Glass Museum of the Red May Factory - nosferat09. The Lost Factory and the Kremlin Stars Glass Factory Red May Neighbors

Glass Museum of the Red May Factory in Vyshny Volochyok January 8th, 2018

Sometimes, when you are a little desperate or disappointed, it can be very pleasant to unexpectedly stumble upon something beautiful and beautiful. Such that at one moment it will block the gray previous emotions and impressions. This is what happened to me when, after getting our feet wet up to the knees from the uncleaned snow-covered paths, we went to the stunning glass museum of the Red May factory. Let's see what colors were able to warm up and charm?

In 1859, in the village of Klyuchino, Moscow entrepreneur Samarin founded a chemical plant, where products such as vitriol and oil of vitriol, lamp oil and ammonia, strong vodka and other various acids were produced. Samarin, unfortunately, did not have enough funds to develop production and in 1873 the plant was sold to a wealthy Vyshnevolotsk merchant. A.V. Bolotin became the leader and founded glass production on the basis of the plant.

That same year, the new owners built the first furnace and began producing glassware and lampshades.

The real flourishing of production began with the arrival of experienced glassmaker Vasily Vekshin at the plant - the owner of the secret of leaving a charge for melting colored glass.

The plant began producing colored glass with a varied color palette.

In 1882 and 1886, the plant's products were awarded gold and silver medals at various exhibitions. In 1920, the plant was nationalized, and on May 1, 1923 it was renamed the Krasny May plant.

Until the 1940s, continuous bath furnaces were built. Lamp glass, window glass, and tableware were produced.

In the 30s, an order was fulfilled for the production of lamps for lighting the Moscow metro.

During the Great Patriotic War glass was produced for the needs navy, aviation and medicine, semaphores and traffic light lenses, battery vessels, etc.

In 1944, the company received a government order to produce ruby ​​glass for the Kremlin stars.

The order was successfully completed in 1946, and the plant was awarded the Red Banner of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the People's Commissariat of Light Industry for eternal storage.

In the 1950-1960s, products were produced from colored glass, painted with gold, chandelier, silicate paints, as well as a wide range of crystal products.

Since 1959, the Krasny May plant began working with zinc sulfide glass, which was called the “Russian miracle” for its inexhaustible richness of color.

Artists at the enterprise created unique decorative compositions from this glass, which were very successfully demonstrated at exhibitions not only in our country, but also abroad.

Brussels, New York, Montreal, Paris, London appreciated Krasnomay glass.

In 1974, in connection with the reconstruction of Red Square, the plant again fulfilled an honorary order for the production of ruby ​​Kremlin stars.

In 1980, the Krasny May plant was awarded the honorary Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

In 1983, the company completed a large order for the production of lamps from transparent and milky glass for the Moscow Conservatory. P.I. Tchaikovsky.

In 1986, at the request of the Bulgarian government, ruby ​​glass was made for the Friendship Memorial on Shipka and for the Government House in Sofia.

In 2001, the Red May glass factory was closed and gradually turned into ruins.

But the memory of its history and the great talented masters and artists is still alive in the collection of art glass, which was collected and opened for viewing back in 1968 and is now on display in the new glass museum in Vyshny Volochyok.

Visit this museum if possible.

Well, what if you find yourself in Volochyok and want beauty and bright colors?

Museum address: Vyshny Volochyok, M. Magomaev Street, building 17. Open daily, except Mondays, from 10 to 18.

And finally, some more helpful information and gratitude for the rich tourist information tour. Our trip to Vyshny Volochyok certainly would not have taken place without the long-standing and fruitful friendship of the community travel_russia with the cruise company "Mosturflot". It is famous not only for river cruises. During the season between navigations, you have a unique opportunity to visit various parts of our country, including the Vyshnevolotsk region, on exciting bus cruises. I guarantee and promise that on these trips you will get a lot of unusual, bright and interesting things. After all, it cannot be otherwise, if the program director of Mosturflot, Vladislav Viktorovich Khasikov, takes you towards new discoveries. I also thank our guide, Vyshnevolotsk local historian Denis Ivlev, the regional administration and all the tour participants for the excellent company.

