Copper pipes

A unique organ that survived the revolution and two world wars, surviving fires, bombings and floods, may die due to the showdown at the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium.

There are ten pre-revolutionary organs left in Russia, two of them created by Wilhelm Sauer, a master of the Romantic era. 39 of his other creations, once brought to our country, disappeared without a trace.

Big school

The organ W. SAUER ORGEL OPUS 432, originally a church organ, worked at the conservatory in the last century. Sergei Prokofiev played it. Then the instrument was written off.

It did not fit into the music school in the Moscow region, where he was assigned to retire, and the organ was transported to school No. 10 in Pushkin (now the Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium of Arts named after A. Akhmatova). The gymnasium staff, led by Yuri Fedorenko, patched up the old instrument on their own for three years, and in 1988 it began a new life - they taught children to play the organ and organized concerts.
In 2010, for the 300th anniversary of Tsarskoye Selo, the gymnasium was given money for repairs.

The organ was dismantled and put into boxes. But politics intervened in the life of the instrument: director Yuri Fedorenko, who headed the gymnasium for 30 years, had a bad relationship with the district authorities. After the ceremonial presentation of the golden key to Matvienko with demonstration filming of the first lesson, the director refused to transport the children there: until the land plot for the new building is assigned, the building has not been put into operation, there is no conclusion on the safety of the water, etc. As a result, in December the gymnasium got a new director - 24-year-old Mikhail Okulov. A talented pianist, a star of international competitions, he worked as Fedorenko’s deputy, was known to him since childhood, and was invited to the gymnasium by him.

The young director had a lot of uncreative work to do - re-registration of the site, obtaining opinions from utility workers and firefighters, unscheduled inventory. It was the turn of the old Sauer. “The organ was packed in plywood boxes, which lay chaotically in the old building of the gymnasium, where renovations were already underway and the heating was turned off. I invited Rosokhrankultura expert Vladimir Koshelev, we opened the boxes, capturing everything on video. The condition of the instrument was terrible, some pipes were broken,” says Okulov.

The district administration promised him money to revive the organ. By this time, relations between the new and old director had become tense. According to Mikhail Okulov, the former boss wrote complaints against him, and in the documents indicated: “to director Okulov from director Fedorenko.” After dismissals and trials, the former director returned to the gymnasium as a teacher.

In December 2010 As a result, in December the gymnasium got a new director - 24-year-old Mikhail Okulov. A talented pianist, star of international competitions. Photo from the site pushkin.ru.

Contest

In July 2011, a competition was announced for the reconstruction of the Sauer, the maximum contract value was 8.146 million rubles. The Association of Organists and Organ Masters (AOOM) opposed the competition. Its representatives insisted: there are no companies in Russia that can reconstruct organs, and this important matter can only be entrusted to foreign specialists.

Two St. Petersburg companies filed complaints to the antimonopoly service: Trading House on Nevsky and Eurofon. They tried to challenge the point that prevents foreigners from joining the fight: that the participants in the competition have a license to restore cultural heritage sites. The complaints mentioned a short period for repairs - 3.5 months (it should be “from 8 to 12 months,” it is written in the document), high penalties and a long warranty period (10 years).
Both companies represent foreign companies, and representatives of JSCOM acted as experts. Among them is Anatoly Pogodin, a former instrument technician at the gymnasium, who dismantled the organ before repairs. Okulov fired him: the organ is undergoing restoration, why keep a technician who services it. And he made another enemy. Pogodin claims that the reason for his dismissal was his appearance on television, where he said that the conditions of the competition were prescribed for a specific company.

Okulov is sure that the former technician and other representatives of the association had their own selfish interest: “In the email correspondence, I saw draft agreements with a foreign company, it was stated in them that they act as consultants and carry out phased acceptance of the reconstruction. That is, they go on business trips to Germany at government expense and receive remuneration. They were waiting for this money, and I ruined their plans.” The director is ready to provide the correspondence to the court. Anatoly Pogodin waves it off: “This is nonsense!”

The antimonopoly service refused the complainants, the competition was recognized as legal, and it was won by the only participant, the Power of Sound company, which was ready to carry out the reconstruction for an amount almost half the starting price - 4.3 million rubles.

In minor

On December 15, 2011, the gymnasium accepted the repaired instrument. The act was signed by Okulov, experts from Rosokhrankultura, the Chamber Music Society, organ builder Pavel Chilin, a representative of the “Power of Sound” and a representative of the gymnasium.

Exactly three months later, employees of the Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region, headed by Major Igor Berezin, and again experts from the association came to the gymnasium. Among them is Anatoly Pogodin. After inspecting the boxes, they issued a conclusion: the reconstruction was not carried out in full.

