Income Property in Moscow at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries as an economic phenomenon

Orchakova Larisa Gennad'evna ORCID: 0000-0001-9559-9930 Doctor of History Professor of the Department of History; Institute of Humanities; Moscow City University 4 2nd Agricultural Ave., Moscow, 129226, Russia OrchakovaLG@mgpu.ru

Ilmiev Roman Imranovich ORCID: 0009-0007-8714-7580 Postgraduate student; Department of History of the Institute of Humanities; Moscow City Pedagogical University 129347, Russia, Moscow, Prokhodchikov str., 1, sq. 84 ilmievri@mgpu.ru Other publications by this author

The second half of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century is a rapid development of the modernization type of economic, social, cultural and political spheres in Russia, filled with turbulent events. The reforms of the 1860s and 1870s gave a powerful impetus to the development of industry, urbanization of the whole country and an increase in the urban population. The appearance of cities is changing dramatically. On the one hand, the need for housing is increasing, on the other hand, it is becoming the subject of investment in the construction of rental real estate, including apartment buildings. This is where the importance of studying this issue is seen, allowing for a deeper understanding of the general economic processes that took place in Russia at the turn of the century, as well as their social and cultural consequences.

To date, not much research has been devoted to the development of apartment buildings in Russia, in particular in Moscow. The historiography of the issue is quite limited, and only a few researchers have tried to consider this phenomenon in the context of the general economic and socio-cultural processes of that era.

One of the few researchers who paid attention to this aspect is D. M. Demidovich. In her dissertation, "Apartment Buildings in St. Petersburg as a social phenomenon (1870s – early 20th century)," she tried to highlight the complex and multifaceted relationships between key participants in the life of apartment buildings. The dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of the social, cultural and economic processes built around apartment buildings in St. Petersburg, while the researcher does not affect other regions. We can also mention the work of E. D. Yukhneva – "St. Petersburg apartment buildings. Essays on their life history". The author examines the life and everyday life of tenants in apartment buildings.

This topic is also covered in a number of articles by the following authors: I. S. Cheredina, E. Y. Rybakov ^[11]; L. N. Danyaeva ^[5]; Y. Vasilyeva, A. Khairullina and S. Novikova ^[1]. However, all these works do not comprehend our subject of research in a historical context.

It is worth noting that the issue of the development of apartment buildings in Moscow has received insufficient attention in the scientific literature. This topic certainly deserves in-depth research, given the role that apartment buildings have played in the social and economic life of the city. At the moment, there is no comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, which leaves a wide scope for new scientific work and research. This makes the study of apartment buildings in Moscow particularly relevant and important, opening up broad prospects for new research.

In the early 1870s, the urban population of Moscow was estimated at about 601 thousand people, and by 1907 this figure had already exceeded 1.345 million people. In St. Petersburg, during the same period, the urban population grew from 682,000 to 1,464 million people ^{[10, pp. 74-78]}.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the main types of urban housing in Russia were palaces, mansions, country houses and villas, living rooms, but already in the 40s a new type was formed – apartment buildings.

It is very important to understand what an apartment building is. It is not known who first used this concept. It probably arose when it was necessary to designate commercial housing that arose in the cities of Europe and America in the 19th century, since the very phenomenon of renting a house for income was not an innovation, but the city administration needed to distinguish such houses from the rest.

Like the ancient Roman insulae, they were a type of high-rise, commercial real estate consisting of several apartments completely different in size and convenience, interconnected by a corridor system that replaced the suite.

At first, apartment buildings were built for members of the same class, but over time this also changed – nobles, civil servants, bankers and the working class could live side by side in one house.

As the capital of the Russian Empire and the main cultural and economic center, St. Petersburg has often been a pioneer in architecture and urban planning. Apartment buildings became a popular phenomenon in St. Petersburg in the 19th century, and only then they began to be actively built in other cities of Russia. By the beginning of the 20th century, St. Petersburg and Moscow had become the main centers for the construction of such houses in Russia. By that time, there were already more than 550 such houses in Moscow, and by 1917 their share in urban residential real estate was about 40%. In St. Petersburg, this figure ranged from 80 to 94%.