Part 1. Say a word about the Kremlin stars
The coming year could be marked by two dates - albeit not anniversary dates, but significant in their own way: the 157th anniversary of the founding of the Vyshny Volochok chemical plant and the 87th anniversary of the day when this plant received its last name, by which everyone knows it - “Red May”. They knew. Today, instead of a unique enterprise, once famous for its crystal, there are only ruins.

However, there is also a round date - exactly 70 years ago, stars made of glass made at Red May shone over the Moscow Kremlin. Once upon a time the plant was famous throughout the USSR. Still would! "They shine over the whole country Kremlin stars made by the hands of Krasnomaysk craftsmen" , - I’m reading a guidebook from 1988. Of course, not entirely: the ruby ​​tops of the tower spiers are a complex engineering structure, on the creation of which dozens of enterprises and research institutes worked. But the laminated glass manufactured at Krasny May is far from the last part of this structure. Therefore, the words of almost thirty years ago, despite the pathos, are close to the truth. What remains of that pride? Destroyed workshops that are unlikely to ever be rebuilt. Yes, a museum that survives on nothing more than a word of honor.

* * *
A few kilometers from Vyshny Volochyok towards St. Petersburg is the village of Krasnomaysky. Is it true, local residents it is not called that; this toponym exists only in official documents. “I’ll go to Red May”, “I live on Red May” - when people say this, they mean the village, not the plant. IN mid-19th century, here was the village of Klyuchino, where in 1859 the future flagship of the glass industry arose. First as a chemical. Its first owner, titular councilor Samarin, had further development production did not have enough funds, and three years later the plant was bought by the merchant of the second guild Andrei Bolotin, who soon built a glass factory in its place. Later, he founded another plant in the territory of the current Vyshnevolotsky district - Borisovsky (now - OJSC Medsteklo Borisovskoe). The first glass melting furnace at the Klyuchinsky plant was launched by the merchant and founder of the Bolotin dynasty of glassmakers in 1873. Also, at the expense of the plant’s owners, a workers’ settlement, quite comfortable by the standards of that time, was built.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Klyuchinsky plant produced glass pharmaceutical, tableware and confectionery dishes, kerosene lamps, lampshades, fulfilling orders from almost all parts of the empire. Soon it struck October Revolution, the plant was nationalized and in 1929 received the name “Red May”. A village of 5 thousand inhabitants with a hospital, school, music school, a vocational school that trained, in addition to specialist glassmakers, tractor drivers and car mechanics. Much was written about “Red May” in the regional and central press. Let's remember what newspapers and magazines talked about then and compare all this with the current remnants of its former greatness.

“When you look at the Kremlin stars, it seems as if from time immemorial they have been crowning the pointed towers: so organic is their flame in unity with the beautiful monument of Russian architecture, so natural in our minds is the inseparability of two symbols - the heart of the Motherland and the five-pointed star.”(“Pravda”, 1985). It just so happened that when we say “Red May,” we mean five ruby ​​finials. And vice versa. That’s why I want to start my story from this page. Moreover, the Vyshnevolotsk stars, which now decorate the Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Troitskaya and Vodovzvodnaya towers of the Kremlin, were not the first.

First five pointed stars changed the symbol of autocratic Russia - double-headed eagles - in the fall of 1935. They were made of high-alloy stainless steel and red copper, with a gold-plated hammer and sickle in the center of each star. However, the first stars did not decorate the Kremlin towers for long. Firstly, they quickly faded under the influence of precipitation, and secondly, in overall composition The Kremlin looked rather ridiculous and violated the architectural ensemble. Therefore, it was decided to install ruby ​​luminous stars.

New tops appeared on November 2, 1937. Each of them could rotate like a weather vane and had a frame in the form of a multifaceted pyramid. The order for the production of ruby ​​glass was received by the Avtosteklo plant in the city of Konstantinovka in the Donbass. It had to transmit red rays of a certain wavelength, be mechanically strong, resistant to sudden temperature changes, and not discolor or be destroyed by exposure to solar radiation. The glazing of the stars was double: the inner layer consisted of milky (matte, dull white) glass 2 mm thick, thanks to which the light from the lamp was scattered evenly over the entire surface, and the outer layer was made of ruby ​​6-7 mm. Each star weighed about a ton, with a surface area of ​​8 to 9 square meters.

