Royal gates in Krasnodar. Merchants of Yekaterinodar

Modern Krasnodar (Yekaterinodar) is the economic center of the South of Russia, having long been the home of large companies and capital. The foundations for this were laid 100 years ago. At the beginning of the 20th century, representatives of the richest merchant dynasties in Russia lived in Yekaterinodar: the Avedovs, Tarasovs, Bogarsukovs, etc. Until the middle of the 19th century, the capital of the Kuban was satisfied with a small and provincial settlement with the status of a fortress. During the reign of Alexander II in 1860, Yekaterinodar became the administrative center of the Kuban region, and received the status of a city in 1867.

With the emergence of a railway in the North Caucasus (Tikhoretsk-Yekaterinodar-Novorossiysk), the city turned into a large commercial, industrial and transport center of this region. Thanks to this, in addition to the Cossacks, merchants began to settle in the city. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the most profitable industries for private business were the supply of grain, the production of vegetable oil, trade in manufactories, and cinemas. Ditzman, Rubezhansky, Steingel, Erokhin made their capital on this.

The oil-milling oligarchs, the Avedov brothers, occupied up to 20% of the oil-milling industry in Russia.

And the brand of oil “Avedov” was appreciated a century later.

Furniture maker Vasily Rubezhansky gave up his business for the sake of the fashion business. Yekaterinodar became the cinema capital of the South. His cinemas were so popular that city officials cut off city trams to get electricity for them.

Grain and steamship magnate Ivan Ditsman was respected by the townspeople and became the head of the city three times.

The Tsar’s Gate in Krasnodar or the Alexander’s Triumphal Arch – this is one of the attractions of Krasnodar.

The initiative to build the royal gates belonged to the city merchants, who proposed to build a triumphal arch in connection with the visit of Emperor Alexander III to Yekaterinodar. The project of the gate was developed by the architect Vasily Andreevich Filippov (Nicholas Church, Women’s Gymnasium).

The gate was built in 1888 with money collected by the merchant community (16,625 rubles). The location for the royal gates was chosen so that Alexander III drove from the station to the city center through the triumphal arch. It was the intersection of Kotlyarevsky and Ekaterininskaya streets. The Tsar’s Gate is a majestic 3-span structure, 12 m high, 18 m long and 3 m wide. The central span was intended for carriages, and the side ones were for pedestrians.

The royal gates are made in the pseudo-Russian style.

This is evidenced by kokoshniks and hipped roofs. The gate is made of red brick, the roof is covered with black tiles and decorated with spiers with gilded 2 main eagles. At the top of the gate is the image of Alexander Nevsky and a commemorative plaque dedicated to Alexander III.

In 1900, tram lines were laid in the central span of the arch. In 1928, the city council proposed to dismantle the gates and put bricks on the paving of the streets. The royal gates were demolished. In 2007, the State Duma decided to restore the Alexander Triumphal Arch. The work began in 2008. Architect Sergei Snisarenko worked on the project. To replicate the appearance of the arch as much as possible (the drawings were not preserved), photographs, old postcards, descriptions from literary works were used.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to erect the arch on the historical site.

Now it has been rebuilt in one of the beautiful boulevards of Krasnodar, at the intersection of Babushkina and Krasnaya streets. It is interesting that the builders moved away from the historical reality and built the gate from a monolithic reinforced concrete structure, and the brick was used only for facing.

The red gate harmoniously fits into the landscape of the boulevard, where in 2009 the monument to St. Catherine was erected and fountains were launched.