Yaroslavl region. History of the Yaroslavl region. “I walked on the rails to Babi Yar”: the story of a surviving child

I read the following books as sources for this article:
Babi Yar: man, power, history. Documents and materials. In 5 books
Book 1. Historical topography. Chronology of events (597 pages)

The tragedy of Babi Yar in German documents. A. Kruglov

https://www.ushmm.org/ — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

http://www.yadvashem.org - Yad Vashem. The World Holocaust Remembrance Center

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/— Holocaust Research Project (Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team)

Capture of Kyiv by German troops

After six weeks of fierce fighting for Kyiv, soldiers of the German 6th Army and the 29th Army Corps of the Wehrmacht entered the city September 19, 1941 Before the start of the war with Germany, in largest city Ukraine was inhabited, according to various sources, from 846 to 930 thousand people. By the time German soldiers entered the city on September 19, 1941, approximately 400,000 residents remained in Kyiv - 200 thousand men and women were drafted into the Red Army and about 300 thousand more were evacuated or left on their own.

Approximately every fourth resident of the city was Jewish. Exact quantity It is difficult to establish - according to various sources it varies from 175,000 to 230,000 people. The 1939 census showed a figure of 224,236 Jews out of 846 thousand inhabitants.

The fact is that after the division of Poland, there was a massive resettlement of people in the Western part of the now expanded Soviet Union. The beginning of the war in June 1941 was marked by:

Natural evacuation of people to the East.
The entry of Jews into the ranks of the Red Army, including the one defending Kyiv.
Evacuation of military and strategically important enterprises to the East, along with the workforce (20,000 - 30,000 Jews left Kyiv).

According to various sources, at the time of entry German army to the city of Kyiv, it still had 40 000 to 60 000 Jewish population of 400,000 civilians.

Explosions on Khreshchatyk on September 24

On September 24, 1941, the center of Kiev, especially the main Khreschatyk Avenue, was engulfed in fire. The charges, planted weeks before the surrender of the city by a special detachment of NKVD saboteurs and set off deliberately, destroyed the main street, making 50,000 people homeless. The bombs were planted, among other things, in buildings that were now occupied by German troops - the German headquarters and the Continental Hotel, where German officers were located. When the fire hose, which was used to extinguish the fire, was turned off, a Jewish resident was caught and killed on the spot, which was used by the Germans as a pretext for a future act of retaliation for sabotage.

Response measures of the occupation authorities

Major General Kurt Eberhard, commander of the occupying forces in the city, called a meeting. It was attended by local SS leaders (police detachments arrived in the city just behind the Wehrmacht), the commander of Einsatzgruppe C, SS-Brigadeführer Otto Rasch, and the commander of Sonderkommando 4a, Standartenführer Paul Blobel. It was decided that, in retaliation for the arson, all the Jews of Kyiv would be exterminated by Sonderkommando 4a. It included SD officers, Reich Security Police, and Waffen-SS soldiers. Employees of police battalions and local Ukrainian police forces were also involved.

A ravine known in the city as Babi Yar, on the edge of the city, 10 km from the center, was chosen as the location for the mass actions. On September 28, 1941, the German headquarters of the 6th Army printed and distributed leaflets throughout the city in Ukrainian, Russian and German languages. They, under threat of execution, ordered all Jews in Kyiv and the surrounding area to gather at the intersection of Melnikova and Dokterivskaya streets by 8 a.m. on September 29. You had to take documents, money, warm clothes and valuables with you. Residents of Kyiv, whose older generation still remembered the First World War, did not see the Germans as a mortal threat, including the Jews of the city and, of course, could not imagine massacres. In addition, the leaflet stated that looters and Jews who occupied houses would be shot. People contemplated evacuation, collecting things and documents, and even hoped for the protection of their property. The Germans had also spread rumors the day before that the Jews would be sent to labor camps, and since the collection point was located near the Lukyanovskaya freight station, this calmed people down. August 29 was also not chosen by chance - the main Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, fell on this Monday.

Promotions September 29-30

On the morning of August 29, people began to gather at the appointed place - at the intersection of Melnikova and Dokterivskaya streets. Soldiers from the SD, SS and local Ukrainian auxiliary police divided the thousands of people who came into groups of 100 people and escorted them on foot to the northwest, to the old Jewish cemetery, behind which was the Babi Yar tract. The entire perimeter of the ravine was previously surrounded by a barbed wire fence and three security lines. Ukrainian police were responsible for the outer one, in the second there were both Germans and locals, and in the inner perimeter there were only German soldiers.

On site, people were forced to leave all their belongings - they were piled up, including valuables and documents - and to undress. In groups of 10 people, people were taken outside the fence, placed on the edge of a ravine and shot from machine guns and stationary machine guns. While one batch was being destroyed, the next unfortunate ones heard machine-gun fire and screams just a couple of tens of meters away. Upon arrival everything more people, the Germans began to save ammunition. They laid people head to head on the ground and killed them with one bullet, they threw small children alive into a ravine, they finished off the unfortunate people with shovels or simply left them to die.

Among those killed at Babi Yar on September 29, there were few men (who fought at the front, taken prisoner by the Germans or evacuated from their enterprises) - mostly women, children and old people - many sick people, people on stretchers. The firing squads expected the arrival of 5,000–6,000 people, but over the course of the whole day, five times that number passed through the mass actions. The active phase of executions continued until October 3, 1941, but most of the Jews were killed in just 2 days on September 29-30. The property taken from the killed was placed at the disposal of the occupation authorities and distributed at their discretion. As for the Jews remaining in the city, they were raided, the German police received reports from local residents. There were also those who, under threat of death, sheltered Jews - to date, 431 people have been awarded the honorary title of Righteous Among the Nations for saving the Jews of Kyiv.

According to a secret memo from Einsatzgruppe C dated October 7, 33,771 Jews were killed in the first two days alone. On April 1, 1942, a population census was carried out in Kyiv, which showed a figure of 352 thousand people (out of approximately 400,000 at the time of the occupation of Kyiv)

It is important to understand that the morning of September 29, 1941 was not the first day of the executions at Babi Yar - a cross-comparison of testimonies of people who lived on the adjacent streets, collected by the Extraordinary Commission in 1943-1944. made it possible to establish earlier facts of massacres in the Babi Yar ravine. According to the recollections of witnesses, already in the first days after the German troops entered Kyiv, columns of Soviet prisoners of war with shovels were led towards Lukyanovka and Babi Yar, but they did not return. According to documents, the advanced detachments of Sonderkommando 4a SS entered the city together with the Wehrmacht on September 19th. Group headquarters and main units - by September 25. A general report on the activities of Einsatztgruppe C in November 1941 indicated periodic punitive actions against suspicious prisoners of war and their removal from transit camps. A whole series of testimonies speak of the first mass execution of the Jewish population at Babi Yar (about 1,600 people) already on September 27, 1941, two days before the mass action itself.