During the Great Patriotic War, the stars were extinguished and covered up. When they were reopened after the Victory, multiple cracks and traces of shell fragments were discovered on the ruby ​​surface. Restoration was needed. This time, the Vyshnevolotsk plant “Red May” was entrusted with the task of making glass. The local craftsmen made it four layers: transparent crystal at the bottom, then frosted glass, again crystal and, finally, ruby. This is necessary so that the star and during the day sunlight, and at night, illuminated from within, it was the same color. « Ruby stars, manufactured at the Konstantinovsky plant, did not fulfill the task set by the designers. A double layer of glass - milky and ruby ​​- did not make it possible to preserve the bright color of the stars. Dust accumulated between the layers. And by that time, laminated glass was produced, in my opinion, only at Krasny May.(“Kalininskaya Pravda”, 1987). “I think that readers will be interested to know how prototypes of star glass were made. To make a multilayer ruby ​​for just one star, it took 32 tons of high-quality Lyubertsy sand, 3 tons of zinc muffle white, 1.5 tons of boric acid, 16 tons of soda ash, 3 tons of potash, 1.5 tons of potassium nitrate."(“Youth”, 1981).

The renewed stars began to shine in 1946. And they still shine, despite calls from some public figures to replace them with eagles again. The next reconstruction of the ruby ​​“luminaries” was in 1974, and again Krasnomaysk craftsmen took part in it. Despite the existing experience, the cooking technology had to be created, as they say, from scratch: archival documents from which the “recipe” could be restored have not been preserved.

I must say that in 2010, about the 75th anniversary of the first Kremlin stars They wrote a lot in the central media, but they never mentioned the contribution of “Red May”. Not in 1996, when the plant was still working, at the very least, despite the fact that they began to pay out salaries in vases and wine glasses. Not in 2006 - at least to catch up with the already departed train...

This was once a hall of honor

* * *
“Yesterday, a batch of parts made of colorless and milky glass for lighting fixtures at the Moscow Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky was sent from the Vyshnevolotsk “Red May” plant. It was not easy for glassmakers to repeat the bizarre shapes of ancient chandeliers and sconces that have illuminated the halls of this musical for more than a hundred years. educational institution» (Kalininskaya Pravda, 1983). “Several years ago, the craftsmen of the Vyshnevolotsk glass factory “Red May”, at the request of Bulgarian friends, made ruby ​​glass for the friendship memorial built on the famous Shipka. And here is a new order from Bulgaria - to make four-layer glass for the star that will crown the Party House in Sofia. The teams of craftsmen N. Ermakov, A. Kuznetsov, N. Nasonov and A. Bobovnikov were entrusted with executing the export order.” (“Pravda”, 1986).

“A beautiful garden village with asphalt roads, comfortable cottage houses, a club, a school and other public buildings, with a factory-garden in the center, from where almost two thousand items of products are sold all over the world”(“Kalininskaya Pravda”, 1959). “Yesterday, a joyful message came from Moscow to GPTU-24 of the Vyshnevolotsk plant “Red May”. Resolution of the Main Exhibition Committee of the VDNKh USSR for the development and participation in the production of the “Jubilee” and “Cup” vases presented at the All-Union Show artwork vocational schools, vocational training masters T. Orlova and T. Shamrina were awarded bronze medals. And students Irina Yarosh and Eduard Vedernikov were awarded the medal “Young Participant of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements”(“Kalininskaya Pravda”, 1983). For comparison. The garden village is an ordinary outlying village, of which there are thousands. It doesn’t seem to be abandoned, but there’s also no hint of being well-groomed. The cottage houses are apparently wooden two-story barracks that still have cesspools. The only thing you can catch your eye on is the small church of the holy martyr Thaddeus, completed just a few years ago.

Parts were the city and the region. Now let's look at the two museums of Vyshny Volochok. This is a local history museum, introducing the past of the city, its unique canals and iconic people, and a real Glass Fairy Tale or Colored Dream - a glass museum of the former Red May plant, several times even producing ruby ​​glass for the stars of the Kremlin towers on government orders.