The cornerstone in the construction of any building, including apartment buildings, was the land issue. In 1801, Emperor Alexander I issued a decree granting the right to purchase land in cities to merchants, petty bourgeoisie and state-owned peasants (a nominal decree on December 12, 1801, given to the Senate "On granting merchants, petty bourgeoisie and state-owned villagers the right to purchase land"). In fact, this decree became part of broader reforms aimed at modernizing the Russian Empire. The acquisition of land in cities has become an important step in the development of urban infrastructure and in the growth of the urban economy. The decree set the course for urban development for many years to come.

By the middle of the 19th century, three large groups of landholders had formed in Moscow: the state, the church, and the nobility. But, by the end of the century, the situation began to change, the lands of the impoverished nobility were bought by merchants. As Vladimir Gilyarovsky accurately noted: "It was only with the fall of serfdom that palaces began to pass into the hands of merchants, and on the verge of the present and last centuries, noble coats of arms disappeared from the fronts, modest signs of new homeowners appeared on the walls: the Solodovnikovs, Golofteevs, Tsyplakovs, Shelaputins, Khludovs, Obidins, Lyapins... and here the manor chambers were occupied by merchants, as well as the exquisite French the table, fashionable among the nobility, switched to old Russian dishes." ^{[3, p. 12]}.

By the beginning of 1917, four large groups of those who invested in the construction of apartment buildings had formed in Russia: the nobility and merchants, the Orthodox Church, joint-stock companies and architects. As a rule, architects built their own apartment buildings and, when implementing their ideas, were limited only by their own financial capabilities, city regulations and other local regulations. The rest of the groups turned and tried to attract the most famous and best architects of Moscow to the construction of their houses, such as Ivan Timofeevich Baryutin (1868-1928), Konstantin Fedorovich Burov (1854-1936), Boris Mikhailovich Velikovsky (1878-1937), Viktor Andreevich Velichkin (1863-1921), Lev Nikolaevich Kekushev (1862-1917) and others. many others.

There were two ways to acquire land for building: to acquire ownership of land or to rent a plot from a landowner. In the latter case, as noted by D. M. Demidovich, Candidate of Historical Sciences, such transactions were regulated by chinsh law, according to which the land and buildings located on it could belong to different owners ^{[7, p. 41]}. This was one of the most problematic provisions, not so much at the initial stage of construction, but at the final stage, when the land lease agreement was coming to an end. The landowner could refuse to extend the lease to the owner of the building, and in this case, the latter had two options for solving the problem: either sell the building to the landowner, or demolish it, and sell the materials suitable for further use.

For a long time, the problem of Chinese law remained unresolved until the State Duma adopted, and the State Council approved, the draft law "On the Right of Development" ^[4]. In it, the future or already existing owner of the apartment building retained the right to transfer the development of the site to third parties through the conclusion of a contract or a will, but the land remained the property of the landowner ^[4].

As today, an important factor influencing the cost of a plot for the construction of real estate was its location – a part of the city, while within these parts the price could also vary quite a lot depending on the location of the site, this ratio is shown in the table below (Table 1).

Table 1. The price of land in the Urban, Arbat and Lefortovo parts of Moscow ^{[9, pp. 3-18]}

