Located at the intersection of Kryukov Canal and Rimsky-Korsakov Avenue, one of the most interesting residential buildings in St. Petersburg is the revenue house of R. G. Vege. For those travelers who haven't reached this area on foot, the massive structure may be familiar from water-based sightseeing tours: during the ten minutes I spent photographing the building, an enormous number of tourist boats passed by.
How to Get There by Metro
The address of the building is Kryukov Canal Embankment, 14; Rimsky-Korsakov Avenue, 41. You can walk here from the transport hub "Sennaya Square" — "Spasskaya" — "Sadovaya," which will take 15-20 minutes.
The building is residential. According to one of the residents, it is impossible for outsiders to enter (although she mentioned that she once showed curious tourists around). However, even if you can’t get inside, your encounter with the unusual facade of the building will remain in your memory for a long time.
A Bit of History
Although there isn’t much information available about the building in my sources, I simply couldn’t bypass this amazing house. The only thing I found about the history of the site where the building is located is that at the end of the 18th century, the area of modern buildings No. 37-41 on Rimsky-Korsakov Avenue belonged to the architect V. I. Bazhenov. The renowned architect studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, later studied in France, lived in Moscow, and in 1792 moved back to the capital. Here, on Rimsky-Korsakov Avenue (then called Ekaterinof Street), stood his own house.
The neoclassical building was constructed between 1912 and 1914 by Sergey Osipovich (Iosifovich) Ovsyannikov, assisted by Ivan Pavlovich Stavitsky. The list of St. Petersburg works by these masters is not long. Apart from the Vege House, for example, Ovsyannikov also built a warehouse building on Roshchinskaya Street.
I believe that, even though the architects behind the Kryukov Canal building left only a small mark in St. Petersburg's architectural history, the Vege House made their contribution very noticeable. The building stands out from afar. Among other buildings, it is distinguished by the variety of the facade’s decor, unusual dark coloring, the majestic courtyard, and two full-length figures of atlantes. An interesting detail in the inner courtyard is the large clock with hands at the central part of the facade.
According to the Housing Fund Register, there are 55 residential units in the four main entrances. A resident of the building (the one I mentioned earlier) said that there is only one communal apartment here.
Interestingly, unlike many historic buildings in St. Petersburg that I’ve written about, there are free apartments available for sale in the Vege House. The price of a 117.5 sq. m apartment is 52 million rubles.
I’ll conclude my brief story here. Usually, at the end of such materials, I provide a link to another unusual building in St. Petersburg, but today I invite you to explore the full collection of all materials about buildings in the Northern capital. I hope you’ll find something interesting for yourself.
Have a nice trip!