According to testimony and reports on the activities of Einsatzgruppe C on the territory of Ukraine and in particular Sonderkommando 4a in Kyiv, mass killings of the Jewish population took place with varying intensity during October-November 1941. Jews from the outskirts of Kyiv, including those arrested, began to be brought to Babi Yar During the raids, old people and sick people who were unable to move independently were brought in from hospitals. For this, different participants in the ravine were selected, since the main sites of executions on September 29 and 30, located near the former Jewish cemetery, were covered with earth. Already on September 30, after the destruction, according to German documents, of 33,771 Jews, the edges of the ravine were blown up and driven Soviet prisoners of war covered the bottom of Babi Yar with a layer of earth. The photographs available today show the work of burying the remains, in which, under the control of SS soldiers and police, prisoners of war are visible at the bottom of the ravine in October 1941.

The killings at Babi Yar did not end there - during two years of occupation, at different periods, only about 70,000 civilians, Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, representatives religious communities, such as Roma, Roma camps in the city were destroyed. After most of the Jews remaining in the city were shot during mass actions in September-October 1941, punitive detachments began killing communist prisoners of war and the civilian population. Also, over time, the failure of attempts to cooperate with Ukrainian nationalist organizations led to mass killings of them, including at Babi Yar.

On October 13, 1941, 308 sick Jews from the Psychiatric Clinic named after. Pavlova, located nearby. In the morning, about 25 SS soldiers and German police officers began to take mentally ill Jews out of the hospital one by one. Pushed with sticks, the unfortunates walked about 150 meters to a pit, five meters long and two wide. There they were ordered to undress and lie face down in a hole in neat rows. Afterwards, the soldiers shot those lying down with single shots to the head from machine guns. A secret German report on actions on the territory of the USSR in November of the same year indicated that the execution of the mentally ill was mentally difficult for SS soldiers. On January 8, 1942, the Germans drove a gas van (a gas chamber that had already been tested months earlier in Poland at the Chelmno death camp) to the hospital. Pavlova. On that day, about 300 more mentally ill people, no longer Jews, were killed. In March and October 1942, two more similar actions with gas chambers were carried out. The bodies were then taken to mass graves in Babi Yar. Also, during 1941-1943, several thousand Soviet prisoners of war, who were kept here in the hospital at the hospital, were buried in a ravine near the hospital as a result of actions or after death from hunger and disease.

Destruction of traces of massacres

In March 1942, several high-ranking Nazi officials drove a car near the Babi Yar tract. In response to comments about small explosions of gases escaping from the ground, the commander of SS Sonderkommando 4a Paul Blobel ironically explained that these were corpse gases from thousands of bodies buried in the ground. After leaving, Blobel returned to Kyiv in July 1943. The failures of the Wehrmacht at the front and the active offensive of Soviet troops in Ukraine brought the liberation of the city closer. Blobel was tasked, as part of the secret operation Aktion 1005 (to conceal evidence of massacres in the occupied territories), to destroy evidence of mass actions in Kyiv, in particular at Babi Yar. Blobel's troops were given assistance from SD and Security Police soldiers, under the leadership of their commander in Ukraine, SS Gruppenführer Max Thomas. From these combined units, three groups of troops were organized, two of which were supposed to destroy evidence on the territory of Ukraine, and one - in Belarus.

Already on August 18, 1943. Sonderkommando 1005a began organizing work on the exhumation and burning of victims Holocaust at Babi Yar. It consisted of 8-10 SD members, up to 30 Security Police officers, under the general leadership of SS officer Baumann.

As a labor force for the exhumation of tens of thousands of bodies at Babi Yar, the Germans selected prisoners (among them there were about 100 Jews) of the Syretsky concentration camp, located here, near the borders of the ditch. The work of exhuming and burning the bodies took six weeks. Prisoners in shackles, under the cruel leadership of German guards, built large open ovens (tombstones from the former Jewish cemetery, iron fences from the same place and rails, firewood), on which up to 2000 bodies were gradually laid out in layers at a time, after which another layer of firewood was laid, doused with oil or gasoline from a compressor and set it on fire. Some fires burned for up to two days to destroy the bodies of the unfortunate people. Afterwards, the prisoners of the Syretsky camp had to collect the remains of bones and ashes and grind them into powder along with the tombstones from the neighboring Jewish cemetery. Afterwards, the ashes were also examined for gold or silver crowns and jewelry. On September 29, 1943, out of 327 prisoners at Babi Yar, they managed to attack the German guards and 18 managed to escape - they became the most important witnesses to the crimes committed at Babi Yar, and the remaining members of the Sonderkommando were killed by the SS.

Collaborationism

Without the assistance of some local citizen collaborators, the German occupation forces would not have been able to carry out mass punitive actions on the territory of Kyiv with such calculated efficiency. After the war, trials of former police collaborators took place. In cases in Kyiv, charges were brought against 82 former police officers. Among them, 73 were Ukrainians by nationality, six Russians, two Germans and one Pole - a ratio similar to the demographic situation on the eve of the war. Only a few of the accused had higher education, as well as ideological prejudices of a nationalist nature. They were mainly driven by fear for their fate, the desire to adapt to the new government, and greed (access to the property of those killed).

Red Army forces liberated Kyiv from German troops on November 6, 1943, after twenty-six months of occupation. The city lay in ruins for the most part, and its population now amounted to only 180 thousand people. War correspondent Boris Polevoy was among the first representatives of the press who ended up in Babi Yar after the liberation of the city. A group of military men reached the ravine to check rumors that were spreading even outside the city about the massacres that took place there. The military discovered human remains in one of the ravines of Babyn Yar, which was later reflected in military reports.

The Soviet authorities also decided to take an unprecedented step - in addition to Soviet correspondents, they invited Western journalists to Kyiv to witness the site of the mass executions by the Germans at Babi Yar at the end of November 1943. Among them were two American journalists: Bill Lawrence and Bill Downes ( Bill Downs). The first was known for his reporting from the Pacific front, and the second was later subjected to severe criticism in the United States for, as it seemed to some, excessive sympathy for the Soviets. The tone of their reports was different and all this against the background of then still great skepticism in the West regarding the Holocaust in Europe (before the discovery of the horrors of the death camps in 1944-1945 in Poland and concentration camps in Germany and other countries). American journalists also had the opportunity to conduct shocking interviews with the few survivors of the Babi Yar executions and escaped prisoners of the Syretsky concentration camp.

In addition to witnessing acts of mass murder, the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of Atrocities was involved in the investigation of the circumstances and scale, already at the end of 1943 Nazi invaders. Activities included a detailed study of the sites of the Babi Yar massacres, including examination of the remains of murdered people and the infrastructure for burning corpses. Medical examinations were carried out, testimonies were collected from surviving victims and witnesses to the tragedy. Despite baseless claims that the commission found no physical evidence, five former graves at Babyn Yar were exhumed, two of which contained remains of bodies, and the rest - unburnt remains of corpses destroyed in August-September 1943.

Syretsky Concentration Camp

One of the 53 branches of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, which received its name due to the location and the former Soviet military camps here (At the time of the occupation of the city, there was a repair and maintenance facility nearby armored units).Syretsky concentration camp for the enemies of the Reich was organized by the Germans early spring 1942 At first, prisoners lived under open air, and by the summer the dugouts had been erected. The territory was well guarded by SS and police teams consisting of 120-150 local residents, and there was also a police cordon around the camp. Two rows of high fences with barbed wire were interspersed in the middle with high-voltage wires. The main gate of the camp overlooked the upper spurs of Babi Yar, and inside there was also an internal gate, to which there was a corridor along which the prisoners were taken out and taken in, beating them with sticks.

