Fontanka River Embankment, 166, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 190020
Where the Black River and the Fontanka intertwined,
And at the mouth they flowed into the mouth of the Neva River,
At the mouths of these rivers, in that very place,
Where the Kalinov forest grew, stood a huge house;
It was called a house after that forest,
And specifically, this house was called Kalinkin’s;
Into it were placed all the dissolute women
For their lustfulness...
This is an excerpt from Maikov’s poem "Elisey," written in the second half of the 18th century, in which he mentioned the famous Kalinkin house and its inhabitants.
In the early years of St. Petersburg’s existence, venereal diseases were very widespread in the city. In 1719, Peter I issued a decree—“loose girls” were to be caught and confined in so-called Spinning Houses.
One such house, created near the mouth of the Fontanka into the Gulf of Finland during Catherine II’s reign, was transformed into the Kalinkin Hospital. Its name originated from the village of Kalyula; gradually Russified, it became Kalinkin. The village existed there even before Peter the Great’s time.
This Spinning House or yard, as it was also called, was established in 1718. There they wove fine fabric “in the Dutch manner,” and later it was used for the correction of persons of “improper and unruly sex,” i.e., women of loose morals or those who broke the law. Then the Izmailovsky regiment was stationed in this building, but in 1745 the factory’s work resumed, and five years later it already housed the “secret” Kalinkin Hospital.
On August 1, 1750, Elizabeth Petrovna issued a decree “On the capture and delivery to the main police of improper women and girls.”
From the moment the Spinning Yard was founded and women sick with “shameful” diseases were placed there for work, they were given some medical care, and gradually this institution turned into a medical facility. The official date of the Kalinkin Hospital’s founding is 1762. Before it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the St. Petersburg Office of Public Welfare, it was maintained by the personal cabinet of Catherine II. At that time, it had 60 beds, evenly divided between men and women.
The first building of the “secret” Kalinkin Hospital.
Former Spinning House. Fontanka Embankment, house 166
Obviously, during this period, between the decision to transfer detainees and placing them in the Kalinkin house, a revolutionary idea for the mid-18th century arose—not just to punish women, but to work with them, thus significantly anticipating the “enlightened” social policy of Catherine II.
First, it was necessary to find out whether all of them sold themselves on a permanent basis and whether they were victims of slander by neighbors or were in so-called unregistered unions. The former were released, and the latter were sent to the St. Petersburg Spiritual Consistory to be married. The second stage involved social rehabilitation—work at the restored production. Detained women and male pimps, who were much fewer among the Kalinkin house inhabitants, were kept in separate wards; the sick lived in “special peace,” were supervised by a doctor, and even received medicines. Prisoners were not shackled in stocks; they had the opportunity to bathe in the bathhouse, worked according to a schedule, and received money for their labor, which they spent in a nearby grocery store. Women were helped to master the spinning craft by a female and male master, ready to repair the simple equipment if it broke down. Men gathered firewood and performed other small tasks. This description shows a striking contrast with the experience of ordinary prisoners of the same period.
Before Catherine II’s penitentiary system, monasteries served as places of long-term confinement: under the harshest regime, men and women lived mixed together in cramped, damp, and dark rooms, usually starving. Large cities had prisons, but they were used only during investigations. Processions of prisoners, shackled and led by soldiers through the streets with loud pleas for alms, were familiar to any citizen of the first half of the 18th century.
Kalinkin’s inhabitants often abused their atypical position: for example, women pretended to be ill to avoid work. The usual reaction to shirking duties in a peasant family or serf labor was violence, which accompanied a person throughout their life. In this case, the Kalinkin house broke the stereotype. In a special instruction for the guards, Demidov stipulated “to ensure that no beatings occurred during that coercion.”
