In the old chocolate factory

On full screen

On Studiolum’s advice I went to the museum quarter established in the Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory in Moscow. This complex was built in the center of the city, in the western corner of an artificial island. The 19th-century German-born chocolate industrialist Einem (see here, here and here) was the owner of everything here, which was then duly confiscated at the beginning of the Soviet power. I arrive at the island from Zamoskvorechye, through the bridge over the Drainage Channel (vodootvodnij kanal), and the first thing hits my eyes is the huge block of the Udarnik (Shock-worker) movie. Soviet style, lightly seasoned with art nouveau, not that bad. Next to it, the residence block of the high-rank party functionaries, the Dom na naberezhnoy, House on the Quay, as Trifonov called it. Then I pulled my tired legs forward to the Bolotnaya naberezhnaya, where I caught sight of the factory district built of the characteristic red Russian bricks. I go ahead uncertainly, I am afraid that a chocolate-glazed mastyer would pop up from the old days and would bawl at me that the creams are over… But then I slowly feel the taste, I look surprised at the transformation of each part of the factory complex: a small gallery here, a photo studio there, cafés, exhibition halls, design centers, and even a boxing hall. Well-dressed people get out of modern cars, the members of the new Russian upper middle class, already grown up after the Soviet era.


On the other side of the river, Christ the Savior.


In one of the huge factory halls I have seen an exciting poster exhibition.



In the Lumière Brothers photo museum there was an exhibition presenting daily life in the Soviet era, after which I can say with safety that Russia lives more at peace with its recent past than Hungary.



On the roof terrace hyper-modern restaurants are waiting for the golden youth. The prices? They bite, as the Russians say, but how!


Then I somehow arrive at the Bersenevskaya naberezhnaya. Here I say goodbye to the Red October and the – really great – Peter, who turns his back to me. Previously the statue of Columbus stood here, which was replaced for the reform tsar by Zurab Tsereteli. And I continue towards the Patriarshy bridge, named so in memory of Patriarch Alexy II, who passed away in 2008. This leads over to the colossal Christ the Savior Cathedral.