The Tear of Socialism. The House of Forgotten Writers

The engineers' and writers' commune house at Rubinstein 7 is one of the constructivist commune houses — a symbol of an era that never happened, a true symbol of a new way of life that even those who promoted it did not want to live in. This constructivist-style building is located at the corner of Rubinstein Street and Grafsky (then Proletarsky) Lane and earned the nickname "The Tear of Socialism" among the people, while its residents became known as "teardrops."

The avant-garde building was constructed on shares from young engineers and writers, the future residents of the commune, between 1929 and 1931 according to the design of architect A.A. Olya, as part of the fight against the "old way of life." The functional novelty of this hotel-type commune house was aimed at a communal lifestyle, which brought many inconveniences to its inhabitants. The everyday life of the Soviet intelligentsia was made as public as possible: along the long corridors of what was essentially a dormitory stretched a row of doors leading to small bedrooms. Toilets and showers were available in pairs on each floor, along with cloakrooms, rest rooms, and even a lobby on the first floor — everything was communal. There were no kitchens, as the commune members, freed from household chores, were supposed to eat together in the common dining room on the first floor. Soundproofing was completely absent in the building. Such a life could make one cry, even though the house was officially called the House of Joy.

Olga Berggolts, perhaps the most famous resident of the commune house, a committed Komsomol member who lived here on the fifth floor in apartment No. 30 from 1932 to 1943, wrote: “And so, after some time, no more than two years, when ration cards were canceled, when we grew up, we realized that we had rushed too much and communalized our life so much that we left ourselves no footholds even for tactical retreat... except for the windowsills; it was on them that the first ‘retreaters’ began to prepare what they liked, as the common dining room was no longer able to satisfy the diverse tastes of the house’s inhabitants. We had a wonderful solarium, but the attic was completely unsuitable for drying diapers. The sound permeability in the house was so perfect that if on the third floor below, at writer Misha Chumandrin’s place, they were playing cards or reading poetry, I could hear everything on the fifth floor, down to the bad rhymes!”

As the “teardrops” themselves said, “the phalanstery at Rubinstein 7 did not come to be.” In the first half of the 1960s, a remodeling was carried out, and each apartment received its own kitchen and toilet.

One of the notable architectural techniques used in the building is the combination of the pitched roof of the sixth floor and the terrace of the fifth floor.

In 2018, the book The Tear of Socialism. The House of Forgotten Writers, compiled by writer Evgeny Kogan, was published by the Common Place publishing house.