Simultaneously in Syretsky concentration camp Up to 3,000 prisoners were held. The main area of the camp was carefully illuminated with spotlights to control order. Its territory was divided into working and residential zones. The latter, additionally fenced with a cordon of barbed wire and security posts. Inside the living area there was also a separate women's area - it was separated into a separate barracks in September 1942. The prisoners lived in self-dug dugouts and barracks of 70-80 people each. They were trenches with an earthen staircase, where logs and a layer of earth served as a roof, and iron door locked the dugout from the outside. There was a division of prisoners here, including a Jewish dugout.

The commandant of the Syretsky concentration camp was SS officer Paul Rodomski. He gave orders to the so-called centurions, from among the privileged prisoners, and they passed them on to the brigadiers. The range of work for prisoners was extensive and included the preparation of coal and firewood and various kinds carpentry and earthworks. The rise was at 4 o'clock in the morning, and at 5 the prisoners already went to work, which, with a break for lunch, lasted until 9 o'clock in the evening. 200 grams of bad bread, lean stew and something like coffee - the usual diet of a prisoner of the Syretsky concentration camp during exhausting, often humiliating work. The prisoners caught stray animals and ate plants. Some relatives who remained in Kyiv, under threat of execution, brought secret parcels to the prisoners. The sick were placed in a separate barracks, where those who did not die themselves were shot, including this was systematically done by Commandant Ratomski.

To dispose of the corpses of systematically dying of hunger and disease or executed prisoners of the Syretsky concentration camp, pits were dug in the territory, and some of the corpses were carried out for burial in Babi Yar or in the anti-tank ditch nearby. Most of the bodies of prisoners were burned in hastily created ovens, which, at different periods of time, also served corpses from imported gas vans (gas chambers), to which, again, prisoners were involved. Simultaneously with the destruction of traces of crimes in the neighboring Babi Yar, in September 1943, the Syretsky camp began to be evacuated - people were sent to other camps and even to Germany. After the escape of 18 prisoners from the sites where bodies were burned at Babi Yar, the Syretsky concentration camp existed for another month, until the last days of October 1943 and the approach of Soviet troops to the city. Soon after liberation, the former concentration camp was used to hold German prisoners of war captured during the battles for Kyiv, and in this role it operated right up to 1949. For three years after liberation from the Germans, until 1947, an Extraordinary Commission worked on the territory of the former Syretsky concentration camp , who during excavations discovered a number of common graves with the bodies of exhausted prisoners.

In total, the number of victims who died in a year and a half in the Syretsky camp is 20,000 - 25,000 people. At the end of the 1960s, a residential area of houses was erected on the site of the former Syretsky camp, in which hundreds of Kyiv families now live.

Trials of criminals

The trials of war criminals responsible for the mass executions of people in Kyiv, in particular at Babyn Yar, had a wide geography. Some of them took place in Kyiv itself, some in other cities of the USSR. Evidence of the atrocities of Babi Yar was also heard in Nuremberg, in particular at the so-called Nuremberg trials in the Einsatzgruppen case. In 1948, an American tribunal sentenced Paul Blobel, commander of Sonderkommando 4a, to death penalty, which was carried out in 1951. The commander of Einsatzgruppe C, Otto Rasch, never received the death sentence - his trial was stopped due to health problems of the accused - he died in custody on November 1, 1948. Military commandant of Kyiv in 1941-1942, Major General of the Wehrmacht Kurt Eberhard, who convened the meeting and gave the order to prepare an act of retaliation against the city's Jews, committed suicide in American captivity in 1947.

Babi Yar after the war

After the liberation of the city of Kyiv in November 1943, the neighboring Syretsky camp began to be used to hold prisoners of war. Babi Yar itself did not change its appearance for the first years after the war. There was a serious question about restoring the infrastructure and housing stock city, which was soon to receive hundreds of thousands former residents returning from evacuation, Soviet soldiers and residents of the surrounding area. To cover the ever-increasing capacity of construction enterprises with local raw materials, in October 1944, one of the sections of Babyn Yar was allocated a sand quarry. Next year, city planners plan to lay highways around Babyn Yar and build 180 residential buildings in the area. Plan for the restoration of the urban economy already for the 1948-1950s. included clauses on the creation of a park at Babi Yar and the construction of a memorial to the victims of the Nazi occupation, which, authored by the chief architect of the city, Vlasov, was to be opened already in 1950 on the site of former massacres.

According to the general plan of Kyiv in subsequent years, around former territory New roads are being built at the Syretsk concentration camp (today's - Rizhskaya, Shchuseva, Elena Teliga - in 1953, 1953 and 1957, respectively). In order to lay a highway connecting the area with others, and to prevent the expansion of the Babi Yar ravine, back in 1950 a proposal was voiced to eliminate it by dumping soil here from the brick factories nearby, which was later transformed in bureaucratic authorities. It was planned to almost completely level the entire Babi Yar, including its upper spurs, where the main massacres took place during the German occupation, from the neighboring ground level. The actual washout of the spurs of Babyn Yar began in 1954, even in the area where the existing gas pipeline was laid.

Gradually, water begins to accumulate in the ravines of Babi Yar, which time and drainage systems cannot cope with. The fact is that officials decided to fill the spurs with liquid pulp - a mixture of clay, water and sand, which they began to divert here with a specially built pipeline from the Petrovsky brick factories No. 1 and 2. Water with sand and clay begins to pour out of the ravine and flood the adjacent infrastructure and about emergency situation Engineers report already in 1957. On March 13, 1961, the dam that held the liquid mass could not withstand failure. A column of water with mud, clay and sand 4 meters high, washed up there over the past seven years, rushed into residential areas near Babyn Yar and its lower spurs (northeastern part), demolishing people, cars and trees in its path. The local tram depot and a stadium under construction were also damaged. According to official data alone, which was underestimated in a state of extreme secrecy, 145 people died and 143 people were hospitalized in the city. According to unofficial estimates, based on the population density of the area before the accident, up to 1,500 dead.

In 1962, an order was issued to liquidate the old Jewish cemetery near Babi Yar, from where, in August-September 1943, tombstones and gates were taken to burn corpses in improvised ovens. In the same year, it was decided to build a television center and then a sports complex on the site of the old Jewish cemetery. A television tower 382 meters high is being erected on part of the territory of the pre-war military cemetery. In 1968, Orangereinaya Street was built along the ravine, just twenty meters from the place where people were undressed before the massacres at Babi Yar. On the territory of the former ravine, a cultural and recreation park of regional significance is being built, which was generally completed in 1980.