Organ organs

“We opened the boxes and saw that most of the work had not been completed, the parts were dirty. They didn’t invite intoners - they simply don’t exist in Russia! Chilin is a good craftsman, but the work here is so complex that only foreign companies can do it,” Pogodin repeats.

Pavel Chilin, the only organ builder in Russia, was one of the craftsmen whom the Power of Sound attracted to repair the Sauer. After the reconstruction was completed, he was hired at the gymnasium to replace Anatoly Pogodin.

“I can vouch that the work was completed one hundred percent. Well, maybe at 99, there's always something to cling to. The organ did not require global reconstruction - the instrument was strong in German style. I don’t think that only foreign specialists could complete the reconstruction. I’ve been building organs for 25 years and can easily carry out such repairs,” Chilin replies. When asked if he had to perform work of such complexity, he answers: he restored a clock with an organ in the Hermitage, an organ in Tartu, he reanimated an organ in a church in Kovensky Lane, in the parish of St. Mikhail on Vasilyevsky Island, built instruments at the choir school. Glinka, Academy named after. Gnesins.

In the fall of 2012, the gymnasium ordered an independent examination from the Center for Expertise of Cultural Property in the North-West. He concluded: the work was completed in full. “Among the experts were those who took part in the reconstruction,” says Anatoly Pogodin, considering himself an independent expert.

In the box

Twice in 2012 the gymnasium announced a competition for the installation of an organ. Twice the competitions were canceled by the Financial Control Committee due to lack of coordination with the Committee for the Protection of Monuments (KGIOP). “Why didn’t anyone care that the organ was dismantled in 2009 without permission from KGIOP? And no one was embarrassed that the contractor was chosen without any competition,” the current manager is indignant. “They dismantled it on the instructions of the administration, the money was worthless,” retorts the former foreman. Penny money - 500 thousand rubles: 300 - for boxes, the rest - for dismantling.

Case

On December 10, 2012, a criminal case was initiated under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale). According to the investigation, due to undercompleted work on the reconstruction of the organ, the state suffered damage of 2.67 million rubles. The director of the gymnasium, head of the regional department of culture Sergei Nikitin, and the deputy head of the Pushkin administration Tatyana Bogolyubova (she signed the documents for the organ) were searched. The organ hall was sealed. “The tool must be stored at a certain temperature and humidity,” says Pavel Chilin. — The heat there is terrible. The organ is in disassembled condition! The pipes, under their own weight, turn into a tube, flow down, and the wood and varnish dry out.”

In March, permission for installation was finally received from KGIOP, and the Tsarskoye Selo Amber Workshop agreed to assemble the organ free of charge - there was no money in the budget for this. Chilin twice contacted investigator Anatoly Manaf, but he did not allow the installation to begin.

On May 22, Legislative Assembly deputy Maxim Reznik sent a letter to the head of the Main Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, Andrey Lavrenko, asking him to take personal control of the investigation of the criminal case and do everything possible to ensure that the investigation allows the installation of the organ: “There is a real threat not only of a significant deterioration in the safety of the organ, which will require repeated expensive restoration, but also the complete loss of an object of cultural and historical heritage, the book value of which is 69 283,320 rubles.”

But investigator Manaf is adamant: “The organ is material evidence, I cannot give permission for assembly until an examination of its condition is carried out.” The decision on the examination was issued on February 4 - six months ago, but the investigator explained that he could not rush the experts. And he refused to name the institution conducting the examination, citing the secrecy of the investigation.

The gymnasium says that they saw a representative of the Sauer company and Anatoly Pogodin at the disassembled instrument. The latter believes that living in a box will not harm the organ. “Nothing will happen to him. “It sat for ten years in the 80s,” says the former technician and unexpectedly confidently adds: “There will be a new director in the fall, he will decide what to do with the instrument next.”

Okulov has no doubt that the scandal with the organ was staged in order to get rid of the director: “There are no suspects or accused in the case. But I'm in the way. On the same day that my lawyer filed a complaint with the court - we asked to hand over the organ for installation - I was searched again. They confiscated documents for subordinates, the cleaner and the adjuster. “The investigator told me: “According to the employment contract, the cleaner must be at work for 8 hours, but in fact she is at work for 2 hours, does this mean that she works less than necessary, but receives her salary in full?”

The investigation considered that Okulov was enriching himself at the expense of the cleaning lady, and filed a case against him under the article “For abuse of official powers.”

The director was suspended from work. According to Anatoly Manaf, who is leading both cases, they are nearing completion: the results of the examination are expected to be prepared by the fall.