An exhibition of faded, pre-revolutionary greeting cards sheds light on the history of Germans in Moscow.
“Dear Yura! I have arrived in Leipzig. All the hotels are full", reads a postcard on the wall. "After some serious searching, I have finally found a room in a hotel near the train station. Tomorrow I will find the Russian trade representation. I walked along the streets, wondering whether I would hear Russian speech, and I managed to find it – in a coffeeshop, where there were a group of Russian balalaika players".
The writer had no idea his message, now close to a century old, would eventually go on display in an exhibition at Moscow's Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art. Featuring a mix of greeting cards, postcards and photographs, the exhibition is tied together by a single theme: the history of the German community in Moscow.
"The German Addresses of Old Moscow: A History in Postcards" fills just two medium-sized rooms in the museum near Mayakovskaya metro station. But despite its small size, it reveals a number of fascinating facts about the "Russian Germans", as the settlers came to be called.
After Peter the Great opened Russia to foreigners, many German expatriates made Russia their permanent home. From the 18th century on, they were involved in fields like business, engineering and medicine, while some even occupied key government posts. According to an 1897 census, Germans accounted for 1.5 percent of the country's population, with over 1.3 million of them living in the European part of Russia.
Supported by the German Embassy, the postcard exhibition starts with a display of cards, chocolate wrappers and a waffle tin – the legacy of confectioner Theodore Ferdinand von Einem (in Moscow, he was known by his Russian name and patronymic, Fyodor Karlovich). He opened a small candy shop on the Arbat in 1851 and the business became so successful that in 1867 Einem opened an eponymous factory. Nationalized after the Bolshevik Revolution, it now bears the name Red October.
On one of the cards advertising Einem's confectionery, a smiling, mounted Cossack with a thick mustache is holding a Zolotoi Yarlyk chocolate bar. Amazingly, this chocolate bar still can be bought in shops all over Russia.
Part of the exhibition is devoted to Moscow neighborhoods where clusters of Russian Germans lived, studied and went to church in the 19th and 20th centuries. Among them are Nemetskaya Sloboda (now called Lefortovo), Basmannaya Ulitsa, Ulitsa Vorontsovo Pole and Malaya Dmitrovka.
Another display highlights ties between the Russian and German royal families. Some of the postcards feature the faces of Russia's last tsar, Nicolas II, and his German-born wife, Alexandra, while one card offers a German translation of the Russian national anthem.
Another illustrious family was the von Siemens. One of them, Carl von Siemens, opened a still-functioning power station on Raushskaya Naberezhnaya and stunned the crowds by turning on millions of lights to mark the coronation of Tsar Nicolas II in 1896. A special section of the exhibition is devoted to his achievements. Of course, the von Siemens are best known today for the multinational corporation that bears their name.
German architects also left their mark on Moscow: Konstantin Ton designed such structures as the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Great Kremlin Palace, while Franz (or Fyodor) Shekhtel gave us the Mayakovsky Theater and the Yaroslavsky Station.
Sometimes coming alive with a faded, handwritten Christmas wish, the postcards fill a gap that history books miss: They show that Russian Germans led ordinary lives, owning restaurants and hotels, traveling, working and loving. It is amazing what a small postcard can tell.
"The German Addresses of Old Moscow" (Nemetskiye Adresa Staroi Moskvy) runs to Nov. 30 at the Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art, located at 4 Delegatskaya Ulitsa. Metro Mayakovskaya.
Cosmos
President
