can get into the house of everyday life, and a little further you can see the Vladimir Cathedral.
Gostiny Dvor is the only place in Kronstadt through which all buses pass, the terminal station for suburban buses.
In the first half of the 19th century, trading rows were installed on the site of Gostiny Dvor until the time when Emperor Nicholas I visited Kronstadt in 1827, who noted the inappropriate state of this place and ordered to build a building that would correspond to its purpose. The project assumed that this building was to become a miniature copy of Gostiny Dvor from St. Petersburg.
Gostiny Dvor was built on March 26, 1832. It was the largest shopping center in the city. There were about 50 different shops and shops where you could buy foreign products, there was a product for every taste. Trade in Gostiny Dvor flourished. But in 1874 a fire broke out in Kronstadt and the building was destroyed. During the restoration work, the project was somewhat changed (for example, the corners were rounded off), but in the appearance of the structure, you can still see its earlier ancestor from St. Petersburg.
It is noteworthy that during the restoration, a dispute broke out between the merchants about which color the building should be painted: yellow or gray. They never came to a common point of view. As a result, half of the house turned yellow and the other half turned gray. Only in the 1890s was uniformity achieved - the building was brought in line with the original design (the facade became yellow).
In the middle of the building, gates were made on both sides, as a result of which, as it were, 2 different buildings were under the same roof - it was impossible to go from one part to another without getting on the street. Today, narrow pavilions are open for trading on the second floor, and thus a through passage has appeared.
In the early 90s of the XX century, Gostiny Dvor was restored, the work was completed only by 2007. Local residents received a restored building, which, like many years ago, regained the status of the largest shopping center in the city of Kronstadt.