1. Glass production near Vyshny Volochok appeared in the second half of the 19th century, when a local merchant bought a chemical plant and based it on the production of tableware, lampshades and kerosene lamps

2. A little later, the production of colored glass appeared, when an experienced glassmaker who knew the secret of the technology came to the plant

3. The plant’s products received high awards at pre-revolutionary exhibitions

8. And the little animals, ahah, look what they are!

11. After the revolution, the plant was nationalized, renamed "Red May", expanded and modernized production. Lamp glass, window glass, dishes, lamps for the subway - all this was made here. High-quality color products, which, as in tsarist times, occupied high places in the international exhibitions, nicknamed the "Russian miracle"

12. In the 1940s and 1970s, the plant carried out probably the most important task in its history - a government order for the production of ruby ​​glass for the Kremlin stars. Here are his pieces

Having visited this museum, I was already dreaming of how I would get to the production site and make a report, but fate did not. In 2001, the Red May glass factory was closed. Let’s face it, a huge era has passed and a whole page has been torn out of the book on the history of our country, but the memory remains. Just for the sake of this museum, to visit here again, I would return to Vyshny in the summer on a Mosturflot cruise or in the winter as part of bus tours, the so-called “winter cruises” of this company.
It would seem that there has been no plant for almost 17 years, but a residue from this fact still remains inside.

13. And this is the Vyshny Volochok Museum of Local Lore. To be honest, I don’t really like these, but I didn’t regret visiting Vyshnevolotsky. It is already more than 80 years old, but the exhibitions do not smell like a layer of museum dust and you don’t need to bring a pillow with you to sleep out of boredom. Not so long ago everything here was also reconstructed.

Local guides are true professionals in their field, enthusiasts, ready to talk for hours about every detail, about every exhibit as if it were about a person dear to them personally and an old friend. No memorized phrases from guidebooks, no “tell me and finish quickly.” So I highly recommend the museum to everyone!

14. In the Petrovsky Hall you can not only learn about the activities of the Tsar, who made the Vyshnevolotsk waterway truly navigable (thus connecting the Baltic and the Caspian Sea and opening up many new opportunities for the development of Russia with the help of Vyshnevolotsk), but also see cannons raised from the bottom of the canals , cannonballs, hooks - witnesses of that era

17. The Dutch, who built canals for Peter in Vyshny Volochyok, messed up. They were used to working with the sea and did not take into account the peculiarities of our area. In the summer, lakes and rivers became shallow, canals became dehydrated, traffic along the canals stopped and famine set in in the cities.

The Novgorod merchant M.I. Serdyukov undertook to correct the situation and improve the waterway. He, a self-taught hydraulic engineer, devoted a third of a century to the water system of Vyshny Volochok. Locks, beyslots, the Tsninsky Canal, the reservoir - all these are the results of his labors

18. Model of the Tsninsky lock, built by Serdyukov

19. Plan of hydraulic structures in Vyshny Volochyok, presented by Serdyukov to Emperor Peter

20. And modern map.
After visiting the museum, I wanted to visit all the buildings in the summer, including those almost destroyed by time and man, to see everything in person and get to know in more detail the water artery that was once very important for Russia

21. Model of Vyshny Volochok from the time of Peter the Great. Now, if museums have models, that’s very cool)

22. Look how handsome he is!
Frigate "Pallada". Its first captain was Nakhimov. Subsequently, the frigate visited many voyages, including Japan. With the beginning Crimean War due to fear of capture by the British, it was sunk.
IN different years Vyshnevolotsk and Tver nobles served on it

23. The canals of Vyshny Volochok were the most important freight routes. Here is a model of a cargo barque, made according to a 19th century drawing. How do you like the fact that the barge lifted up to 130 tons of cargo? I didn't believe it at first)

In Vyshny, in connection with the transition from lifting to rafting, the vessels were re-equipped. The rudders and masts were removed, platforms were set up, on which stood people operating 4 huge oars - potes. A pilot and 10 workers were placed on each barge

