History of our Sinagogue, page 2
Synagogue in the post-soviet period
1987 the work on creating legal Jewish cultural organizations began. Basing on the newspaper “Smena”’ appeal to create various interest clubs, Jewish activists decided to register the first ethnic cultural society in the city – the Society of amateurs of Jewish folk music. But the first attempt failed.
 Nevertheless, in May 1988 the Leningrad synagogue housed the concerts of the International festival of cantor music, allowed by the authorities. Overall, six concerts took place in two days. The tickets were sold in all theatre booking offices, the posters were hanging all over the city. There was not an inch of room in the synagogue during all the concerts. The total amount of those who attended the concerts was over 13 thousand. Even those far from Jewish life regarded these concerts as a break-through towards legalization of national cultural life.
In 1991 upon the initiative of the Shamir society a Jewish Day school was launched at the Synagogue. The initiator of its opening and its first principal was rabbi Michael Koretz, later the principal’s position passed to Mark Davidovich Grubarg.
In 1992 M.M. Pevzner, an envoy of the Rebe of Lubavitch, came to St. Petersburg and started his activities there. In 1997, after rabbi Levitis’s departure, he became chief rabbi of St. Petersburg Jewish religious community. In 1996 the principal of Jewish Day school Mark Davidovich Grubarg was elected chairman of St. Petersburg Jewish religious community.
 Today the Big Choral Synagogue, which is over 100 year old, is becoming once again a cultural center for the Saint-Petersburg Jews. The synagogue provides an opportunity to keep Jewish traditions and rituals (brith-milah, chupah, etc.). The Shabbath and holiday ceremonies are led by one of the best cantors of Europe, Barukh Finkelstein with synagogue chorus. The holidays are held in a festive and merry atmosphere. The synagogue runs two kindergartens, two Jewish schools in different districts of the city, two boarding schools for girls and for boys, overall attended by about 500 children. Several dozens of Jewish young men receive religious education in the yeshiva “Tomchei Tmimim”.
 The synagogue charity center attends to the needs of over 1000 sick and elderly people. Its clients are provided with food gifts and clothing, as well as free medical and psychological help. Every day 2 charity canteens (soup kitchens) provide free meals for more than 300 people.
The Synagogue dating service has helped to create dozens of Jewish families.
The Matzo bakery provides yearly up to 40 tons of high-quality matzo for Jews of St. Petersburg, its suburbs and a number of other places.
The synagogue also runs the shop “Kosher”, which sells Jewish souvenirs, Jewish religious items, books and kosher food. Kosher restaurant Lechaim has also been launched within the synagogue just recently. The newly-opened mikvah is available.
Restoration of the Grand Choral Synagogue
In post-revolution years no serious repair of the synagogue was done. Only just before Moscow Olympics of 1980, the state allocated money for some repairs as the synagogue ranked among the top tourist attractions in Leningrad. But despite the big amount of work performed, this was no more than redecoration aimed at making the building and its inner space look more attractive.
As a result, the synagogue building developed plenty of hidden defects, typical of St. Petersburg monuments, such as leaking roofing, perishing concrete and brickwork, emergency condition of engineering networks. To go on performing a Soviet-style repair, i.e. continuous patching the holes, was absolutely out of question. It would mean to doom the building to slow and unavoidable death. Retained splendor of the grand prayer hall and the wedding hall was getting defenseless in the face of the general decay of the building. Local repairs could not provide any serious improvements in the safety of the monument. The fancy ceramic floor covering, door and window infills were worn out and decayed. In the course of time a big part of colored stained-glass covering as well as part of decorative glass made in the technique of etching was lost. The building and its communications were not examined and repaired since 1917.
Panels and cornices, which formed the basis for design solution of the walls and plafonds, had lost the strictness of drawing due to multiple paintings and were in need of full cleaning. Imprecise selection of colors has violated the initial unity of the original interiors and facades. Hidden but serious danger for the synagogue was the absence of drainage system in the nearby territory due to which the atmospheric precipitates began to reach the concrete. The building required fast and fundamental reconstruction and repairing.
Thanks to the strengthened reputation of the community in the city and in the world as well as the prestige of its leadership represented by the chief rabbi of St. Petersburg M.-M. Pevzner and the chairman of the community M.D. Grubarg the synagogue succeeded in receiving a great financial support for reconstruction. It was visited by American millionaire Edmond Safra and his wife Lili. After the meeting with the community leaders the Safra family decided to finance the works for restoration and reconstruction of the synagogue, which was in a very sad state.
