Noginsk is a town in Moscow Oblast. It’s located 35 kilometers east of the Moscow Ring Road, on the Klyazma River. Founded in 1389 as Rogozhi, the town was later renamed Bogorodsk by a decree of Catherine the Great in 1781, and was first granted town status. Throughout the 19th century, and for a good part of the 20th century, the town was a major textile center, processing cotton, silk, and wool. In 1930, the town was renamed Noginsk, after Bolshevik Viktor Nogin. Unfortunately, the original name wasn’t returned to the town after the end of Soviet Union. I don’t like it when old towns have the names given them by the Communists. So in this text I’ll refer to Noginsk by its genuine name, Bogorodsk. This time I want to write about one of the districts of Bogorodsk — the district of Glukhovo. Later, I’ll write about other parts of the town.
The first places I visited there this time were three barracks for workers. Barracks were built in the early 20th century by order of the owner of the Gluchovo textile factory, Arseny Ivanovich Morozov.
There are three of the barracks, and all are similarly built, in Art Nouveau style. At the time of their construction, the level of comfort for the workers here was unprecedented — there was sewage treatment, heating, and artificial ventilation. Two buildings in the photo above belong to a mental hospital now. Another one is a dormitory (a scary and dirty one, as you’ll see later).
House number three. One of the buildings of the mental hospital.
The first building was “restored” not long ago, but the quality of work is horrid. The house now looks much less interesting than the two other, unrestored, barracks. The colorful tiles that were on some elements of the house are not seen now, and I suspect that they were simply destroyed.
The whole surrounding area look like slums. The area under the windows of the dormitory is full of empty bottles, and everywhere there is trash and mud.
I’ve read in some sources that one of the barracks is abandoned now. Really, if you look at it from outside you’d easily think that it’s abandoned. The barracks has many broken windows. But actually people continue to live there. As I wrote before, this is a dormitory — but one where many people live for decades. When you enter there, a horrible smell greets you. The mixed smell of dampness, cat shit on the floor under my feet, and sewage. The smell of sewage is intolerable. The trash is piled two meters from a sign, “Don’t throw trash.”
Most of the doors are original, from the time of the building’s construction.
Most of the building, aside from the personal spaces, is accessible to the public. I happened upon an old woman in this hall, and she asked me for a smoke. The second question was standard: “Who are you and what you are doing here?” People in such places live together for a long time and all know each other, so of course they know if you’re a stranger. I replied with my standard answer, “the building is historical and interesting, and I would like to take several photos here.” It seemed that she was satisfied by my answer. One minute later, I noticed that she had followed me down the corridor of the dormitory. She asked the same question again, so I understood that she has problems with short-time memory. After she asked me her question the third time, she went to knock on one of doors and yelled for “Misha.” It seems that she suspected me of bad intentions and was asking for someone stronger to help. But Misha didn’t answer, and I continued on my way to the next floor.
I like these art nouveau railings. Even in such a desolate atmosphere they look beautiful. I heard that some other people were shocked by the condition of this dormitory, but I wasn’t shocked. It’s just another old house with very little care from its inhabitants, and I’ve seen worse.
One of the many cats inside.
One second after I took this photo, the door opened and I heard the next series of question about who I am and what I am doing there.
The cat is a twin of mine.
I asked permission to take the photo of this hall, and an old couple said me that I wasn’t the first “photographer” there. They went on to tell me, “Last year, a young man from Moscow with a big camera spent an hour here.” They told me that their house had burned back in 2003, and they settled in this dormitory for a short time, but the short time has lasted all the way to the present.
I see some attempts to make repairs by residents on this floor, and it’s very well, for no matter how we live — poor life or rich — we try to improve our human condition. I understand that people in such places don’t have much money, but obviously they could at least afford some inexpensive paint to make a their place a little better.
I came across a girl. “Don’t take photos of me,” she said, as she ascended to the next floor.
Upper floor. I didn’t go farther up. I went back down to the street.
It isn’t the place where I want to stay long.
When I got out from the dormitory, I saw nearby the very interesting complex of the Novotkazkaya factory. This is one of the most unusual industrial places I have ever seen in my life.
The factory, equipped with a glass ceiling, has a system of focusing natural daylight in order to provide good lighting, essential for production and in the search for breakages threads. The factory was built in 1909 and was considered one of the largest and best of its type in Europe. At the end of the 1990s, production was finally stopped, and in 2000 the factory was sold. Now, part of it is rented out.
I definitely want to visit this place again in the future and will try to climb to the roof of the factory to examine its construction next time. Unfortunately now I have just four photos taken from outside the fence. They cannot adequately convey how really special this monument of industrial history is.
It’s beautiful, even with all the Soviet extensions built later.
The Morozov barracks are surrounded by small wooden houses. Most of them have seen better times, and they seem to be in their final years.
There are several interesting houses there, like this house for factory specialists. Unfortunately, like in many other places, the wooden architecture of Bogorodsk is dying. Old houses are demolished or burned, and in their place grow ugly blocks of flats, built of cheap materials, with violations of building codes.
Actually Glukhovo is not such a desolate and dirty place as you might think at first. For the most part, the streets there are quite clean. But the problem of the lack of care for historical structures is a very serious one in Russia. The authorities in most towns seem to attribute very little value to historical heritage. For them, old houses, especially in the center of town, are located on places that could be better used for the building of new shops, blocks of flats, etc. So the towns lose their faces and come to look similar to each other. They stop attracting not only visitors from another places, but also stop to be interesting for own inhabitants.
There are many nice wooden houses in Glukhovo, but it’s necessary to search for them. Most of them are situated among typically uninteresting Soviet buildings. There is no feeling of an historical town core in Bogorodsk.
In my opinion, this house of the manager of Gluchovo factory looks like something from a fairy tale. Some people say that it will be demolished in the nearest future.
This one nearby was built in hard 1917.
This building is an old school. In the past it was a private school for the Bogorodsk-Glukhovo factory, founded in 1908. There were three preparatory classes and four elder classes. The education was free.
According to the old directory issued before the revolution, there were 629 boy students. “Of the nobles, honorary citizens, merchants and priests — 10; from petty bourgeois — 116; from peasants — 503”.
During the Second World War there was a hospital located here.
The interiors of the school are beautiful, I hope that the next time I’ll can get inside.
This polyclinic was built in the same style as the school. It’s a style quite common in Bogorodsk.
Old pharmacy.
Another textile factory built by one of Morozovs. In 1848, Zachary Savich Morozov established a cotton factory, the first textile production in Glukhovo. In 2000, it went bankrupt.
The old porch, with the year when the factory was established.
The summer house of Arseny Ivanovitch Morozov, in the park, near the factory in my previous photos. For a long time, it was abandoned, but in 2017 it was restored and now there is a beautiful museum there.
Can you guess why this monument of Lenin is special? This is the first monument of him. It was created the day after his death on the 22nd of January 1924. Later, this disease spread all over the world and thousands of idols of Lenin were erected in many other countries. But this monument was the first.
An SU-27 military fighter plane near the monument of Great Patriotic War. It seems strange at first, because there were no aviation facilities in the town. Actually was just a gift to his native town from am academician. You can see the yellow-walled barracks of workers in this photo. These are “British barracks,” built in the 1870s for English manufacturing professionals of Glukhovo factory.
A street of old houses that were built in 1917 and 1918. Each building has four apartments, and factory employees and their families were originally housed in them.
