Russian State Library
Russian State Library is more often called Leninka, because for a very long time it was named after Vladimir Ilyich. It is the largest Russian public library and one of the most famous libraries in the world. In 2008 it celebrated its 180th anniversary, and at the same time its staff was awarded the medal “Symbol of Science.”
General information
In 1926, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR recognized “the existing building of the Lenin Library as inappropriate for its work and importance” – in those years it was located in the Pashkov House.
.The competition was held in three stages. The winning design was by architects Vladimir Gelfreich and Vladimir Shchuko. Interestingly, these architects did not participate in the competition itself. Meanwhile, Gelfreich and Shchuko managed to combine neoclassical forms and Soviet monumentalism in the building. Their building blended quite harmoniously into the architectural appearance of this corner of Moscow, where the Kremlin, the Manege, the buildings of Moscow University and the Pashkov House were located.
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The building is lavishly decorated. Above the main portico of the building is a sculptural frieze, mostly based on drawings by Vladimir Shchuko. The space between the pylons of the facade is decorated with bronze bas-reliefs of Archimedes, Galileo, Darwin, Copernicus, Pushkin and Gogol. Rumor has it that the bells of eight Moscow churches were melted down to make them.
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The building is also unique as an engineering object. Its design, according to calculations, was able to withstand five bomb hits, and direct. In addition, the interfloor ceilings can easily withstand the weight of more than one million books – between the floors is mounted lattice, which not only lightens the building itself, but also serves as a kind of spring to absorb vibrations.
The construction of Vozdvizhenka Street, 3/5 was delayed for almost 30 years – until the late 1950s. This was also due to the hard times of the first five years in the USSR, the war of 1941-1945 and underfunding in the post-war period.
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Time does not stand still, and nowadays the Russian State Library annually needs to allocate about 1 thousand square meters to accommodate new books coming into it. The project of the new storage building is already ready. It will be located behind the main building. Twelve floors of the structure, most of which will be underground, will solve the problem for about 50 years.
.The Russian State Library has a universal in content collection of domestic and foreign documents in 247 languages of the world. In addition to the main book collection, the collections of the Russian State Library include specialized collections of maps, sheet music and sound recordings, rare books, iso-editions, theses and dissertations, newspapers, etc.
.To store all these treasures, rooms equal in area to nine soccer fields are used. At the same time in the library reading rooms and computerized seats can work passengers of four trains. The number of registered users is equal to the entire population of the Pechatniki district of Moscow. Every minute five visitors open the doors of the Library. For a cursory, one-minute look through each of the storage copies you will have to spend 79 years of your life without sleep and rest. It would take 25 trucks to move the Library’s computer fleet. The library issues 400 bibliographies per day.
.The library has a legend: if you can’t find a very rare book in the archives, you should ask Nikolai Rubakin, a famous book historian, for help. Sometimes, in the complete silence of the reading room, the parquet creaks or shuffling footsteps are heard. You can’t turn around, or Rubakin will take offense and won’t help.
.Enroll in the library to access its priceless repositories, by the way, is not so easy. You can familiarize yourself with the order of registration on the site. All the pleasure will cost 100 rubles, but the documents will have to collect in advance. However, nothing supernatural to look for on the mezzanine will not have to – passport and diploma.
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- Address: 3/5 Vozdvizhenka St. .
- Nearest metro: Arbatskaya (Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line), Borovitskaya, Lenin Library .
- Phone: +7 (800) 100-57-90, +7 (499) 557-0470, +7 (495)695-5790 .
- Website: www.rsl.ru
- Electronic catalog: www.rsl.ru/ru/s97/s339
- Working hours: weekdays 09.00-20.00, Sat 09.00-19.00. Record Group is open: weekdays 9.00-19.00, Sat 9.00-18.00. Closed on Sundays and also on the last Monday of the month .
- Admission: Admission is free with a library card
