Tomsk, (not) built by Batenkov

In 1925, a man named Pudovikov came to the Tomsk regional museum. And he brought an album with a selection of architectural projects. 60 drawings of buildings, gazebos, bridges and other structures. On the cover there is a half-erased inscription in pencil with a pre-revolutionary “er-ohm”, which can be read as: “G... Batenkov”.

Photo: Sergey Konovalov

According to the legend, which was recorded from the words of the donor, the album belonged to Gavriil Batenkov. Museum workers did not specify how exactly the album ended up in Pudovikov’s possession. It is only known that the donor lived on Stepanovka, where the merchant Stepan Sosulin once gave a plot of land to the exiled Decembrist. By the way, a project with a drawing of Sosulin’s dacha on Stepanovka is also in the album. Could Gavriil Batenkov be the author of the drawings? Let's figure it out together with Elena Andreeva, an employee of the local history museum.

“The History of One Thing” is a joint project with the Tomsk Local Lore Museum

Elena Andreeva Photo: Sergey Konovalov

Blue cardboard cover, leather spine. The album contains 68 sheets of whatman paper, varying in size, quality, color and date of manufacture. Some have visible watermarks - “J.Watman-1849”, “J.Watman-Turkey Mill-1850”.

Photo: Sergey Konovalov

And if you pay attention that one of the drawings has a weather vane with the date “1852” stamped on it, then we can assume that the author could well have worked on projects in the period from 1846 to 1856, that is, the time of the Tomsk exile of the Decembrist Batenkov.

Weather vane with the date 1852 Photo: Sergey Konovalov

“And cardboard kings sit on tinsel thrones”

The history of relations with Tomsk for Gavriil Batenkov began long before this. In 1816, the officer and participant in the Napoleonic wars retired from military service for health reasons. And a year later he received a diploma in transportation engineering, having brilliantly passed the exams for a four-year course at a specialized St. Petersburg university.

Gabriel Batenkov, 1822 Photo: collage by Sergei Konovalov

In the spring of 1817, 24-year-old Batenkov arrived in Tomsk. And he started doing landscaping work. He built pavements, strengthened the banks of Ushayka, and tore down part of Yurtochnaya Mountain to reduce the steepness of the descent. According to Batenkov’s drawing, a wooden bridge of “simple design” was built across Ushaika, which, as they say, stood for 100 years.

“This is one of the Tomsk “legends,” says Elena Andreeva. — Information based on my archival research: the bridge was erected by Batenkov as temporary, and a few years later it was demolished by a flood. So we had to re-install it, but in the place that Gavriil Stepanovich had previously chosen (previously the bridge was in a different place).”

Batenkov’s relationship with local officials did not work out well. Thanks to the new Governor-General of Siberia, Mikhail Speransky, he took the smart guy into his team and later took him with him to the capital.

Mikhail Speransky

For five years Batenkov was in the civil service - he was a member of the Siberian Committee, wrote draft statutes about foreigners, exiles, and Siberian Cossacks. In 1825 he retired. After the Decembrist uprising, he was arrested as a member of the Northern Secret Society. I haven’t been to Senate Square myself. But he sympathized and wrote that this was “not a rebellion... but the first experience of a political revolution in Russia.”

For this, Batenkov spent 20 years in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Under someone else's name. In complete isolation and deaf silence. There were rumors that Batenkov even suffered mental damage there - how else could one explain the mocking letters to Nicholas I? “I am being held in the fortress for insulting the royal majesty. Well, how can I insult the royal majesty? The Tsar has a huge fleet, a large army, many fortresses... Well, what if I say - Nikolai Pavlovich is a pig... - will this greatly insult the Tsar’s greatness? And this is from another letter: “And cardboard kings sit on tinsel thrones.”

Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where Batenkov spent 20 years in solitary confinement

Only in 1846, when, after the death of Alexander Benckedorf, Alexey Orlov became the chief of the gendarmes (his brother Mikhail was also a Decembrist), Gabriel Batenkov was finally released from solitary confinement and sent to settle in Siberia. So he ended up in Tomsk again. Batenkov found our city “in great glory and wealth.” It was the peak of the “gold rush”, and his former acquaintances - Astashev, Popov, Gorokhov - having successfully invested in gold mines, bathed in luxury. They took an active part in the fate of Batenkov, who had become unaccustomed to human society and had almost forgotten how to speak, and settled him with the city police officer Nikolai Luchshev.

Gavriil Batenkov and the house of police officer Nikolai Luchshev

“Heinz. From Schrader's architectural fantasies"

According to Elena Andreeva, the fact that Batenkov was engaged in design and construction during his Tomsk exile is known from various sources. For example, from his correspondence. In his letters, he mentions work on a house and outbuildings for the Luchshev and Argamakov families, and buildings on his own country “farm” on Stepanovka.

