For the first time in three months, I finally got my hands on a camera and managed to shoot calmly, if only for a short while. I had to transport a trunk full of computer hardware to Samara and, at the same time, lift the fog over several cities along the way.
Since the summer trip, I’ve been kicking myself for not properly photographing the Volga-Kama Commercial Bank building. Time to fix that — here are a few curious observations about it:
A Governor at the Drafting Table
Besides the legendary von Vacano, Samara had another remarkable figure. Imagine an Active State Councillor who effectively governed a vast province from 1906 to 1910 and, after resigning, sat down at a drafting table to design a bank. It’s hard to imagine a modern governor developing architectural drawings in Revit.
The Facade as a Defensive Asset
The choice of heavy imperial neoclassicism reflects the concept of financial reliability. Gray plaster imitates granite, the massive plinth grounds the building, griffins at the edges of the pediment act as mythological guardians of gold, and at the center of the composition stands the goddess Fortuna with a torch — a symbol of financial operations.
A Building as a Shell
Yakunin did not build the structure from scratch; instead, he enveloped the Kurlin merchants' mansion from 1880. Rather than demolishing the old walls, he added floors, altered the rhythm of the windows, and dressed the asymmetrical, living body of the old house in a new, strict classical uniform. If you look at the facade long enough, you can sense how the complex internal structure resists the rigid symmetry of the outer colonnade.
P.S. Updates from the previous trip: the bushes in the courtyard of the pre-revolutionary Red Cross hospital have been cut down! At this rate, we’ll get to a facade restoration soon. Meanwhile, the wooden houses — as far as I know — keep burning just as before.