The building of the Russian loan treasury. Loan treasury

At first, treasuries worked at educational institutions, not to enrich the educational institution, but for the sake of humanity, to help those in need.

These institutions did not have their own capital - the source of loans was the capital of the treasury at 5% per annum. At the same time, the Moscow Loan Treasury issued loans in amounts up to 1,000 rubles for a period of 12 months at 6% per annum and secured by gold, silver or valuables. This is how the banking system we are used to was born.

The Loan Treasury building in Nastasinsky Lane in Moscow became a monument to the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov. It was built in 1913-1916 by masters of historical stylization V.A. Pokrovsky and B.M. Nilus.

Guide to Architectural Styles

Among architects, Vladimirov is sometimes mentioned. The design of the building was personally approved by the emperor. The architects used motifs from Russian architecture of the second half of the 17th century in the external decoration of the loan treasury.

The façade is lined with smooth and diamond rustication with decorative carvings. The building is crowned with a turret and spire. It used to house a double-headed eagle. The entrance to the building of the loan treasury is decorated with a tented canopy. The symmetrical composition repeats the principle that V.A. Pokrovsky used for a similar building in Nizhny Novgorod.

The interior design corresponded to the exterior: the operating rooms, the main staircase and the lobby were decorated with stucco moldings and paintings based on sketches by Ivan Bilibin. And the Bilibinsk double-headed eagle with crowns was not only repeated many times in the decoration of the interiors and facade of the building, but also made it a symbol of the State Bank. It is still present on Russian banknotes.

How to read facades: a cheat sheet on architectural elements

The building in Nastasinsky was built for a loan office, but in Soviet times the State Repository of Valuables (Gokhran) was located here. Confiscated goods were brought here. There was no time to describe and place what was brought. And a lot of things were quickly and cheaply sold abroad.

We stopped at a large five-story building. I entered it... reality immediately disappeared somewhere, and a fairy tale took its place. I was suddenly transported back to childhood, to that happy time when my nanny told me in her measured, calm voice fairy tales about robbers who stored the treasures they had looted in deep basements... And then the fairy tale stood before me... I wandered through the huge rooms littered with chests, baskets, boxes, just bundles in old torn sheets, tablecloths... All this was full of jewelry, somehow dumped in these rooms... In some places, jewelry lay in heaps on the floor, on the windowsills. Antique silver dishes were lying around along with artistically crafted tiaras, necklaces, cigarette cases, earrings, silver and gold snuff boxes... There were baskets completely filled with precious stones without a right... There were also royal jewelry... There were purely museum objects lying around... and all this without any accounting. True, there were sentries both outside and inside. There was also a manager who did not have the slightest idea about the quantity or value of the jewelry in his department...

The loan treasury building is still used for banking needs - here, in the largest fireproof vault in Moscow, the Central Bank vault is located.

Nastasinsky lane, 3
1913-1914, architect. V.A. Pokrovsky and B.M. Nilus

It’s a shame when you, a Muscovite, cannot immediately name the exact location of the house in the Tverskaya area. It’s doubly offensive if a girl asks you. And even a resident of St. Petersburg who knows her city quite well! It’s good that there is Google and other modern gadgets.
So, answering a question from St. Petersburg, I learned about the building of the Loan Treasury in Nastasinsky Lane. “So what if I didn’t know before,” I reassured myself, “I’m still not a big fan of Peter’s architecture!”
Subsequently, as if on purpose, I began to come across pictures depicting the Loan Treasury, and it became clear that this was not the era of Peter the Great. Apparently neo-Russian style.
But a little over a year ago, walking around Nizhny Novgorod and discovering a local one, I enthusiastically ran around it and repeated that there is nothing like it in Moscow. And about the architect V.A. I didn’t know anything about Pokrovsky at that time. I didn’t know that he was almost the most prolific romantic of the neo-Russian style. I didn’t know that he was the builder of fabulous temples and towers of public buildings. Finally, I didn’t know that he also designed the chambers of the Loan Treasury in Nastasinsky. True, together with B. Nilus.

