The Beauty and Charm of Old Apartments in St Petersburg

ByAnna Kovalchenko
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Hello, friends!

Hope you are having wonderful Friday and getting ready for a wonderful weekend.

I have prepared an eye-candy for you for this evening. Those are pictures from Instagram of maax _sf . This guy is walking around Saint Petersburg and collecting pictures of what is left of the houses built before the Revolution (1917) (dream job!).

As you probably know when Communists came to power they confiscated housing from rich people and gave it to working class – usually 1 apartment from former aristocrat could be shared between 5 sometimes 10 families.

On these photos it is incredible to see how elegance, exquisiteness and wealth was mixed with poverty, squalor and hopelessness of the Soviet Era. Well, not only Soviet, because people do still live the way it is shown on the photos.

It feels great though that historical heritage in many of them still exists and amazing plasterwork was not just covered with recessed ceilings. It would be great if some of these properties will find the owners who will appreciate all beauty of the past and make an effort to preserve it and renovate.

Gorgeous ceiling detail in Rococo style
Amazing Art Nouveau stained-glass window
This entryway of a 12-room apartment still has original wallpaper imitating leather.
Authentic stove produced on the factory “АБО”
Typical communal kitchen in St. Petersburg. On the right side of the window there is a door which leads to the “cold storage room”. There is a small window and temperature in winter there is around 7-10 degrees.You can see that tiles are broken on the bottom of the photo – during the World War II people were chopping wood on it to put into the stove.
Evidently some creative people are living in this apartment…
This is the former boudoir – the plasterwork on the walls is a rare find: people would usually get rid of it in order to put wallpaper.
Simply a storage room, which was divided from the previous stateroom
The tiles of this fireplace were originally in terracotta colour, then after installation they could be glazed and painted in any colour according to the client’s taste.

history of styles
What a lovely nook – I would renovate it and live there myself. It used to be a large hall with 3 windows, something like a music room with a stage. This part used to be actually a stage.

If you are interested in various interior design styles, check out my “History of Styles” book where I describe main features and characteristics of each period:

[ebook_store ebook_id=”15760″]

Interior designer, jewelry designer and blogger. Passionate about design and art, travel and food.

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