Edmond Safra is one of the most prominent bankers of our time. In memory of his son and grandson who perished in a car accident, he donated a large sum of money to restore the Synagogue. This money became the restoration startup capital. Other major donors are L.Levaev, V.Kogan, Z.Smushkin, G.Scherbakovsky, T.Bolloev. It is worth noting that among the donors to this ambitious project there are quite a few members of the Saint-Petersburg Jewish religious community.
A special body, the Interregional Public Restoration and Reconstruction Fund, was created to coordinate restoration works and collect the money needed.
Head of the restoration project was the Saint-Petersburg Jewish community vice-chairman Tamaz Sepiashvili.
The concept of restoration was worked out by the leading architect of the State Hermitage, State Award laureate, laureate of Russia’s award in the field of literature and art Grigory Mikhailov. On the competition basis Scientific-Design Institute Specprojectrestoration was chosen for providing design and research. The main architect of the project was Victor Golub.
First of all it was decided to reshape the ground floor, where non-usable basement premises had been. These facilities were changed into a community center. Already functioning are charity canteen and a charity center, kosher restaurant Lechaim, Beit-Talmud and library have received additional rooms. The future plans contain furnishing a room for recreation, demonstration hall and some other things.
Before starting complex restoration drainage and hydro isolating works were undertaken. The premises of the second and third floors were also seriously restored.
Serious restoration took place in the Grand prayer hall as well. The unique scaffolding technique was used, which allowed to keep the hall open during the repairs. A system of floor heating was also installed in the hall as well as new parquet floor, restored stained-glass windows, restored Aron-ha-Kodesh, reconstructed unique and greatest in Russia collection of the gas lamps, made by jewelers of the Emperor’s court, restored and lacquered oaken benches for the prayers. Having removed the 12 layers of the stucco from a small part of the wall the specialists were able to define the initial color of the faзade - ochre with terracotta, as it had been planned by the authors of the design. By 2003 the faзade of the building regained the initial color, terracotta-red. The repairs of the southern, western and northern facades were performed. The historical appearance of the parade staircase and parade entrance to the synagogue was also restored to its initial form. The unique cupola of complicated configuration was also restored. The restoration of cast and stone parts of the synagogue fence was sponsored by the Governmental authorities.
The restored wedding hall of the synagogue can be considered the masterpiece of restoration craftsmanship. The walls were hand-painted according to archive photos and drawings in order to make reconstruction of the initial wall paintings possible. Restored was also the parquet made of high-quality timber. Besides a number of very important but covert technical works, necessary for the restoration of life support system were performed. The roof was completely changed, serious sanitary engineering, water proofing and wiring works were performed which radically improved the safety of the power supply system and enabled to increase the electric load inside the building. Also a brand-new system of fire alarm was installed.
As a result of these works the synagogue obtained a new heating center, the systems of ventilation and heating of the inner rooms. In general the total number of people employed for repairing and restoring the Grand Choral synagogue in St. Petersburg amounted to 300-400. Only the most advanced materials and technologies were used in the process of repairs.
On June 26, 2001 the inauguration of the Grand prayer hall for 1200 people took place in the presence of a great congregation and multiple guests.
On March 11, 2003 in St. Petersburg in Big “Oktyabrsky” concert hall Governor V.A. Yakovlev made the annual report on the works done. The governor marked the contribution of St. Petersburg Jewish religious community in preparation to the 300th anniversary of the city, for it was in 2003 that the restoration of the synagogue faзade was completed and the inner restoration was also close to being finished.
On April 19, 2005, the inauguration of the newly-constructed mikvah took place in the Grand Choral synagogue. The old mikvah was completely dismantled as it caused serious danger to the whole building. The synagogue Fund for Restoration and Reconstruction also plans to perform further accomplishment of the territory and the premises of the community center, convenient zoning by plastic partitions, lighting and other works.
The restoration of the Grand Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg was performed not only in order to save one of the most wonderful architectural monuments for our descendants. The final aim of the project is to broaden and develop the city’s Jewish community cultural, public and business life. Restoration of the synagogue also means restoration of cultural values and hopes of St. Petersburg Jewry.
Previous page
|