24. Remember in the first part there was a chapel on the site of the 18th century Kazan Cathedral, where Catherine’s decree was read, granting Vyshny Volochok the status of a city? This is what this cathedral was like, blown up in the 1930s

The story of the collapse of the Red May plant is in a sense canonical. The company survived the 90s with dignity, led by the “red director” L. Shapiro. At the beginning of the 2000s, new people were introduced to the board of directors of the plant, who quickly brought it to bankruptcy and privatized it. The main founder of LLC " Glass factory“Red May” is still listed as Mikhail Pruzhinin, and its co-founder is Andrey Ustinovsky. Both have been wanted for 5 years in a high-profile criminal case against the Rostovskie organized crime group. The investigation considers them to be the leaders of this criminal group, the backbone of which, despite the name, was residents of St. Petersburg. The rest of the Rostov gang received real sentences in 2011 on charges of extortion, fraud and abuse of power.

Konstantin Litvin

main artist
plant "Red May"
from 1986 to 2002

In the 90s, when Leonid Dmitrievich Shapiro was the director, the plant survived. We even walked quite well compared to others. Then Shapiro retired, there was some kind of leapfrog with the management, but we still worked, finally in 2002 he came new director Valov, was installed by his St. Petersburg comrades together with the then mayor of the city, Khasainov. To begin with, they decided to privatize the plant. In order to buy it for pennies, they bankrupted it. They bankrupted, turned off all the furnaces and dispersed all employees. It was 2002. They received the plant, but it didn’t work back. All the big glass factories were going through something similar at that time. Both Gus-Khrustalny and Dyatkovo, they moved from one bankruptcy to another, a third, but remained afloat. So, at the very least, they moved. But ours, in general, went down.

In general, our plant was the third largest glass plant in the country. Gus-Khrustalny, Dyatkovo and “Red May”. The best period of its activity was when it had more than three thousand employees and a very wide range of dishes and lighting fixtures. In general, it was one of the best factories. And the first colored glass factory is probably the best in the country. We made glass such as sulfide, ruby, and so on. It is no coincidence that we received the order for the Kremlin stars. It was the pride of the country.

These strange people who appeared on the board of directors did not listen to me, did not listen to other specialists and were only engaged in withdrawing money from the enterprise

Now there is nothing left there except the museum. At first they sold everything that was iron for scrap metal, and ended up dismantling all the brick partitions that were in the workshops, selling the bricks and renting out the workshops. Although we persuaded them before the final closure, they turned on the furnace, and this furnace generated a profit of a million rubles every month. At that time, this was very decent money. I told them, as the main artist: “Turn on the furnace, we will make an assortment and earn a certain amount of money, we will build two more furnaces, then we will buy a new line, and so on. This is not to say that no one bought the products. We also had such things as colored sheet glass. We were monopolists. No one else in the country made this colored patterned glass, glass with a pattern, it is also reinforced. Indian, which was exported, was several orders of magnitude more expensive. Construction and furniture companies happily bought this glass. But these strange people who appeared on the board of directors did not listen to me, did not listen to other specialists, and were only engaged in withdrawing money from the enterprise. Incompetence is what buried our plant.

The museum, of course, is a pity. He also belongs to these comrades. There is a building there that is not heated at all. And there is one girl who comes only if an excursion is booked. And the exhibits there represent great cultural and material value. The plant is more than 150 years old, there are many pre-revolutionary products, when it was still a plant of the merchant Bolotin, a supplier to His Imperial Majesty, by the way.

Incompetence is what buried our plant.

My wife and I survived normally, we are artists, we have a workshop, we do cold processing. We have received orders, we are holding exhibitions, we are quite active creative life. But for many workers, stopping the plant was tantamount to death.

Since the enterprise was a city-forming enterprise, almost everyone in the village worked at it. After closing, some went to work as a security guard, some went to Moscow, some went to other factories, some drank themselves to death, some died, some even committed suicide. Creepy. It’s simply impossible to talk about this without tears. You see, many craftsmen had a narrow specialty with very high qualifications, they treated their work with pride and respect - and suddenly they found themselves broken trough. Other factories were also dying at that time, there was no work in their specialty, and when such a master goes to work as a security guard, this, of course, is a tragedy.