Album fragment

At the beginning of the 20th century, Alexander Adrianov and Grigory Potanin wrote about Batenkov as the architect of a complex of buildings on the estate of the wine farmer Stepan Sosulin. However, in 1999 the book “Tomsk. History of the city...", in which this statement is refuted. Researchers found in the “Tomsk Provincial Gazette” for 1859 a mention that the builder of the house on the Sosulinsky Zaimka was a certain Heinz, who reproduced the appearance of the facade, borrowed from the “architectural fantasies of Schrader.”

Drawing from the “blue album”, Stepanovka

The “Batenkovsky” museum album also contains drawings with buildings on the Sosulinsky Zaimka. His dacha is visible on them - characteristic, with turrets. And there is one project signed “A. Hein”. Does this mean that museum workers in the 1920s made a mistake with the attribution of the album? Elena Andreeva, a researcher of the Tomsk period of Batenkov’s life, has been searching for the answer to this question for several years.

Drawings from Batenkov's album From TOKM funds

The album contains both drafts and final copies of architectural projects. Residential buildings, religious buildings, a lot of drawings of garden structures. The scale is in arshins and fathoms, the plans are general and in section. The customers were obviously different. Next to the drawing of the Krasnoyarsk noble assembly is the design of a country house for Nikolai Evtifevich Filimonov, the Tomsk mayor and gold miner.

“If the entire project remains with the author, what does this mean? - Elena Andreeva reflects. — As a rule, projects were approved by the provincial government and handed over to the owner, who then kept them as an official document. If there are blanks in the album, this means that the project was not realized. Or is this some version of the project.”

The project could not be implemented for various reasons. For example, in 1850, gold miner Gorokhov went bankrupt. His partner Filimonov no longer had time for country dachas.

Scan of an album sheet from the TOKM collections

Of the 60 projects in the album, one stands out - chapels. The sectional view of the building is the only one enclosed in a frame. And the only thing that has a signature is A. Hein.

“Why are the other sheets not signed, but this one is signed? - says Elena Andreeva. - Probably because either the author himself made it and saved it - he knows that these are his works. Or he did it for someone for whom his authorship is obvious. But this foreign thing turned out to be signed.”

The museum has not yet conducted a graphological examination of signatures for projects - this is not a cheap pleasure. But in the eyes of the average person, it is risky to draw any conclusions - the drawing font is different from the handwritten one. And in the case of Batenkov it’s even more complicated. According to Elena Andreeva, it is difficult for researchers to read his manuscripts - not only because of the abbreviations, but also because of the illegible handwriting. Architectural elements can speak much more eloquently about the authorship - and in the album selection they overlap in different drawings. “In my opinion, it was clearly the hand of one draftsman,” says Elena Andreeva.

Tomsk Alexandria and the Temple of Bacchus on Solomennoye Khutor

Elena Andreeva sees a kind of irony in the fact that the project for the dacha of the mayor of Filimonov was called the same as the main imperial residence in the country - “Alexandria” (Nicholas I gave this name to the Peterhof Palace in honor of his wife Alexandra). What an educated and witty person like Batenkov was capable of. He generally loved originality in definitions - for example, the house built on the lands donated by Sosulin was called the “Straw Palace”, which clearly rhymed with, perhaps, the most newfangled building of the time - the “Crystal Palace” in London, which served as a pavilion for the 1851 World Exhibition. Other toponyms have also become established in everyday use - like “Auntie’s whim” (Adrianov writes that Batenkov built a house for his aunt, who wished to live in solitude, far from the cheerful Sosulinskaya estate), or “Kuro-Petukhovsky Castle” (a chicken coop next to his house on Stepanovka).

“The album contains a lot of drawings of garden buildings,” says Elena Andreeva. - In accordance with the fashion of that time - both Chinese gazebos and Turkish baths. Available in Empire style. And a lot of "gothic". Batenkov left a remark in his memoirs that the “Gothic taste” was very close to him. For “Alexandria,” for example, many things were done in the Gothic style.”

In those days, garden buildings did not require approval, so many of the projects in the album are drawn in a simplified version: baths, bridges, greenhouses. The latter were just becoming fashionable among wealthy Tomsk residents - to grow flowers and fruits in a climate where apples were a curiosity.

Perhaps the most unusual project in the album is the Temple of Bacchus. A gazebo made of bottles could well have appeared on the territory of the wine farmer Sosulin. This drawing from sheet No. 59 is adjacent to an obviously “Sosulin” landscape. On sheet No. 60 you can make out a merchant's dacha in the distance - it is quite recognizable. But still it goes more in the background. In the foreground, Elena Andreeva draws attention, is the grotto. It could be the main object of the architectural sketch. And even if the dacha itself was designed by Hein, this does not deny Batenkov’s authorship.