It was not by chance that I ranked the treasury among the monuments of Peter the Great’s time. Still, it was precisely on the basis of the processing of the Moscow-Yaroslavl heritage of the 17th century. a branch of the neo-Russian style arose in which Pokrovsky designed bank buildings. The image and decorative elements of the treasury in Nastasinsky Lane are stylized by the Naryshkin Baroque temples and, in part, by the well-known church in Dubrovitsy.

The neo-Russian style is often considered a national-romantic offshoot of Art Nouveau. Indeed, there are neo-Russian buildings that carry all the style-forming features of modernity and are a kind of fairy-tale improvisation on the theme of ancient Russian art. However, many buildings of the early 20th century, erected using Russian traditions, gravitated towards the more familiar Russian style and only externally used some techniques and decorative elements of Art Nouveau. Often, the heritage of ancient Russian architecture, Russian style and modernism were combined in the neo-Russian style in a wide variety of proportions and combinations.

In this case, the boyar chambers were supposed to disguise the business purpose of the building. Large tower windows served to illuminate the operating room. As art historians note, “this was in conflict with the principles of Art Nouveau, where identifying the real structure played a role in O a greater role in achieving the expressiveness of the architectural image."

To whom, and V.A. Pokrovsky cannot be denied expressiveness. And of course, the building of the Loan Treasury is one of the striking examples of the national-romantic direction of Moscow architecture, along with Pertsov’s Malyutinsky house, Vasnetsov’s Tretyakov Gallery, and the Kuznetsov’s courtyard of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery. And I am glad that a friend from St. Petersburg discovered this monument for me.

The Russian loan treasury was created in 1772 at the suggestion of Ivan Ivanovich Betsky, personal secretary of Catherine II, president of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Betskoy sought to protect those in need from “self-serving moneylenders who oppress poor fellow citizens under the false cover of virtues.”

Such credit institutions were opened at educational homes in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The Moscow Loan Treasury issued loans in amounts up to 1,000 rubles for a period of 12 months at 6% per annum, secured by gold, silver or valuables.

The loan treasury did not have its own budget, and its functioning was ensured by the established interest rate of 5% per annum.

The construction of a new building for the loan treasury in Nastasinsky Lane in Moscow was timed to coincide with the tercentenary of the House of Romanov (1913). The project was personally approved by Emperor Nicholas II. The authors of the project were architects Vladimir Pokrovsky and Bogdan Nilus. Construction was completed in 1916. In the production of bricks for the loan treasury, not water was used, but egg white. The interiors were made according to sketches by the artist Ivan Bilibin. The double-headed eagle with crowns he drew later became the symbol of the State Bank and is printed on banknotes.

However, the loan treasury did not last long. The Bolsheviks who came to power immediately nationalized the establishment. The first thing to do was to knock down the double-headed eagles from its façade and roof (they were restored in the 1990s), and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs was located in the premises.

In 1920, on the basis of the loan treasury, the State Repository of Valuables (Gokhran) was created. Confiscated valuables of wealthy citizens, church property, as well as masterpieces of the Moscow Kremlin were brought to the building.

The situation that reigned inside the building is described in his memoirs about Lenin by Georgy Solomon (Deputy People's Commissar of Trade and Industry of the RSFSR), who was involved in the implementation of national values: “I was suddenly transported to childhood, when my nanny told me tales about robbers who stored the treasures they had looted in deep basements... I wandered through huge rooms littered with chests, baskets, boxes, just bundles in old torn sheets, tablecloths... All this was full of jewelry, somehow dumped in these rooms... In some places, jewelry lay in heaps on the floor, on the windowsills. Antique silver dishes were lying around along with artistically crafted tiaras, necklaces, cigarette cases, earrings, silver and gold snuff boxes... Everything was thrown somehow together... There were baskets completely filled with precious stones without frames... There were also royal jewels ... There were purely museum items lying around... and all this without any accounting. True, there were sentries both outside and inside. There was also a manager who did not have the slightest idea about the quantity or value of the jewelry in his department...”