When the plant was closed, the grown men and grandfathers who worked there, they all just cried. They stopped the glass furnaces, the furnaces full. Usually, when the furnace is stopped, it is all scooped out, it is completely exhausted in order to then be lit. But here the stoves were simply turned off, that’s all. The men roared. This meant that everything was over, the song was finished, there would be no continuation. I said there was just a series of suicides. A plant is not equipment, it is people. They have worked here for generations. I knew a seventh generation blower! Imagine, his great-great-grandfathers worked here since the mid-19th century. For people like him, the incentive to live is simply gone.

By all accounts, the Rostovskys acted in close conjunction with the city administration. Pruzhinin (“Spring”) and Ustinovsky were officially assistants to the mayor; they had offices in the administration building. Mayor Khasainov remained in power for almost 15 years, during which time he gained control over many enterprises in the city. In 2009, a movement in opposition to the mayor and his team was organized in Vyshny Volochyok. New town». The government managed to change, but not for long. Before leaving, Khasainov passed a law through the local assembly limiting the term of office of the city mayor to two years. In 2011, Alexey Pantyushkin, a friend of Khasainov, became mayor. The term of office was again extended to four years, but a tragic incident prevented it from being completed to the end. In the early morning of July 19 this year, Alexey Pantyushkin died of a heart attack in a suite at a five-star hotel in Turkey. His death was reported by a girl who was in the same room with him at that early time. However, almost no mention of it leaked into the Russian press. Together with the mayor, 12 other city officials vacationed in the five-star hotel different levels and gender - all without families. How much money was used to organize the trip remains unknown. Pantyushkin was buried on the city Walk of Fame. Vyshny Volochek is waiting for new elections.

Evgeny Stupkin

local historian, former deputy of the Vyshnevolotsk City Duma,
one of the founders of the movement
"New town"

In our country, almost 70 percent of the city’s enterprises were closed or destroyed with the help of Khasainov. It acted in line with the same policies that were in Tver and Moscow, it was simply different in size. The road was now being built as a circular road for the federal highway - it turned out that almost half of the land along which it passed belonged to Khasainov. But he didn't invent anything. Former Governor Zelenin bought everything best lands Tver region on the cheap.

Vyshny Volochek was an industrial center - the second most important city in the Tver region. All these famous factories of ours went under the knife. Not only "Red May". For example, the tanning extracts plant—there are less than a dozen of them in all of Russia—produced unique, irreplaceable products. Today there are not even ruins left of it - and we buy the same products, albeit of worse quality and much more expensive, abroad. The famous Zelenogorsk plant of enzyme preparations is a unique plant, unique developments. They went bankrupt.

They built a wonderful brick factory - they built it with government money, they immediately bankrupted it, and the same company that built it bought it 10 times cheaper, you know? That is, the scheme for transferring budget money into private pockets has been worked out clearly.

We have nothing left now. Well, the only thing is that the forest... is a living timber processing plant, a living timber industry enterprise. The directors there are normal men. Most forestry enterprises in the country today only know what to cut down and immediately sell as round timber. Our timber industry enterprise and timber processing plant do not sell round timber at all - all raw materials are processed. And the majority are simply carrying round timber.

Until now, half of Vyshny Volochok, almost the entire infrastructure of the city, all the life support systems of the city are in private hands, that is, controlled by Khasainov and his accomplices. Water, gas, electricity, heat, everything. Even if there is no money, people will still pay for it. And our tariffs for these services are growing rapidly. This is not even rabid capitalism, this is something else. For example, before it was possible to distinguish - this is a bandit, this is an official. Today these two concepts have merged so much that they have become one. A single system, rigid from top to bottom, vertical, powerful, durable, good. For example, I can’t imagine how to destroy it.

Khasainov has been out of power for six years now, but if a person owns half of the city, how can the city authorities not contact him? Naturally, he is taken into account. Vyshny Volochek is not something unique, this is how the system works throughout Russia.

What it came to was - they built a plant with government money, immediately it went bankrupt, and the same company that built it bought it 10 times cheaper, do you understand?

