Source This year the legendary Moscow restaurant “Prague” celebrates its 150th anniversary. It has a very rich and complex history. If in the 19th century it was just a third-rate eatery, then over time it turned into a place where Sergei Yesenin drank, Ilya Repin celebrated holidays, Mayakovsky dined.
Brie cheese eatery
The building that now houses the Prague restaurant was built at the end of the 18th century. Vera Firsanova's tenement house (an apartment building for renting out housing) was located here.
In 1872, a mediocre tavern was opened here. The main contingent was cab drivers from Arbat Square, who jokingly called it “Braga”.
The writer Pyotr Boborykin, in his novel Kitai-Gorod, published in 1882, described that in “the good old Prague” one could get, for example, Brie cheese.
— Once upon a time “, still a free listener, he walked with two friends along the Arbat, at twelve o'clock. And everyone wanted to eat. They went up to this very tavern, sat in a corner room. One of them asked for Brie cheese. He was not there, but the sexman volunteered to get it. They brought a whole circle. Washed down with beer, they ate it all, – is described in the novel.
But until the end of the 19th century, the contingent of the institution did not change – mostly cabbies and those who rented an apartment nearby. Painfully loved the institution because of its low prices.
From a third-rate tavern to a place for the intelligentsia
In 1896 (according to other sources – in 1898) merchant Semyon Tararykin wins this establishment from the owners in billiards. As Aleksey Mitrofanov writes in the book “Walks in Old Moscow”, the merchant was well aware of what kind of paradise he got: the Arbat, the Boulevard Ring, Povarskaya Street. It was decided to remake the building for a completely different audience.
The building was built on, expanded, even a winter garden was installed on the roof and an open terrace was made. Mirrors, lamps, stucco moldings and even branded crockery—there was nothing in the renovated restaurant!
Tararykin ordered to make one large hall and five more smaller ones. The architect Lev Kekushev was in charge of perestroika. It took a long time to innovate – the institution was opened only in 1902.
The fact that the merchant, to put it mildly, hit the mark, became clear in the very first months of work. The intelligentsia apprehended the institution, made according to the latest fashion, with a bang. And some writers immortalized his advertisements in their works. For example, the writer Boris Zaitsev called this place a “sweet magnet”.
– Prague sits, sweet magnet. In flowers, and in music, glasses and the radiance of pearls, to the sound of knives, plates, noisy Moscow is having fun, guessing about nothing, living today, descending tomorrow, half a million, half Bohemian, well-fed and lined with the wind, and talented and dissolute, – he writes in the story “Street of St. Nicholas”.
Before 1917, Ivan Bunin, and Alexander Blok, and Maxim Gorky, and Alexander Kuprin, and Sergei Yesenin visited here.
Here, in the spring of 1913, Ilya Repin celebrated the restoration of his painting “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan” after it was cut with a knife in the Tretyakov Gallery. During the celebration, Fyodor Chaliapin compared art to the sun, which only those who lie underground are deprived of.
Recall that the 29-year-old mentally ill Old Believer icon painter Abram Balashov slashed Grozny's face in the picture with a knife in January 1913. The curator of the Tretyakov Gallery Yegor Khruslov committed suicide after the incident. Repin was sure that his creation could not be restored, but they managed to convince him. As a result, by the spring of 1913, the masterpiece was restored.
What they fed
And, of course, where without culinary delights! So, in “Prague” set meals were especially popular.
One such lunch cost 1.25 rubles (the average salary of a worker by that time was about 24 rubles). But, it is true, they were fed royally. Consomme, pies, sweets, pies, salad, veal, hazel grouse and coffee.
There was a more expensive option – for two rubles and a half you were offered to taste consomme, soup, pies, chicken, cauliflower with sauce , quail, as well as dessert.
Signature dish – pies in half – from sterlet and sturgeon.
Revolutions
The institution managed to survive after the February Revolution, but after the October Revolution it was nationalized and closed. Instead of a restaurant for the intelligentsia and the rich, drama courses were opened here, after that – a bookstore, a library.
In 1924, a public canteen of the Mosselprom was opened here. Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote about it: “It's fun, clean, light and cozy, the dinners are delicious and the beer is clear!”
And, by the way, it was here that Kisa Vorobyaninov and Lisa dined in “12 chairs”. Remember – “we don't keep vegetarian”? Everything, judging by the book, took place precisely in “Prague”.
Moscow guides still say that even one of the two Moscow casinos worked here during the New Economic Policy. And it was supposedly in charge of the nephew of Leo Tolstoy.
Comrade Stalin
The establishment was closed in the late 30s. The fact is that Comrade Stalin's path from Kuntsevskaya dacha to the Kremlin ran past him. It was simply dangerous to run such an establishment.
A cinema, a library, a shoe store were set up here. One of the halls was left for public catering – it was a canteen for NKVD officers.