And yet, in 1971, the project to perpetuate the memory of the victims of the German occupation was approved and part of the territory of the former upper spurs of Babyn Yar was allocated for the construction of the monument. On July 2, 1976, at the site of former mass executions, a monument to “Soviet citizens and prisoners of war soldiers and officers” was opened Soviet Army, shot by the German fascists at Babi Yar." During its construction, despite the previous wash of mud at Babi Yar, the builders encountered a ten-centimeter layer of ash from human remains. In 1991, memorial plaques in Russian and Yiddish were placed on the monument; also, due to a location error, a Menorah memorial sign was installed outside the boundaries of the former Jewish cemetery. In 1992, a memorial cross to the victims of the OUN UPA was erected on the territory. In the 1990s, memorial signs were also installed to the victims of the Syretsky concentration camp and three Dynamo football players (participants in the death march) who were shot not far from it. In 2000, a new Dorogozhichi metro station was opened near the local highway, right on the site of the former Babi Yar. A year later, a monument to the children killed by the Germans at Babi Yar was erected nearby. In 2001, the complex of Babyn Yar monuments was given the status of historical monuments by the Ukrainian authorities.

Yevtushenko - Poem Babi Yar

In 1961, the Soviet writer Evgeniy Yevtushenko publishes a poem called Babi Yar - a small rhymed work. In it, the author simultaneously emphasizes the problem of anti-Semitism in the USSR, draws parallels with the entire history of the Jewish people and emphasizes that the site of the massacres and human tragedy at Babyn Yar is a wasteland, where there is not even a monument to the victims of the Holocaust. Yevtushenko raised the taboo topic of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, for which he was sharply criticized both by the authorities (even Nikita Khrushchev personally), and by the public and some colleagues. The author has been under attack for decades for his poem Babi Yar. Based on the poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Babi Yar, the iconic Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich composed the symphony.

Babi Yar Kuznetsov

In 1966, the Soviet magazine Yunost (issues 8-9-10) published a book by Soviet writer Anatoly Kuznetsov entitled Babi Yar. The author, at the time of the occupation of Kyiv by the Germans in 1941, was 12 years old and he, together with his mother, grandfather and grandmother, lived in the Kurenevka area, not far from Babyn Yar. In his book Babi Yar, Anatoly Kuznetsov (he called it a novel-document) offers a comprehensive picture of the German occupation of Kyiv in 1941-1943, both from his own memories and based on eyewitness accounts and documents. He describes in detail the mass executions at Babi Yar, the activities of the Syretsky concentration camp and the post-war fate of the area, in particular the destruction of traces by the Soviet authorities and the Kurenevsky tragedy of 1961. The novel was subjected to strict censorship - entire passages of anti-war philosophy, criticism of communism, the Soviet Union were thrown out of it - in USSR, the complete version of the novel never saw the light of day. The author himself left the Soviet Union forever in 1969, and the first complete edition of Babyn Yar was published in 1970 in Germany. Babi Yar by Anatoly Kuznetsov considered a classic of anti-war literature. In 2009, in Kyiv, not far from the place where Kuznetsov lived with his family during the war, a monument to the writer was unveiled (a boy reading a German order on the wall).

Useful article? Tell us about her!

"...How long will I be in this hungry melancholy
Involuntary fasting
And with cold veal
Remember Yar's truffles?..."
A.S. Pushkin.

Who hasn't heard of the legendary restaurant "Yar"!

The history of “Yar” begins in 1826, when on the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Neglinka in the house of the Senate clerk Ludwig Schavan (pictured left) “a restaurant was opened with lunch and dinner tables, all sorts of grape wines and liqueurs, desserts, coffee and tea at very moderate prices.” prices." The owner of this “restaurant” with a hotel was the Frenchman Tranquil Yard.

Photo from the 1900s.

Coming to Moscow, A.S. Pushkin repeatedly visited the Yard restaurant. On January 27, 1831, Pushkin, Baratynsky, Vyazemsky and Yazykov commemorated their mutual friend, poet Anton Delvig, who died on January 14.
Pushkin also had a favorite dish in the restaurant - sweet soup with rhubarb.

Evgeniy Abramovich Baratynsky..

Petr Andreevich Vyazemsky 1792-1878.

Anton Antonovich Delvig (1798-1831).

Pushkin also had a favorite dish in the restaurant - sweet soup with rhubarb.

Just in case, I’m including the recipe* in case you want to try it.
1 liter of apple juice, half a kilo of raspberries, 150 g of sugar, honey to taste. Add cinnamon, star anise, cloves and allspice to them and cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Then add 100 grams of rhubarb and 150 grams of cream to the boiling mass. Beat everything hot with a mixer, strain through fine sieve, let cool. Served chilled. You can decorate with fresh mint leaves, whipped cream, and vanilla sauce. (Recommended to serve with chocolate cake).

Photo from the late 19th century.

Police lists have preserved a list of persons who stayed at the Yara Hotel (Yarda) and were under police supervision. In 1832, there lived Pavel Alekseevich Golitsyn, a former participant in the foreign campaigns of 1813-1814, a member of the Union of Welfare. On January 6, 1842, while passing through St. Petersburg, N.P. stopped here. Ogarev, and in February 1846, after a trip abroad, he was here again with N.M. Satin. “We haven’t seen each other for several years...” said A.I. Herzen. With a beating heart, Granovsky and I rushed to Yar, where they were staying.”
Several years - from 1848 to 1851. — “Yar” worked in the Hermitage garden, but not in the Hermitage garden on Petrovka, which we all know well, but in the old one on Bozhedomka**.
And in 1851, "Yar" opened as a country restaurant in Petrovsky Park, on the Petersburg Highway (now Leningradsky Prospekt) in the ownership of General Bashilov. On this site, although rebuilt several times, it still exists today.

Photo from the 1890s. Restaurant "Yar" on Petersburg highway.

This is now the beginning of Leningradsky Prospekt - prestigious, central region“not that far from the Kremlin.” And then, in the middle of the 19th century, it was a countryside area surrounded by gardens and dachas. Having moved outside the city, “Yar” did not move into the category of run-of-the-mill restaurants that are of interest only to summer residents. The road to "Yar" both in winter and in summer at night was brightly lit, and along it crazy threesomes were jumping- all at Yar. One of the most famous aphorisms about Yar - “They don’t go to Yar, they end up in Yar” - very accurately reflects the specifics of the establishment and its regulars. They “ended up” in “Yar”, having reached a certain state... Intoxication? No, a state of mind when this broad Russian soul asks for daring revelry, scope and “no one can contradict me.” That’s when the troikas rushed to Yar, to the gypsies.

It was at this time that the gypsy choir became an inseparable part of Yar. The leader of this choir, as well as the relationship between the singers and their fans, was Anna Zakharovna Ivanova, talented not only as a singer, but also as an organizer. The gypsy choir “from Yar” becomes the best in Moscow, the gypsies in it are the most vocal and the most beautiful.

Here I will make a small digression and a little about the gypsies.......

Look at this dear man, this is Count Alexei Orlov (“Count Alekhan”) (1737-1807) - one of the most colorful figures of the adventurous and gallant 18th century: hero, rich man, reveler, winner of the Turkish fleet at Chesma, brother of Catherine’s favorite Grigory Orlov, the kidnapper of Princess Tarakanova, the creator of the Oryol trotter breed and, in the end, who started the fashion for gypsies in Russia.

