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In the latter half of the 19th Century, social changes
saw the nobility loosing much of its former position. Power shifted to
the merchants and manufacturers. |
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The appearance of homes soon changed. New construction
no longer followed the models of the past, instead creating individual
designs. Attic stories were no longer constructed, and a new emphasis was
placed on the redesigning the superstructure of the house, with special
consideration to the middle part of the house. Courtyards were eliminated,
and front doors began opening directly onto the street, where a side entrance
was used before. Two-story houses were built, often to be used as rental
property and house decorations became more sophisticated. |
 House No. 3 in Mashal Novikov str. |
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The official style was gradually losing the common direction, though there are plenty of houses were being built in Classicism in the 19 th Century. There are a few houses that stand out against this general background, and depict examples of modern tendencies for those times. |
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House No. 21/57 (Engels/Sverdlov str.) built between 1855 and 1862 can serve as an example. The carving is plain and sawed-through. The outer decoration is far from Classical. Attention is drawn to the front entrance, where massive, carved pillars support, with help of metal brackets, a gable roofed porch. The brackets are fastened in the middle and are hidden. On the door-jamb there is an ornament with a draught board design. All this creates an impression of resplendence and to some extent, a sense of heaviness. |
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Two houses on Lenin St. should be noted: Nos. 19 and 21. Built in the seventies, they differ widely both from each other and from the model projects. House No.21 is a two-storied, with a mezzanine and two summer out houses attached to it. The number and placement of windows do not meet the requirements of classicism. The window casings are decorated with embossed carving of the iconostasis style. The gates of the courtyard are also carved. |
 House No. 19 in Lenina str. |
 on a house |
 (Lenin str., 21) |
Originally house No. 19 was made in stone. It had two storeys with some windows on the facade side. In 1908 two-storied additions were built, extending the width of the house on both sides and added two windows. The decorative design has been preserved since the time of the construction date. Though the facade part of the second story, though made of wood, resembles brickwork, neither the window casings or the massive brackets, supporting the roof, have any decorative character. Still, the house looks smart in its own way. |
 (Avenue Prospect Mira, 43) |
House No. 50 in Sovietskaya St. belongs to the same
period of time. Though built in stone design , it has nothing in common
with Classicism. The house was built according to an individual project
and was richly decorated. The stone imitation is not blind. In some cases
the wood pattern comes out in its own texture and cannot be replaced either
by molding or by stone. |
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House No. 66 in Tereshkova St. was built in 1878. It is quite a masterpiece of building craftsmanship. It is a solid structure, with a ground floor constructed of stone, and the upper floor of wood. Major repairs have not been made in a hundred years. The pine trunks for the framework are plain without any knots. All wooden parts (frames, doors, floors) are made of kiln-dried material, and free of warps. |
 Tershkova str. |
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The flooring is made of wide, kiln-dried planks. The copper knobs on the doors and windows are beautiful. The decorative pattern of the outer part of the house is made in folk style: fine, lacy, non-standard — a shining example of the skill and taste of the craftsman who created it. There are unique stylized images of a man and other figures on the boards that cover the ends of the timbers. |
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After the abolishment of serfdom, the inflow of peasants into cities increased. As peasants joined the proletariat, many lived in barracks or rented houses. Those who were richer, could afford to build little village-type huts. As their fortunes improved, many could afford to erect bigger two-storied homes, in place of the original smaller structures. |
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The abundance of wooden carvings, adorning the house it what first attracts one's attention. The major component of it is a window casing called lacy towel . It was so called for its similar appearance to a cloth with tasselled ends, by which icona and portraits were to be decorated according to an old Russian tradition. It sometimes, also, resembles rows of icicles hanging down from projections. This type of window casing is widely spread on older houses in the villages of Kostroma, Krasnoye-Selo , Susanino, and other other districts. There are a lot of similar window casings in Kostroma itself, with perhaps, the lacy towel on the house façade, on Laguernaya St., 3 being the most beautiful. This house was brought from Susanino District. |
 (Laguernaya str., 3) |
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