“DISTANCE AND DISADVANTAGES OF TRAM TRAFFIC HAVE MADE ACCESS TO RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS DIFFICULT”: DWELLERS OF KYIV-PECHERSK MONASTERY IN 1920s — EARLY 1930s

Abstract

The article deals with the (re)construction of tenant structure of the nationalized living quarters on Kyiv-Pechersk monastery area during 1920s — early 1930s, primarily persons associated with museums and/or the AllUkrainian Academy of Sciences. Their living conditions are outlined. The dependence of the local contingent both from the change of indirect owners of the buildings, (re)subordination of the territory, the formation, restructuring, liquidation of institutions, and from the processes of urbanization, which objectively caused the housing crisis in the USSR is elucidated. Well-known intellectuals of the interwar period lived in the former monastery buildings — archaeologists Petro Kurinnyi and Mykhailo Rudynskyi, an art critic Kost Moshchenko, a restorer Mykola Kasperovych, a cooperation connoisseur Ivan Oleksiiev, etc. The living conditions of Kyiv-Pechersk Preserve dwellers, including white-collar workers, were not ideal during 1920s and early 1930s. The distance of the apartments from the city center made access to research institutions (academic departments, book and museum collections) difficult. Almost everyone faced commonplace problems and trials: adaptation of monastery spaces, current repairs, furnishing of houses, humidity and low temperatures during the autumn-winter period, lack of heating, water supply, drainage, electricity, and other utilities, etc. Besides, Pechersk, the city suburb, was quite dangerous, the local population was often robbed. Families with children faced additional difficulties — providing access to educational institutions. The main part of Kyiv-Pechersk Preserve tenants–intellectuals were newcomers from other cities and towns. Therefore, museum workers and academics changed their apartments quite easily, not only within the so-called Citadel, 9 (Kyiv-Pechersk Preserve) in Kyiv but also within the country.