Khasainov ruled for almost 15 years. I was one of those who dumped him. We first assembled 70% of our Duma, where there were no lackeys, and then we threw him out too. But, as they say, what they fought for, that’s what they ran into. Babushkin led the fight against Khasainov; he later expressed that the operation to overthrow Khasainov was his best business project. In general, that’s what happened. A relative of Babushkin became the mayor; they quickly came to an agreement with Khasainov’s team and divided their spheres of influence. In general, we were all cheated - the entire team that was able to remove Khasainov from mayor, and by and large, the entire city - all its residents, 80% of whom voted for a change of power. I left “politics” - I’m again studying my favorite local history, finishing the book “Vyshnevolotskaya Pushkiniana” - almost two dozen of Pushkin’s friends and acquaintances lived in our area, can you imagine?!

Part 2. Is it too late for us to stop?
Ending. Start
Let's continue our walk through the area, which some fifteen years ago was the famous glass factory "Red May". Famous, first of all, for the fact that in his workshops four-layer glass was made for the stars of the Moscow Kremlin, which today adorn its five towers. Today we will visit the Museum of Art Glass.

Getting from the regional center to the village of Krasnomaysky is not difficult: a regular bus goes there every 20 minutes. The third stop after turning off the M10 highway - and you are at the factory entrance. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. except weekends and holidays. More precisely, it can be open. To get there, you need to call in advance and book a tour. And at the agreed time, go to the entrance, where the caretaker will meet you and lead you to the museum.

All that remains of the entrance

In the museum

“And the kerosene lamps, painted with gold and paints, were also striking in their beauty. It was these lamps, topped with thin, light lampshades, that were awarded a gold medal at the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition in Moscow in 1882.”(“Krasnomaisky glazier”, 1988). By 1990, when the 20th anniversary of the Krasny May factory museum was celebrated, it stored more than three hundred products of pre-revolutionary (Bolotinsky) craftsmen and about 4 thousand samples already Soviet period- both unique exhibits made of colored, applied and zinc sulfide glass, as well as mass products. Many of these exhibits were brought by village residents. That is, like most museum exhibitions, this one was also created literally bit by bit.

The current state of the museum is little better than the enterprise. On the ground floor of the building, where there was once a canteen, there is the same devastation as in the workshops. Only upstairs, where the museum itself is, is there order. Except, of course, for the leaking roof and lack of heating. Formally, the museum belongs to the owners of the former plant - it is clear that such land cannot be owned by anyone. Who they are and what their names are, no one with whom I was able to talk knows. In fact, he is more or less monitored by entrepreneurs located on the territory of “Red May”. The region or the Vyshnevolotsky district may and would like to take the glass museum on its own balance sheet, but they cannot: the law does not allow it to take it and take it away (or, more precisely, save it). Just as they cannot provide financial assistance: inappropriate spending budget funds, criminal article. Even if our history is at stake. It's a pity. The moment when it is too late to do anything usually comes unexpectedly. And the owners cannot be reached.

Although, if the authorities really wanted to, they would probably have done everything that was necessary.

All that remains of the dining room

Indeed, a surprise

“Invaluable assistance in collecting materials about the history of the plant was provided by Nikolai Aleksandrovich Khokhryakov, Vasily Maksimovich Semyonov and other comrades. In the design of the museum building huge contribution contributed by builders under the leadership of Yuri Dmitrievich Popov, mechanical shop workers led by Leonid Petrovich Vasin, the manufacturer of frescoes from the Bolotino period, Viktor Vladimirovich Rakov and other comrades. It is impossible not to note the great contribution to the creation of a history museum on a voluntary basis by employee Vyshnevolotsky local history museum Galina Georgievna Monakhova, who even gave her vacation to this business"(“Krasnomaisky glazier”, 1988). In the museum you can not only see samples of Krasnomaysk products, but also learn about the people who created them. Lyudmila Kuchinskaya, Victor Shevchenko, Anatoly Silko, Sergey Konoplev, Svetlana Beskinskaya, spouses Elena Esikova and Konstantin Litvin. Tver art connoisseurs do not need to introduce the latter. Esikova and Litvin still work as glass artists and participate in various exhibitions.