The decision to return the institution was made only two years after the death of Joseph Stalin – in 1955. And soon a real Czech restaurant appeared here! Dumplings, sausages, beer – and at relatively reasonable prices. In any case, according to eyewitnesses, even students ran here.
The opening of “Prague” for visitors was timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the liberation of the Czech capital from Nazi occupation.
Legendary cake
It turns out to be a delicate chocolate cake Prague”, from which it is simply impossible to break away, is not directly related to the capital of the Czech Republic, but to the Moscow restaurant.
Shortly after its revival, in October 1955, 16-year-old Vladimir Guralnik came here to work apprentice. The boy's mother and father were cooks, so his career, in general, was determined.
Guralnik studied with masters from Czechoslovakia: the exchange of experience with Czech specialists at the restaurant was already a tradition. He came up with fantastic recipes for desserts, and, of course, this did not go unnoticed.
According to Novy Vzglyad, in 1965 Guralnik was awarded the highest professional title – master confectioner. Three years later, he became the head of the confectionery shop.
At the end of the 60s, Czech specialists came again to exchange experience. This time they prepared the Prague cake. It turned out not bad, but Guralnik simplified the recipe a little, and we got the “Prague” that we know.
In the Soviet Union, they did not issue a patent for it – and there was simply no practice of issuing patents for the recipe. However, the cake was made strictly according to GOST. And so our favorite cake appeared.
Guralnik, by the way, came up with another legendary delicacy – the “Bird's Milk” cake. But that's a completely different story.
Galina Brezhneva's wedding
In 1961, the famous illusionist Igor Kio married in the Griboedovsky registry office. His personality, however, was then not as well known as the name of the bride. The 18-year-old artist married the 32-year-old Galina Brezhneva. The registry office did not think about the difference in age between the newlyweds and included Lyudmila Zykina's “Once in a lifetime it happens 18 years.”
Before her father was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and Chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the RSFSR for three more years, however, even in the 61st he was a prominent party functionary. Therefore, the registry office workers, who had no idea that the father was not aware of what was happening, registered the marriage.
To celebrate this business they went to the most fashionable restaurant at that time – “Prague”, from where all the visitors were kicked out for the sake of Brezhneva. There were few guests – father-in-law, of course, was not present.
However, the marriage lasted nine days. Brezhnev, having learned about the marriage, quickly made it disappear into oblivion. At least according to the documents.
The romance of Kio and Brezhneva lasted about four years. In 1964, when Leonid Ilyich became the de facto head of state, Brezhneva called her ex-husband at work and said that there could not even be a relationship between them, not to mention remarriage.
1990- e
The restaurant was a well-known institution for the elite until the early 90s. But he entered the latter with a creak – well, this institution was not in vogue, it did not take root with the local beau monde. It became clear that the time had come for a change. And in a big way.
According to Forbes, in the 1990s, the then mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, sold the building and non-residential premises for $30.5 million to companies associated with entrepreneur Telman Ismailov. his opening.
– Gilding, crystal, soft carpets and marble, marble, marble … This is how “Prague” appears. Weighty countertops made of pink, green, white marble. Brilliant powerful columns from the same expensive marble. Luxurious furniture, magnificent drapes and curtains, murmuring fountains, elegant combinations of pastel colors, wrote Kommersant about the renovated establishment at the time. However, it looked less like a restaurant than a palace.
Food to match – from stellate sturgeon or eel to “Prague curls”, tongue in meat jelly and pork escalope. It seems like it would take hours to list the entire menu of the restaurant.
The range of prices (remember, it's 1997 on the street) is from $20 to $100. By the way, they also accepted credit cards.
Celebrities appeared here – there were Kirkorov, and Pugacheva, and Basques. But it's hard to say that the restaurant was the main discovery of the decade.
Rumor about Cavalli
In 2008-2009, rumors began to appear about the sale of the restaurant. At the end of 2010, it was widely discussed in the media that the legendary Moscow restaurant was being bought by Roberto Cavalli. Allegedly, the name “Prague” will be erased and replaced by Just Cavalli.
– The opening of a new restaurant called Just Cavalli will probably take place in the summer of 2011. Whether anything will remain of the former Prague is unknown, Kommersant wrote at the time.
However, later it became known that it was only a lease. Then these rumors also stopped.
In 2017, it was reported that the Moscow Arbitration Court had declared the Prague-AST LLC, founded by the notorious businessman Telman Ismailov, bankrupt. It was in it that the restaurant “Prague” was included. The building was put up for auction.
In 2019, Miroslav Melnik, co-owner of the Cheryomushkinsky market, bought the building for 1.4 billion rubles. According to the press service of Moskomstroyinvest, the urban planning and land commission of the capital approved the placement of a restaurant in the building in addition to catering, apartments and commercial establishments. “As part of the project, it is planned to increase the total area of the building by 6.2 thousand square meters with their subsequent use as apartments, as well as the preservation of the historic restaurant. After restoration, the total area of the object will be more than 16.1 thousand square meters,” the message says.
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