Count Alehan fell in love with gypsy singing during the Russian-Turkish War, and in 1774 he showed Moscow society a curiosity - a gypsy choir and orchestra. He bought some of the choir members on the territory of modern Romania, where the Gypsies were enslaved, recruited some in Russia from the Gypsy ethnic group that had developed by that time, and then gave them their freedom.

The director ("chore-master") of the first professional gypsy choir in Russia was Ivan Trofimovich Sokolov. The artists were assigned to the bourgeois class and settled on Bolshaya and Malaya Gruzinskaya streets in Moscow (this area somehow did not have a historical name).

Following Alekhan’s example, other “Catherine’s eagles” Potemkin and Bezborodko started their gypsy choirs in St. Petersburg. But still, Moscow forever remained the “capital” of Russian gypsies.

Count Alexey Orlov passed away amid the singing of his choir. According to modern doctors, familiar with the descriptions of the symptoms of the disease, he died of cancer. Before his death, he screamed and cursed in pain so much that it could be heard on the street, and the heirs, wanting to maintain decency, ordered the gypsies to play and sing as loudly as possible.

In 1807, the new director of the choir, Ivan Trofimovich’s nephew, Ilya Osipovich Sokolov (1777-1848), a gypsy singer and songwriter, became a favorite of the Moscow (later St. Petersburg) public. By that time, the Moscow gypsies had become so famous that even Napoleon wanted to admire the famous Russian pastime. But in 1812, Sokolov’s choir, having donated a lot of money to the needs of the army, was evacuated to Yaroslavl before the arrival of the French, and all the combat-ready men of the choir volunteered for the hussar regiment at the outbreak of hostilities.

In 1852, "Yar" opened as a country restaurant in Petrovsky Park (now the Dynamo sports complex is located here), on Petersburg Highway (now Leningradsky Prospekt). Around this time, the Sokolovsky Choir began performing at Yar. The fact is that then, for the purity of morals, gypsies were forbidden to sing in city restaurants, and behind the outposts they had every right to perform (Tverskaya Outpost, now the Belorussky Station Square).

Under the new owner of the restaurant F.I. Aksyonov also added to the restaurant: a large orchestra, a Russian and Danish choir, and a winter garden with all sorts of wonders. At this time, the choir was led by Anna Zakharovna Ivanova, a talented singer and at the same time an outstanding “manager”. The gypsy choir "from Yar" was the best in Moscow, and the gypsies in it are the most vocal and the most beautiful. If a manufacturer fell in love with a chorus girl, he had to pay the choir a large sum of money to confirm the “seriousness” of his intentions. Only after this the choir was “not against”, and the process was led, of course, by Anna Zakharovna. It should immediately be added that, in accordance with the prevailing moral atmosphere at that time, all the money earned by the choir was divided among everyone, including the elderly.

Merchants and golden youth, squandering their father's fortunes, sometimes organized crazy festivities at Yar and often simply destroyed the restaurant premises, but these facts, not entirely decent for a respectable establishment, did not discourage the rest of the public from it.

The next owner of the restaurant was the enterprising A.A. Sudakov, who agreed with the management of a nearby hippodrome on mutual customer service. The hippodrome was then the center of Moscow social life, close to Tverskaya Zastava and to the place of festivities of the “pure public” - Petrovsky Park. Respectable fathers of families, having fed their children with cakes in the park's pastry shops, could indulge in revelry in the evening at Yar.

Members of the imperial family and literary bohemia, railway concessionaires, bankers and stockbrokers, artists, and lawyers spent their time at Yar. Savva Morozov was a regular at Yar. Przhevalsky, Chekhov, Kuprin, Gorky, Stanislavsky came here... In all this splendor, the “folk healer and psychotherapist” Rasputin was not averse to a noisy walk.

Visitors were “treated to all kinds of food” in huge, majestic halls and cozy offices located on balconies. According to archives, "Yar" was considered the No. 1 restaurant in Russia and Europe. Why in Europe? Yes, because the French chefs of "Yar" cooked no worse than their fellow countrymen, and in terms of the range and quality of plant, animal and especially gourmet products, Russia at that time was far ahead of all of Europe combined. At Yar, the choice of products for preparing various dishes was innumerable.

The great Russian bass Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (1873-1938), as soon as the public lost interest in him, came to Yar, sang from the balcony of the main hall, then started a noisy brawl with the visitors. The next day, all of Moscow knew about it, and the Bolshoi was guaranteed to be a full house.

Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky (1853-1935), Russian journalist, prose writer, poet. He was one of the best reporters of the capital's press, his strong point was criminal chronicles and reports, he wrote about the most notable and sensational events, he was called the “king of reporters.” Gilyarovsky was the most famous and recognized expert in Moscow. This was manifested at all levels: the writer brilliantly knew the history of the city and its modernity, architecture and geography, high society and the Moscow “bottom”. Gilyarovsky was a living legend. His name was associated with the most incredible stories and incidents. There were also legends about the physical strength of “Uncle Gilay”: he could bend a copper coin with his fingers and tie a poker in a knot. Contemporaries, noting Gilyarovsky’s versatile talents, considered communication to be one of his most notable talents. His friends were many famous contemporaries: Chekhov, Bunin, Kuprin, Chaliapin and many other writers, artists, actors. Of course, Gilyai visited Yar and colorfully described the revelry for which the restaurant became famous.

The position that “Yar” occupied in relation to its guests was the satisfaction of any ( absolutely any) whims and defeat of the imagination - made the restaurant a powerful magnet that attracted Volga and Siberian capital with the inexorability of a boa constrictor.

The St. Petersburg highway, both in winter and summer, was brightly lit at night, and mad troikas were galloping along it - in "Yar".

Photo from the beginning of the 20th century. Petersburg highway. "Yar" is on the right behind the trees.

As they used to say back then: “They don’t go to Yar, they end up in Yar.” When the broad Russian soul demanded revelry - then - in "Yar". If, of course, my money allowed. There is scope, there is the famous gypsy choir of Anna Zakharovna.
In 1871, Fedor Ivanovich Aksyonov became the owner of Yar. The restaurant flourished.

Photo from 1900. The old building of the Yar restaurant.

In 1895, after Aksenov’s death, “Yar” was acquired by Alexey Akimovich Sudakov, a Yaroslavl peasant who achieved everything with his mind and talent. In 1910, he rebuilt “Yar” (architect A. Erichson): from wooden house the restaurant turned into a solid palace with columns. It remains in this building to this day. Houses for employees were built next to the restaurant.
“Coachman, drive to Yar” - a song dedicated to Sudakov, it was sung during the grand opening of the new restaurant building.

Photo of 1911. The new building of "Yar".

Visitors were treated to huge, majestic halls and cozy rooms located on balconies. In the courtyard of the restaurant there was a beautiful summer garden with 250 seats with mysterious stone grottoes, gazebos covered with ivy, a fountain and lawns. In pre-revolutionary times, "Yar" became famous for the revelry so colorfully described by Gilyarovsky.

One of the regulars at Yar was Savva Morozov.

