In St. Petersburg, after 8 years, the high relief with Mephistopheles was restored

A high-relief depicting Mephistopheles, which was knocked down in August 2015 by order of a local businessman, has been restored on the facade of Lyshnevsky’s apartment house, located in St. Petersburg on Lakhtinskaya Street. This event created a great resonance in the city, mass demonstrations were held in defense of the city’s architectural heritage.

Photos of the recreated bas-relief were published on Saturday by “Fontanka”. It is reported that the works have not yet been fully completed, the deadline for their completion is December 15.

As “Fontanka” writes, fragments of the downed high relief are stored in the museum of the city branch of the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIiK). They were scanned with a 3D scanner, and a 3D model was assembled from the resulting image. The missing fragments were drawn on the basis of preserved photographs and archival materials. The facade of the house was restored from the capital repair fund.

The house was built in 1910-1911 according to the project of the architect Alexander Lyshnevsky, on the facade of the building there was a high relief in the form of Mephistopheles. According to one of the versions, the image was drawn from the opera singer Fyodor Chaliapin, who performed the role of Mephistopheles. In 2001, the house was included in the list of objects representing historical, scientific, artistic or other cultural value.

In August 2015, vandals knocked down the high relief of Mephistopheles. During the investigation, it turned out that this was done by industrial climber Konstantin Isakov, who was acting on the orders of businessman and Orthodox activist Vasily Shchedrin. As stated, he was outraged that the high-relief with the image of the “devil” is adjacent to the temple of Xenia the Blessed built opposite. The fragments of the sculpture were removed by order of the municipal deputy Andrey Breus, who at the same time declared that he was not involved in the destruction of the high relief. For several years, residents of St. Petersburg appealed to the authorities to restore the sculpture, but they did so only when the deadline for planned major repairs of the house came, eight years later.