The investigation was conducted thoroughly and meticulously, and strangely enough, deceiving authorities in the 18th century was not as easy as one might think. Confrontations and references from other departments—the Military Collegium, St. Petersburg Spiritual Consistory, Tavern Office, Provincial Chancellery—ensured a fairly high degree of truthfulness of the information obtained. Moreover, the fear of “interrogation with severity,” i.e., interrogation under torture, was a factor that encouraged both frankness and lies.
The hospital was truly secret. Patients were registered under numbers, no documents were required, and they could hide their faces behind masks without giving their names or ranks. Catherine II introduced this order so that patients would not evade treatment. On May 17, 1793, Catherine II issued a decree “On the treatment of dissolute women afflicted with French venereal disease and on their exile to settlement.” In 1828, the hospital came under the care of the Board of Trustees under Nicholas I and under the management of Empress Maria Feodorovna. The first trustee, Prince P.V. Golitsyn, noted very poor conditions, crampedness, and many inconveniences in the hospital. The question arose about building a new facility. In 1831–1833, according to the design of L. Charlemagne, a new three-story hospital building with 300 beds was constructed, facing Libavsky Lane. The building has been preserved. Now the entire territory of the former hospital is occupied by the business center “Kalinkin.” In 1835, a Highest Order was announced that “no payment for treatment shall be collected from persons admitted to the hospital with yellow tickets.”
In 1843, this profession was legalized; instead of a passport, prostitutes were issued a “Replacement Ticket,” popularly called the “yellow ticket.” Women could engage in prostitution from age 16, and brothels could not be located closer than 300 meters from churches, schools, and educational institutions. The ticket was accompanied by a “Medical Ticket” and marks of payment of state duty.
By the end of the 19th century, the hospital had 13 departments—one barrack for male syphilitics with 50 beds and 12 women’s departments located not only in the main building but also in other small buildings on the territory. Since 1900, the hospital became exclusively for women.
Since 1879, a charitable society for helping indigent patients operated at the hospital, which from 1890 existed under the patronage of Princess Eugenie of Oldenburg, granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I. Its permanent chairwoman was E.V. Musina-Pushkina (née Kapnist), wife of Count A.A. Musin-Pushkin, actual state councilor and officer of the Cavalry Guards Regiment. At the House of Mercy for fallen women, there was a board of trustees offering patients assistance upon discharge.
In 1887–1888, an outpatient clinic building was constructed deep within the site; in 1900–1901, a pavilion for the children’s department; in 1903, a labor assistance apartment for women discharged from Kalinkin Hospital; and in 1909–1912, a laundry building.
The founder of Russian venereology was Dr. V.M. Tarnovsky. In 1867, he created the “Atlas to the Guide for Recognizing Venereal Diseases in Women and Children.” On his initiative, in 1885, the first venereological society in the world was established in Russia, approved at the state level. The first congress on the fight against syphilis was held at Kalinkin Hospital in 1897.
In 1922, Kalinkin Hospital was named after Tarnovsky. For some time after the revolution, only the outpatient clinic operated; the inpatient department resumed work only in 1927.
During the NEP era, on the initiative of N.K. Krupskaya, communes for moral correction appeared. On Bolshaya Podyacheskaya Street, a therapeutic-labor prophylactic clinic was located, where former prostitutes discharged from the Tarnovsky hospital worked in sewing workshops, learned literacy, and studied Marxism-Leninism. The city administration provided the clinic with cinema tickets and organized excursions. But soon such prophylactic clinics were closed. Moral correction did not occur.
Due to the reduction in venereal diseases in the 1950s, the hospital was reorganized into the Research Institute of Dermatology and Venereology, which in 1960 was transferred to the city of Gorky. Now, on the territory of the former Kalinkin Hospital, there are regional, city, and district dermatology and venereology dispensaries with inpatient facilities, which are the successors of Kalinkin Hospital.
In the hospital buildings in 1956, the Research Institute of Antibiotics and Enzymes was located, which was liquidated in 2012.
Sources:
https://alfa-delta.livejournal.com/209781.html
https://babs71.livejournal.com/616490.html
https://www.citywalls.ru/house1671.html