MOROZOV Savva Timofeevich (1862-1905)

One winter he drives up to his favorite restaurant (this was before it was rebuilt), but they don’t let him in. Some merchant is walking around - he rented the restaurant “on the farm” (banquet service, that is). Morozov then picked up some bullshit, brought him to a restaurant and ordered him to break down the wall - “I’m paying for everything.” The wall is being broken down, Savva Timofeevich is sitting in the troika, waiting, that is, to ride on the black ones. He does not give in to persuasion. I don’t want to call the police either - I’m a regular customer, I’ve already left so much money in the restaurant. Somehow the gypsy from the choir persuaded him not to destroy the restaurant.
Otherwise, the merchants loved to play in the “aquarium”. They ordered water to be poured into a huge white piano to the brim and fish were thrown into it.
There was also a price list at Yar for those who like to indulge. The pleasure of smearing mustard on a waiter's face, for example, cost 120 rubles, and throwing a bottle at a Venetian mirror cost 100 rubles. However, all the restaurant’s property was insured for a substantial amount of money.

Photo from 1910. Summer hall of the Yar restaurant.

There was also an imperial box in the restaurant, although Nicholas II did not visit the restaurant, but Grigory Rasputin visited it more than once. However, like his future killer, Prince Felix Yusupov.
At different times, “Yar” was visited by Chekhov and Kuprin, Gorky and Leonid Andreev, Balmont and Bryusov, Chaliapin, the artists the Vasnetsov brothers, Levitan, Repin, Vrubel, Serov...

Photo from the 1910s. New building of the Yar restaurant.

In February 1918, Yar was closed. The Bolsheviks had no time for hazel grouse and pineapples at that time; nettle soup was on the agenda. All that remains from Yar is a song:
Sokolovsky Choir at Yar
Was once famous.
Sokolov guitar
My ears are still ringing.
The troika rushes quickly to the Yar,
The soul is longing for space,
To forget yourself with the guitar,
Hear the gypsy choir......
Chorus:
There's money, money, money everywhere,
There's money everywhere, gentlemen,
And without money life is bad,
No good......

After the revolution, the restaurant was closed. Sudakov was arrested. For a short time, during the New Economic Policy, it also worked as a restaurant, and then a cinema, a gym for Red Army soldiers, a hospital, a film college, and VGIK were registered here in turn. In the 1930s it was rebuilt as a Pilots' Club.

Photo from the early 1930s.

“Yar” no longer existed, but songs about it were heard all over the world. There, across the ocean, the young Hollywood star Deanna Durbin sang the old song “Hey, coachman, drive to the Yar”, accompanied by an “American” gypsy choir.

Photo from the late 1930s. Former "Yar", rebuilt as a pilots' club.

In the early 1950s. the building was rebuilt once again, now beyond recognition, and the Sovetskaya Hotel with a restaurant of the same name was opened in it. A little later, the gypsy theater "Romen" moved in next to the hotel - the spirit of the old "Yar" and Anna Zakharovna's gypsy choir turned out to be attractive.

Photo 1952

Photo from 1954 by A. Tartakovsky. Hotel "Sovetskaya".

Vasily Stalin, the King of Spain Juan Carlos, Indira Gandhi, Vysotsky with Marina Vladi, and the “Iron Lady” with Konrad Adenauer were here.

Photo from 1955. Side facade.

Photo from the 1960s.

In 1998, reconstruction of the restaurant began, reviving Yar's former glory.
To date, the pre-revolutionary interior has been restored: the frescoes of the beginning of the century on the ceiling and walls have been restored, the chandelier from 1912 (as well as lamps from 1952) has been restored, the fountain in the courtyard, made according to the design of the fountain of the Bolshoi Theater, has been recreated.

Sources - http://dedushkin1.livejournal.com; http://allday.ru

Babi Yar gained worldwide fame as the site of mass executions of the population, mainly Jews, and Soviet prisoners, by German troops in 1941. In total, according to information from various sources, from 33 thousand to 100 thousand people were shot

Babi Yar is located in the northwestern part of Kyiv, between the Lukyanovka and Syrets quarters.

It was first mentioned under its current name in 1401, when the owner of the inn (Ukrainian “baba”) located here sold these lands to the Dominican monastery. In the XV-XVIII centuries the names “Shalena Baba” and “Bisova Baba” also came across.
In 1869, not far from Babi Yar, the Syretsky military camp was founded. In 1895, the Division Church was founded on the territory of the camp, destroyed after the revolution. The entrance to the Syretsky concentration camp was later located on the site of this church.
In 1870, the territory in the south of Babyn Yar was used for the construction of the Lukyanovsky cemetery, which was closed in 1962. Currently, the cemetery territory is a protected area
In 1891-1894, a New Jewish Cemetery was founded next to Babi Yar. It was closed in 1937 and finally destroyed during World War II. Only a small fragment of the cemetery was preserved; the remaining burials were later moved to the Berkovetskoe cemetery.

During the Great Patriotic War, the occupiers who captured Kyiv on September 19, 1941, used Babi Yar to carry out mass executions. The first execution took place on September 27, 1941 - 752 patients of the psychiatric hospital named after. Ivan Pavlov, located next to the ravine

On September 24, on Khreshchatyk, the NKVD blew up two houses where representatives of the occupation administration were located. Explosions and fires continued in the following days; about 940 large buildings were destroyed. The Nazis regarded this as a reason to liquidate the Jewish population. At the end of September 1941, the Sonderkommando captured nine leading rabbis of Kyiv and ordered them to address the population: “After sanitization, all Jews and their children, as an elite nation, will be transported to safe places...” On September 27-28, the Nazi authorities gave the order that On September 29, the Jewish population of the city arrived at the designated collection point at 8 a.m. with documents and valuables. For disobeying an order - execution. More than 2 thousand advertisements were posted around the city. At the same time, misinformation about the census and resettlement of Jews was spread through janitors and building managers. Most of the Jews remaining in the city - women, children and the elderly (the adult male population was drafted into the army) arrived at the appointed time. Representatives of some other national minorities were also gathered

At the end of the street they created a checkpoint; everything that happened behind it was invisible from the outside. 30-40 people were taken there one by one, where their things were taken away and they were forced to undress. After this, the police used sticks to drive people to the edge of a ravine 20-25 meters deep. On the opposite edge there was a machine gunner. The shots were deliberately drowned out by music and the noise of the plane circling over the ravine. After the ditch was filled with 2-3 layers of corpses, they were covered with earth on top.

Since they did not have time to shoot all those who arrived in one day, the premises of military garages were used as a temporary holding point. For two days on September 29-30, 1941, Sonderkommando 4a under the command of Standartenführer Paul Blobel with the participation of units of the Wehrmacht (6th Army) and the Kyiv Kuren of the Ukrainian auxiliary The police under the command of Pyotr Zakhvalynsky (Zakhvalynsky himself had nothing to do with these executions, since he arrived in Kyiv only in October 1941; in 1943 he was killed by the Germans) shot 33,771 people in this ravine - almost the entire Jewish population of Kyiv. Further executions of Jews took place on October 1, 2, 8 and 11, 1941, during which time about 17,000 Jews were shot.