According to the Moscow City Credit Society, the price is 1 sq. fathom (approx. 4.55 sq. m) in Moscow in 1914, it ranged from 3 rubles to 1,600 rubles. Based on the division of Moscow into 17 urban parts, the most expensive land plots were located in Urban (Kremlin and Kitay–Gorod) (up to 1,600 rubles/fathom), Myasnitskaya (up to 600 rubles/fathom), Tverskaya (up to 600 rubles/fathom) and Pyatnitskaya (up to 300 rubles/fathom) parts of the city. Expensive plots were located in Arbatskaya (up to 250 rubles/fathom), Meshchanskaya (up to 250 rubles/fathom), Sretenskaya (up to 225 rubles/fathom) and Prechistenskaya (up to 200 rubles/fathom) parts of the city. The plots of the average price category were located in Khamovnicheskaya (up to 150 rubles/fathom), Yakimanskaya (up to 150 rubles/fathom), Yauzskaya (up to 150 rubles/fathom), Presnenskaya (up to 125 rubles/fathom) and Sushchevskaya (up to 125 rubles/fathom) parts. Cheap land was in the Rogozhskaya (up to 100 rubles/acre), Lefortovskaya (up to 80 rubles/acre), Basmannaya (up to 70 rubles/acre) and Serpukhovskaya (up to 45 rubles/acre) parts of Moscow ^{[9, pp. 3-80]}.

In the era of intense urban transformation in the 19th century, Moscow and Berlin witnessed a unique evolutionary process in urban development. Drawing on the experience of the capital of the German Empire is a valuable analysis method that helps to better understand the origin and evolution of apartment buildings, as well as how the socio–economic transformations of that time affected the formation of the urban landscape.

In Moscow, unlike Berlin, the capital of the German Empire, apartment buildings appeared a little later. Their appearance was facilitated by similar socio–economic conditions, for example, industrialization and internal migration of the population from rural areas to cities, where people were looking for work in new factories ^{[11, p. 366]}. The expansion of urban infrastructure during the 19th century led to an increase in the need for commercial and residential real estate. Apartment buildings have become a harmonious urban element that satisfies these needs.

The idea of creating profitable areas was that each square meter of real estate should bring profit to its owner, taking into account the provision of landlords with comfortable premises with certain amenities for both residential and commercial needs. This required careful selection of a building site, proper planning of the house, as well as an understanding of the needs and social status of future tenants.

Moscow and Berlin were also united by the fact that the architectural styles of buildings and structures were extremely diverse. Apartment buildings located in the most prestigious areas often differed from other similar houses with ornate facades and front lobbies, the presence of elevators and running water. Their construction has become a reflection of the growth, development of the city and the changing attitude towards property ownership.

The main styles used in the construction of such houses in Moscow were Art Nouveau, neo-Russian style and neoclassical ^{[6, p. 78]}. However, everything was not limited to them, in Moscow houses were also built in the styles of Art Deco, Baroque, Renaissance, Moscow Art Nouveau, neo–Gothic, eclectic, neo– and pseudo-Gothic, northern modern and even Chinoiserie.

In Moscow, there was a practice when the first floors of apartment buildings were usually occupied by shops, shops, salons and offices. For example, the Khludov heiresses' apartment building (construction: 1894-1896; architect: Lev Kekushev; address: 3/1/2 Teatralny Ave., Moscow, Meshchansky district) housed the office of the St. Petersburg International Commercial Bank ^{[2, p. 16]}. The St. Petersburg Hygienic Laboratory of Nutrients and Physiological Enzymes, selling meat juice, meat powder, carbonated milk and other types of goods, was located in the Rachmaninov house (Vozdvizhenka St., 11, not preserved) ^{[9, p. 27]}.

On the second floors there were apartments for employees of banks and insurance companies, creative intelligentsia, etc. At the beginning of the century, they were already equipped with certain amenities, for example, running water and sewerage. Such apartments included from 3 to 4 rooms, and the rent ranged from 50 to 100 rubles/month. According to the most important preliminary data from the Moscow census, such apartments were the most in demand among Muscovites and, as a rule, they were idle without tenants for the least time (The most important preliminary data from the Moscow census on January 31, 1902, p. 59).

The most expensive and prestigious floors were usually the third, they were occupied by "lordly apartments", including from 5 to 15 rooms. The cost of renting such apartments was 120-140 rubles/month. In addition to the usual amenities, such apartments were equipped with artesian wells, fireplaces, ventilation, private bathrooms, included good furniture and a number of other advantages.