"The Sosulin Case"

Elena Andreeva found in one of Batenkov’s correspondence a mention of his “great affiliation” with Sosulin’s “case”. And that the Sosulinsky area was traversed by him far and wide. And in his letters, the exiled Decembrist described in detail the plan of his property, which he acquired in the early 1950s in close proximity to Stepan Sosulin’s house:

“From the windows of the house on the north-eastern side, the Ushaika River, depicted in a convex arc, is visible close up... About 100 yards from me, the large dacha of the Sosulins, neighbors on the ground and good old friends... Near the house itself on the mountain, first a beekeeper begins, then a garden and it contains the house of a rich neighbor.”

Sosulin's dacha. A. Tikhomirov. From TOKM funds

According to the testimony of the merchant Ilya Fuksman, Stepan Sosulin gave Gavriil Batenkov 55 acres of land for the design and construction of country houses and factory buildings in Stepanovka. And Elena Andreeva is inclined to believe this version. In fact, where did the exiled Decembrist get the money to acquire an estate? And even a very rich person is unlikely to give land as a gift just like that. But the option that a capable engineer acted as an architect or supervised the construction, for which he received a reward, looks plausible.

A room at Sosulin's dacha and a drawing from the "blue album"

And in this context, perhaps the most remarkable thing in the album is the drawing on sheet No. 33. "Facade of a shed and a barn with a drying shed."

Facade of a shed and barn with a drying shed

The barn with the carriage house below survived until the early 1990s. Elena Andreeva was then studying places associated with Batenkov in Stepanovka, and saw this barn “in real life.”

Barn on Stepanovka Photo: from TOKM funds

“This place was very well identified thanks to the descriptions of Batenkov left in one of his letters by Elagina (Avdotya Elagina, widow of Batenkov’s friend Alexei Elagin - editor’s note),” says Elena Andreeva. - Here's the bend of the river, here's the distance to the hill on which Sosulin's dacha is located. The dacha is known where it was located, so the site of the “Straw Farm” is tied to it. This barn was located just near Bogdan Khmelnitsky Lane. There in the 1990s there was the territory of some kind of car depot or something similar. I saw this barn - all its decorations were lost, but it was recognizable. At one time, artists in the 1920s, drawing buildings on Stepanovka, also recorded it. But this is no longer a Sosulin building. This is Batenkov’s building.”

Barn on Stepanovka. A. Vnukov Photo: from TOKM funds

So. The album contains a drawing of a building that definitely stood on land owned by Batenkov. Could this mean that the author of the drawing is Batenkov? Maybe, says Elena Andreeva.

Krasnoyarsk noble meeting

Another clue that could shed light on the authorship of the drawings from the “blue album” is on sheet No. 11. Two draft projects of the Krasnoyarsk noble assembly. According to legend, which is also followed in Krasnoyarsk, the project was made by Gavriil Batenkov at the request of the Decembrist Vasily Davydov, who had lived there in exile since 1839.

The building was built in 1854-1856. It is still alive today. True, both a century and a half ago, and now - especially since the wooden structure is strikingly different from the draft in the album.

Photo by A. Romanov. Wikimedia.org

“It’s a great shame that in Tomsk, where Batenkov lived for so many years, he once left such a mark both in the hearts of people and in material terms - nothing of his legacy has been preserved,” says Elena Andreeva. — And in Krasnoyarsk there is still a wooden house. But the question is: where did the legend about Batenkov’s authorship come from? Unfortunately, it was not possible to find the original sources. I have reviewed Davydov’s correspondence with Batenkov and other documents - so far to no avail. I turned to my Krasnoyarsk colleagues - help! They answered - so the information comes from you. The circle is closed. Now, if we can prove that Batenkov designed this house in Krasnoyarsk, then there will be no questions left for the album.”

Batenkov’s correspondence with Elagina could also shed light, but part of it was lost over the course of two years (just when the exiled Decembrist was engaged in “business” in Stepanovka). Avdotya Petrovna moved to Dorpat at the end of her life, and, probably, these letters from Batenkov either have not survived at all, or are in Estonian archives.

What about Heinz?

We were unable to find information about the architect Heinz, who is listed as the author of the Sosulinsky house in the book about Tomsk. But the name of Alexander Fedorovich Hein appears in the press of the 19th century. The architect, who studied in Moscow with the financial support of the Krasnoyarsk gold miner Kuznetsov, who was friends with the artist Surikov, worked a lot in Krasnoyarsk. A special place among his projects is occupied by religious buildings: the bishop's house, chapel, bell tower. In the Tomsk newspapers, A.F. Hein is mentioned in connection with the legal battle with the merchant Khotimsky, which lasted at least from 1858 to 1871 (at the end it was already carried out by the heirs; Hein himself had already died by that time).

"Tomsk Provincial Gazette", 1858 "Tomsk Provincial Gazette", 1871

On what grounds the Tomsk merchant and the Krasnoyarsk architect were suing is a reason for a separate study.

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Yushkovsky V.D., Batenkov in Tomsk. - Tomsk, 2004

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