Mass executions continued until the Germans left Kyiv. On January 10, 1942, 100 sailors of the Dnieper detachment of the Pinsk military flotilla were shot. In 1941-1943, 621 members of the OUN (S. Bandera faction) were shot at Babi Yar, among them the Ukrainian poetess Elena Teliga and her husband, who had the opportunity to escape, but chose to stay with his wife and friends from the editorial office of the “Ukrainian Word” . In addition, Babi Yar served as the site for the execution of five gypsy camps. In total, from 70,000 to 200,000 people were shot at Babi Yar in 1941-1943. Jewish prisoners ordered by the Germans to burn their bodies in 1943 claimed 70-120 thousand.

In addition, on the site of the military camp of the Red Army units, the Syretsky concentration camp was opened, in which communists, Komsomol members, underground fighters, prisoners of war and others were kept. On February 18, 1943, three players were shot there football team"Dynamo" - "" participants: Trusevich, Kuzmenko and Klimenko.

In total, at least 25,000 people died in the Syretsky concentration camp. Retreating from Kyiv and trying to hide the traces of their atrocities, the Nazis managed to partially destroy the camp in August - September 1943, dug up and burned many corpses on open “furnaces”, bones were ground on machines specially brought from Germany, the ashes were scattered throughout Babi Yar. On the night of September 29, 1943, in Babi Yar there was an uprising at the stoves of 329 death row prisoners, of whom only 18 people escaped, the remaining 311 died heroically. The surviving prisoners subsequently witnessed the Germans' attempt to hide the fact of the massacres. After the rescue of Kyiv by the Red Army on November 6, 1943, the Syrets concentration camp was a camp for German prisoners until 1946. After that, the camp was demolished, and in its place, in the late 1950s, the Syrets residential area was founded and a park named after. The fortieth anniversary of October (now it is called Syretsky Park)

The energy in this place was terrible and accidents were happening all the time. In 1950, city authorities decided to flood Babi Yar with liquid waste from nearby brick factories. The ravine was blocked with an earthen rampart to prevent flooding of residential areas. The features of the shaft and the drainage capacity did not meet even the minimum safety standards. On the morning of Monday, March 13, 1961, due to heavy snow melting, the shaft could not withstand the pressure of water, and as a result, a mudflow up to 14 meters high poured into Kurenevka. An area of more than 30 hectares was flooded with liquid, more than 30 buildings were destroyed, and the tram depot named after. Krasina.
Monument to the victims of the Kurenevskaya tragedy, opened in March 2006

Information about the disaster was subject to strict censorship, and its scale was greatly downplayed. Many victims were specially buried in different cemeteries in Kyiv, indicating other dates and causes of death, and some of the bodies were never found under a huge thickness of pulp. According to the official report of the commission investigating the causes of the tragedy, the accident killed 145 people. But modern researchers of the Kurenevka disaster claim that in fact the number of victims was about 1.5 thousand people. This episode in the history of Babi Yar is called the Kurenev tragedy.

Having visited the scene of the tragedy, Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote his famous poem “Babi Yar”, which became the basis for Shostakovich’s 13th symphony. It was only in the 60s that the first mentions of mass executions at Babi Yar were published in the Soviet press. In 1966, the magazine Yunost published an abridged version of Anatoly Kuznetsov’s documentary novel Babi Yar, but the novel was never published as a separate edition. After Kuznetsov escaped abroad, copies of the magazine with chapters of the novel were confiscated from all libraries. The novel was published in its entirety in Russia after the collapse of the Union

###Page 2

After the disaster, work to fill the pit continued. Instead of an earthen dam, a concrete one was erected, a new drainage system was laid, and more stringent safety measures were taken. Part of the pulp that splashed onto Kurenevka was transported back by dump trucks to backfill the ravine. Later, a road was built through the filled spurs of the ravine from Syrts to Kurenevka (part of the current Elena Teligi Street) and a park was built

In 1965, a closed competition was announced for the best monument to the victims of Babyn Yar. The authorities did not like the presented projects, and the competition was closed, and in October 1966, a granite obelisk was installed in the park in the southern part of the ravine, where only 10 years later the monument was finally erected. The opening of the monument was met with harsh criticism outside the USSR, because not a word was said about the Jews

In the early 1970s, television center buildings were built on the site of the New Jewish Cemetery

March 24, 2001 the building of the old cinema named after. Yuri Gagarin, who was located on the site of the Division Church, was transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the aim of creating the Syretsky memorial (it included the cathedral Holy Mother of God, museum, monument and film lecture hall)

In addition to the monuments mentioned above, Babi Yar also contains:

Menorah is a monument to executed Jews in the form of a menorah. Erected on September 29, 1991, the 50th anniversary of the first mass execution of Jews. The Road of Sorrow was laid from the former office of the Jewish cemetery to the monument.

Monument to executed children. Opened on September 30, 2001 opposite the exit from the Dorogozhichi metro station

Cross in memory of those executed Orthodox priests. Established in 2000 on the site where on November 6, 1941, Archimandrite Alexander and Archpriest Pavel were shot, calling on the population to fight the fascists

The cross in memory of the 621 executed OUN members was erected on February 21, 1992, on the 50th anniversary of the execution of Elena Teliga and her associates.

And a number of other monuments:

Stella in memory of Ostarbeiters, installed in 2005.
Monument to the mentally ill executed on September 27, 1941.
Cross in memory of German prisoners of war.
A monument by an unknown author, representing three crosses welded from iron pipes, with the inscription on one of them “And in this place people were killed in 1941, Lord rest their souls.”

There has been a long discussion about creating a monument to the gypsies who were shot here.

One of the regulars at Yar was Savva Morozov. One winter he drove up to his favorite restaurant (this was before it was rebuilt), but they didn’t let him in. Some merchant is walking around - he rented the restaurant “on the farm” (banquet service, that is). Morozov then picked up some bullshit, led him to a restaurant and ordered him to break down the wall - “I’m paying for everything.” The wall is being broken down, Savva Timofeevich is sitting in the troika, waiting, that is, to ride on the black ones. He does not give in to persuasion. I don’t want to call the police either - I’m a regular customer, I’ve already left so much money in the restaurant. Somehow the gypsy from the choir persuaded him not to destroy the restaurant.

Otherwise, the merchants loved to play in the “aquarium”. They ordered water to be poured into a huge white piano to the brim and fish were thrown into it.

There was also a price list at Yar for those who like to indulge. The pleasure of smearing mustard on a waiter's face, for example, cost 120 rubles, and throwing a bottle at a Venetian mirror cost 100 rubles. However, all the restaurant’s property was insured for a substantial amount of money.

At different times, Yar was visited by Chekhov and Kuprin, Gorky and Leonid Andreev, Balmont and Bryusov, Chaliapin, the artists the Vasnetsov brothers, Levitan, Repin, Vrubel, Serov...

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Ilya Sokolov’s gypsy choir worked in “Yar”, famous gypsy singers sang here - Olimpiada Nikolaevna Fedorova (Pisha), and later Varvara Vasilievna Panina (Vasilieva).

Visitors were “treated to all kinds of food” in huge, majestic halls and cozy offices located on balconies. According to archives, “Yar” was considered the No. 1 restaurant in Russia and Europe. Why in Europe? Yes, because the French chefs of Yar cooked no worse than their fellow countrymen, and in terms of the range and quality of plant, animal and especially gourmet products, Russia at that time was far ahead of all of Europe combined. At Yar, the choice of products for preparing various dishes was innumerable.