Above the third floor there were cheap 1-2 room apartments, furnished rooms, as well as bunkhouse apartments. The cost of renting the first was about 10 rubles/month, and the bunk apartments were rented for 5 rubles/month.

Despite the fact that the rooms on the upper floors were intended for working people, as shown by the data summarized in the table on annual wages, rental housing in such houses remained inaccessible.

If we take into account all other circumstances of the workers' work and the payment system (Table. 2), it should be reasonably stated that many of them have faced the problem of renting housing. Some could afford, at best, to rent 1-2 room cheap apartments, while most could only rely on bunk–and-bunk housing.

Table 2. Annual wages of Moscow factory workers in 1879, 1906 and 1913, RUB/year ^{[8, pp. 182-183]}

The social status of the tenants reflected broader economic and cultural trends of the time, as well as changing attitudes towards housing and urban life. The availability of modern amenities such as elevators, plumbing, heating and plumbing has made living in apartment buildings a more attractive option for many urban residents, especially those from more affluent segments of the population. At the same time, the growing number of the working class and the need for affordable housing in cities created a demand for simpler and more modest options for rooms and apartments in them. Such needs created a vibrant and dynamic urban environment, which at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was the most important characteristic of Moscow's emerging apartment culture.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the apartment buildings that appeared in Moscow in the second half of the 19th century became an integral part of urban development, which changed the face of Moscow. In the "family" of residential real estate, apartment buildings were the "white crow" at the initial stage of their formation, but they influenced the further development of Moscow, changing its appearance. These houses were built with one goal in mind – to make a profit from renting apartments and premises, so various tricks were often used to maximize profits. Nevertheless, apartment buildings have played an important role in providing housing for the urban population and have been an important aspect of urban development both in Europe as a whole and in Russia in particular. The tenants of the apartment buildings belonged to various socio–economic strata, rented a room or apartment alone or with their family. The desire to earn money, the layout and appearance of apartment buildings allowed their landlords to populate both low-income people and wealthy merchants, industrialists and aristocrats. This was ensured by the number of floors and equipment of the houses.

For investors and future homeowners, investing in the construction of apartment buildings was considered attractive for a number of reasons:

1. urbanisation and population growth in cities have created a high demand for housing;

2. Relatively low investment risks;

3. Apartment buildings provided their owners with a reliable and stable income.

Attention should also be paid to the architectural component of the construction of apartment buildings. From a cultural point of view, apartment buildings had no direct "descendants" in historical development, so understanding how they should be arranged architecturally and functionally came gradually.

At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. Moscow has become the epicenter of architectural experiments. Many styles, such as Art Nouveau, neo–Russian style, Neoclassical, Art Deco, Baroque, Renaissance, Moscow Modern, neo–Gothic, eclectic, neo- and pseudo-Gothic, Northern Modern and even Chinoiserie, are reflected in urban development. Architects were given a wide opportunity to implement their ideas and, in part, to experiment, and customers – to satisfy their ambitions and satisfy their own vanity. Thus, Moscow has been enriched with architectural creations that combine world architectural trends with national peculiarities and traditions, and which are still the historical heritage of the capital.

An important place in this process was occupied by the state, especially the city government, which monitored construction and compliance with all standards at all stages. In addition to acquiring the land, future homeowners had to provide drawings of facades and layouts of future apartment buildings ^{[12, p. 92]}.

From a social point of view, apartment buildings were a "saving" island for both current and potential urban residents: it was impossible to purchase an apartment in Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century, and only wealthy citizens had the means to erect their own mansions. Thus, renting an apartment, a room, or a bed in an apartment building was the best way to "register" in the city, and the social ties formed within the apartment building were unique in their own way.

Apartment buildings in Moscow at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries represented a special economic phenomenon. They were not only the embodiment of architectural art, but also, in the absence of developed financial markets, highly profitable investments that were considered as a reliable and profitable asset.