"Red May" is the birthplace of zinc sulfide glass. About 30 years ago, the plant began to develop this new Soviet glass. Interest in an unsolved technological innovation helped reveal all the color transformations. By the will of the artist and master, golden glass turned out to be capable of turning into opal, then icy-smoky, and then suddenly flashing with colored patterns or marble stains.”(“Krasnomaisky glazier”, 1988). Sulfide or sulfide-zinc glass, colored with sulfur compounds of iron and zinc, was created in 1958 by Evgenia Ivanova, a technologist at the Leningrad Art Glass Factory (LZHS), and Alexander Kirienen, an engineer from the same enterprise. A year later, it was already mastered at the Vyshnevolotsk plant and soon became its business card. Due to its wide range of colors and the ability to change it depending on the temperature and duration of processing, sulfide glass is also called the “Russian miracle”.

“Recently, experimental glass melting was carried out at the Krasny May glass factory, the raw material for which was sand delivered from Georgia. Employees of one of the research institutes in Tbilisi set the task of testing the suitability of local sand deposits containing a large percentage of iron for the production of building glass. They turned to the Krasnomaysk residents for help. Workers from the plant's chemical laboratory, together with the team from the fourth workshop, successfully tested the sand - building glass of green, blue and light blue colors was obtained. The results of this experiment will serve as the basis for establishing the production of colored profile glass for the construction needs of Georgia"(“Kalininskaya Pravda”, 1980). The range of products of the plant, as I already noted in the first part, was wide. However, not only a zinc sulfide vase, but also an ordinary glass or the same building glass from “Red May” can be called Russian miracles. This is the specificity of the plant: it was impossible to do anything bad or even mediocre here. Or they didn't know how.

Photo from the magazine "Youth" for 1981

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“In 1995, at Red May they began to pay salaries in crystal vases. The advance, one might say, was received “green”, and all because at the Vyshnevolotsk glass factory they welded the crystal a little with greenery, and the customers refused it. Then it was given to the workers: sell it and earn your own bread... On paydays, glass products were given out to the workshops and also the workshops were assigned places where to stand on the highway. People cried, but closed their mouths: after all, at least some money was flowing.” (“Tver Life”, 2004). In fact, they started selling Red May products on the Moscow - St. Petersburg highway much earlier. In 1992, they definitely stood with vases - men and women, groups and individuals. The “points” were located over more than twenty kilometers from the turn to Leontyevo and almost to Khotilovo. This is how the unique plant survived the turbulent 90s. Survived. At the very least, he survived. Reports about economic growth that accompanied the first steps of the new President Vladimir Putin should have been supplemented by “Red May”. But trouble came from where it was not expected at all.

All that remains of the company store

“And this entire farm now belongs to two St. Petersburg entities - CJSC Holding Company Ladoga (V.V. Grabar) and a certain citizen Mikhail Romanovich Pruzhinin.<…>By coincidence, Mikhail Romanovich is one of the closest and most trusted acquaintances of the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Tver Region and the former Vyshnevolotsk mayor Mark Zhanovich Khasainov.” (“Tverskaya Gazeta”, 2004). Usually, time is cited as the culprit for destroyed enterprises or collective farms. Confusion. Redistribution But behind every action, as a rule, there are specific people. "Red May" is one of the few examples where these people are called by name. According to the author of the article, in 2002 the new management of the plant asked a certain American company a loan of $2.2 million to create a line for the production of bottle containers (is a unique enterprise suddenly switching to bottles?) under government guarantee. That is, if “Red May” fails to fulfill its loan obligations, two million “greens” must go overseas. In the end, this is exactly what happened: the scheme had been worked out and debugged for a long time. And no money, no bottles, no crystal.

I don’t remember that any of the people listed in the material brought Tverskaya Gazeta to court. And the fact that Mark Khasainov, over the years of leading Vyshny Volochok, has practically crushed all local economic resources under his control is no secret to anyone. So this version can be considered “working”, albeit adjusted for someone’s “order”: such information can appear in the media only if it is deliberately leaked.