The position that Yar occupied in relation to its guests - satisfying any (absolutely any) whims and defeating the imagination - made the restaurant a powerful magnet that attracted Volga and Siberian capital with the inexorability of a boa constrictor.

In 1895, Yar was acquired by Alexey Akimovich Sudakov, a Yaroslavl peasant who achieved everything with his mind and talent. In 1910, he rebuilt Yar (architect A. Erichson): from a wooden house, the restaurant turned into a solid palace with columns. It remains in this building to this day. Houses for employees were built next to the restaurant.

“Coachman, drive to the Yar” - a song dedicated to Sudakov, it was sung during the grand opening of the new restaurant building.

In 1998, reconstruction of the restaurant began, reviving Yar's former glory. To date, the pre-revolutionary interior has been restored: the frescoes of the beginning of the century on the ceiling and walls have been restored, the chandelier from 1912 has been restored (as well as lamps from 1952), the fountain in the courtyard, made according to the design of the Bolshoi Theater fountain, has been recreated.

The legendary restaurant "Yar" - the brainchild of the French chef Mr. Tranquil Yard - initially, on January 1, 1826, was located in the house of the merchant Chavannes on the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Neglinnaya. It soon became extremely popular among gourmets, who loved Yar for its exquisite menu and excellent wine cellars. One of the regulars at Yar on Kuznetsky was Alexander Pushkin, who captured the memory of the restaurant in one of his works.
Later - from 1848 to 1851. - “Yar” worked in the Hermitage garden, but not in the Hermitage garden on Petrovka, which we all know well, but in the old one on Bozhedomka. But it soon opened as a country restaurant in Petrovsky Park, on the Petersburg Highway, in the possession of General Bashilov, who rented out his estate for a restaurant. The fact is that, for the purity of morals, gypsies were forbidden to sing in city restaurants, and behind the outposts they had every right to perform. Merchants and young people, squandering their father's fortunes, sometimes organized crazy festivities at Yar and often simply destroyed the restaurant premises, but these facts, not entirely decent for a respectable establishment, did not discourage other audiences from it. Bryusov, Chekhov, Kuprin, Chaliapin, Stanislavsky, Gilyarovsky, artists, writers, lawyers often came to Yar...
In 1895, Yar was acquired by Alexey Akimovich Sudakov, a Yaroslavl peasant who achieved everything with his mind and talent. Sudakov, who agreed with the management of a nearby hippodrome on mutual customer service. The proceeds from this brilliant idea made it possible to rebuild the restaurant. In 1910, he rebuilt “Yar” (architect A. Erichson): from a wooden house, the restaurant turned into a solid palace with columns, with a summer garden with 250 seats, a fountain, stone grottoes and gazebos covered with ivy. Houses for employees were built next to the restaurant.
The restaurant in 1910 was valued at 10 million rubles in gold, a huge figure. The restaurant with its service buildings occupied an entire block, the restaurant had its own power plant, its own water pumping station, a car park, its own stables, a summer veranda, flower beds, the back of the property was framed by “mountains” - made of stones brought from the Caucasus.

The house to the right of the Sovetsky Hotel building is a house for restaurant employees. Previously, its side bay window tower was decorated with a spire. To the left of the restaurant was the house of Sudakov himself; unfortunately, it has not survived.

In pre-revolutionary times, "Yar" became famous for the revelry so colorfully described by Gilyarovsky. One of the regulars at Yar was Savva Morozov. One winter he went to his favorite restaurant, but they didn’t let him in - some merchant was walking around - he rented the restaurant “out of his hands.” Savva tried to be indignant, saying that he was a regular customer, he left a lot of money here, but they still refused to let him into the restaurant. Then the angry Morozov went to Petrovsky Park, picked up some stuff there, brought him to the restaurant and ordered him to break the wall so that he could drive through it into the restaurant in a straight three. The wall is being broken down, Savva Timofeevich is sitting in the troika, waiting. He does not give in to persuasion. I don't want to call the police either - I'm a regular customer. Somehow the gypsy woman from the choir persuaded him not to destroy the restaurant: “Dear father, what are you doing, we will be left without income,” in general, they persuaded him, he paid off all the “burglars,” gave up on everything and left.
The famous millionaire Khludov came to Yar accompanied by a tame tigress.
And the merchants also liked to play in the “aquarium”. They ordered water to be poured into a huge white piano to the brim and fish were thrown into it.
There was also a price list at Yar for those who like to indulge. The pleasure of smearing mustard on a waiter's face, for example, cost 120 rubles, and throwing a bottle at a Venetian mirror cost 100 rubles. However, all the restaurant’s property was insured for a substantial amount of money.
"Yar" was visited by Grigory Rasputin and Felix Yusupov, Chekhov and Kuprin, Gorky and Leonid Andreev, Balmont and Bryusov, Chaliapin, artists the Vasnetsov brothers, Levitan, Repin, Vrubel, Serov...
After the revolution, the restaurant was closed, stucco was torn from the ceilings, the fountain and garden were destroyed, and the restaurant's property was taken away. Sudakov was arrested. The fate of Yar's owner is tragic - after the revolution, he and his children were often arrested, the Central Committee was summoned, they were regularly "shaken", considering him the owner of a huge fortune, he could not emigrate abroad. Later, Sudakov worked as a simple accountant in an ordinary Soviet office. He went to live out his life in the village. He didn’t like to talk about “Yar”; this topic was closed to him. After his death, he was allegedly buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. Such is the rise and fall of the owner of "Yar", who began his career as a "boy" in a tea shop, achieved everything with his work, intelligence and talent, turned the iconic restaurant into almost an empire, and ended up as an ordinary employee in a government organization...
Until 1952, the building of the former restaurant housed a cinema, a gym for Red Army soldiers, a hospital, a film college, VGIK and the Pilot's House. In 1952, a hotel complex in the Russian Empire style was added to the building of the Yar restaurant, on the personal instructions of Stalin. Now the former building looks almost unrecognizable, only arched windows it is possible to identify the Sudakov "Yar". "Yar" was renamed into the "Sovetsky" restaurant. A little later, the gypsy theater "Romen" moved in next to the hotel - the spirit of the old "Yar" and Anna Zakharovna's gypsy choir turned out to be attractive.
The Sovetsky restaurant became widely known as a “restaurant for the privileged” - diplomats, party leaders and associates. During these years, “Sovetsky” was repeatedly awarded with pennants and honorary awards. Vasily Stalin, the King of Spain Juan Carlos, Indira Gandhi, Vysotsky with Marina Vladi, and the “Iron Lady” with Konrad Adenauer were here.
Over time, the restaurant fell into disrepair, but since 1998 it has experienced its next rebirth under the same name - “Yar”. The restaurant was restored - the pre-revolutionary interior was completely restored, the turn-of-the-century frescoes on the ceiling and walls were put in order, the chandelier from 1912 was repaired, and the fountain in the courtyard, based on the design of the Bolshoi Theater fountain, was recreated.
This is the history of the Yar restaurant.