Moscow news
-
16-Mar-2007
Egoryevsk, the Textile Capital of Russia
The town of Egoryevsk is a bit off the beaten path of highways leading from Moscow. However, a separate small motorway, not simply an access road, connects it with the M5 Ryazan highway. A railway station is also a sign of the town's unique position, which it proudly occupied about a century ago. Today, however, there is little in Egoryevsk that would indicate its special status in the country's history. At least this is the impression a visitor may have when driving through the main street of the town, with its tidy little two-storied houses, children's recreational parks and a handful of Stalinist-style buildings (unlike the towering 'sisters' in Moscow, these are much lower in height).
But don't give up on this town just yet. Once off the beaten track, a visitor can find some truly unique things. On the one side of the town, there are huge factory complexes located along the Guslitsa river, while on the other, side streets abound in wooden one- and two-storied houses and picturesque churches. Both sides deserve attention and a thorough study.
Famous textile factories of Egoryevsk were founded and run by two prosperous families, the Khludovs and the Bardygins. Both clans, though strong competitors to each other, enjoyed friendly relations and ran the town according to their business logic. The success stories of Khludov and Bardygin are even quite similar. Starting with the production of home-made textiles, the manufacturers wisely invested their profits into high-tech textile-making technologies. The mass production of fabric was a great innovation at the time, and those who were lucky enough to back the right horse quickly became wealthy. The Khludov brothers spent several years in Moscow and then moved back to their native town, while Nikifor Bardygin opted for development right in Egoryevsk due to the lack of money. In Egoryevsk, creating a large-scale factory was not as exorbitantly expensive as in Moscow, and by the end of the Crimea war (1855) several major factories were opened there. The war caused a real cotton boom, and for over 60 years, between the 1850s to 1917, Egoryevsk became Russia's textile capital.
The town of Egoryevsk is a bit off the beaten path of highways leading from Moscow. However, a separate small motorway, not simply an access road, connects it with the M5 Ryazan highway. A railway station is also a sign of the town's unique position, which it proudly occupied about a century ago. Today, however, there is little in Egoryevsk that would indicate its special status in the country's history. At least this is the impression a visitor may have when driving through the main street of the town, with its tidy little two-storied houses, children's recreational parks and a handful of Stalinist-style buildings (unlike the towering 'sisters' in Moscow, these are much lower in height).
But don't give up on this town just yet. Once off the beaten track, a visitor can find some truly unique things. On the one side of the town, there are huge factory complexes located along the Guslitsa river, while on the other, side streets abound in wooden one- and two-storied houses and picturesque churches. Both sides deserve attention and a thorough study.
Famous textile factories of Egoryevsk were founded and run by two prosperous families, the Khludovs and the Bardygins. Both clans, though strong competitors to each other, enjoyed friendly relations and ran the town according to their business logic. The success stories of Khludov and Bardygin are even quite similar. Starting with the production of home-made textiles, the manufacturers wisely invested their profits into high-tech textile-making technologies. The mass production of fabric was a great innovation at the time, and those who were lucky enough to back the right horse quickly became wealthy. The Khludov brothers spent several years in Moscow and then moved back to their native town, while Nikifor Bardygin opted for development right in Egoryevsk due to the lack of money. In Egoryevsk, creating a large-scale factory was not as exorbitantly expensive as in Moscow, and by the end of the Crimea war (1855) several major factories were opened there. The war caused a real cotton boom, and for over 60 years, between the 1850s to 1917, Egoryevsk became Russia's textile capital.
Both manufacturers eventually built the town's most magnificent buildings and important amenities. While the Khludovs sponsored the construction of Egoryevsk's railway hub, the Bardygin family arranged for the town's infrastructure, like paved roads, a new bridge across the river, etc.. For some decades, Nikifor Bardygin and his son Mikhail were the elected mayors of Egoryevsk, and much work was done at the merchants' own expense.
The sight of two factories on the banks of the Guslitsa river was fascinating for people of the time. In the 1900s, Khludov and Bardygin erected new factory buildings, both in the English style. The Khludov factory even has a corner tower, much like the Tower of the Houses of Parliament in London; the Bardygin factory is less magnificent, but still has prominent features of the British Neo-Gothic style. The scale of the buildings strikes the eye, even compared to Moscow's industrial buildings of the time - Egoryevsk's layout seems to be inspired by the organization of American industrial zones.
Egoryevsk textile tycoons were highly motivated to live and work in the town; that's why all the amenities and utilities of a modern town were installed for everybody - not just for the tycoons. By the date of their construction, the factory buildings of Khludov and Bardygin were among the first in Russia to feature tall ceilings and big windows, designed for workers to live and work safely. It should be said that workers appreciated it: Egoryevsk showed a much lower strike rate than other textile towns, like Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Orekhovo-Zuyevo, etc.
To train the local personnel and create the domestic textile engineering elite, Mikhail Bardygin launched the Technological Institute for Textile Industry. This big Art Nouveau building still serves its purpose, and today the subsidiary of the Moscow Institute of Machinery and Instruments is located there, specializing in the machinery for textile industry. Although it is hardly believable today, before 1917 the equipment of the Egoryevsk factories was constantly changed to keep it at the state-of-the-art level: since 1850s, however, the machinery has been changed and updated about 5 times.
During the Soviet era, Egoryevsk became an ordinary provincial town, its industry being run from Moscow. This led to a much more conservative approach towards the technologies, and by the end of the 1980s, the factories proved unable to meet the challenges of a free market. The former Khludov factory still works, but its leading position on the Russian market has long been lost, and the whole domestic textile industry is giving way to products from Third World countries. The sour times of the 1990s, had some advantages, though, for the old factory buildings looked beautifully abandoned, stimulating creativity and calling for sympathy. Now the condition of the Khludov factory has slightly improved, its buildings being partly rebuilt and partly renovated as offices and living clusters. The Guslitsa river is soon to be cleaned, and white plastic windows have been installed in the pseudo-Victorian facades of the factory buildings. They are unlikely to be demolished in the nearest future, for the inhabitants of Ego-ryevsk have great respect for their past and particularly for Bardygin, who delivered utilities and education to the town. The old folks still hope that the Master will return one day.
The Moscow News