In 1941, the building came under the jurisdiction of the State Bank, and then the Central Bank.

Printed Russian banknotes were brought here and placed in a storage facility located here. Then, as needed, they were counted and distributed throughout the country.

In 2002, this scheme ceased to operate, the building was closed to visitors, and now it houses one of the largest fireproof storage facilities of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

The interior decoration of the premises remained virtually undamaged throughout the entire period; only portraits of the rulers of the Russian Empire were removed from the interiors created by Bilibin.

Perhaps someday the building will be opened for excursions; it is planned to create a museum of the history of money here.

The memorable building on Nastasinsky Lane was built in 1913-1916 for the Loan Treasury according to the design of the outstanding architect V.A. Pokrovsky, one of the founders of the neo-Russian style. Its architectural solution is close to that of the State Bank building in Nizhny Novgorod, built by Pokrovsky shortly before (also together with B. Nilus, who built a lot for banks).

The Moscow Loan Treasury was an institution that actually performed the functions of a pawnshop: it issued short-term loans in amounts up to 1 thousand rubles. for a period of 12 months at 6% per annum, secured by gold, silver or valuables.

The style of the building was determined by the widely celebrated 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov in 1913. The architect created a recognizable image, stylizing (and sometimes almost directly quoting) images of Naryshkin style architecture with characteristic white stone details - they are referenced by the second floor platbands with hanging weights, “recumbent” windows and white stone ridges that complete the attic, decorated with double-headed eagles, alternating with the Moscow coat of arms The diamond rustication on the facade probably refers to the famous Church of the Sign in Dubrovitsy, but the overall symmetry of the facade creates the image of a representative public building. The spectacular silhouette of the building is also formed by the small tower with a spire crowning it and the tented canopy above the entrance, which are especially interesting from angles opening from Tverskaya Street. Under the windows on the central part of the facade there is a stylized inscription “Russian Loan Treasury” and the dates of construction - 1913-1916.

The interiors of the building, currently inaccessible to the public, were painted according to sketches by Ivan Bilibin. The double-headed eagle with crowns he painted, repeated many times both in the interior paintings and in the white stone design of the facade, became one of the symbols of the State Bank and was printed on banknotes.

In 1920, on the basis of the Moscow Loan Treasury, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars, the State Repository of Valuables (Gokhran) was created in order to create a unified apparatus for recording and storing valuables of a material nature, seized from liquidated trading enterprises (which traded them), from banks (where the valuables were located) in the form of deposits in storage or in safes), from private city and government pawnshops.

The double-headed eagles that decorated the building were knocked down (they were restored only in the post-Soviet period).

G.A.’s colorful testimony about the life of the building at this time has been preserved. Solomon, attracted to the implementation of national values: “We stopped at a large five-story building. I entered it, and... reality immediately disappeared somewhere, and a fairy tale took its place. I was suddenly transported back to childhood, to that happy time when my nanny told me in her measured, calm voice fairy tales about robbers who stored the treasures they had looted in deep basements... And then the fairy tale stood before me... I wandered through the huge rooms littered with chests, baskets, boxes, just bundles in old torn sheets, tablecloths... All this was full of jewelry, somehow dumped in these rooms... In some places, jewelry lay in heaps on the floor, on the windowsills. Antique silver dishes were lying around along with artistically crafted tiaras, necklaces, cigarette cases, earrings, silver and gold snuff boxes... Everything was thrown somehow together... There were baskets completely filled with precious stones without frames... There were also royal jewels ... There were purely museum items lying around... and all this without any accounting. True, there were sentries both outside and inside. There was also a manager who did not have the slightest idea about the quantity or value of the jewelry in his department...”

Since 1941 the building has been occupied State bank, now Central Bank.