C O N T E X T 9 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 6 33 The Perm Cathedral complex of 1798 sits on the wooded hill overlooking the city. (Photo: Richard Sills) The 1879 Opera and Ballet Theatre used to be famous for its fine acoustics. (Photo: Richard Sills) ROBERT PARKINSON Time for Perm to discover its heritage The historic Russian city of Perm is facing pressures to modernise itself. It may have something to learn from conservation in the UK and its twin city of Oxford. Perm is a city of a million people, a thousand miles east of Moscow, just to the west of the Urals. In the 12th to 15th centuries the Finnish peoples began to call the region Pera-Ma or Perma, which in old Finnish meant ‘borders’ or ‘far country’.The region was a rich source of salt and furs. Russians began to settle from the end of the 14th century. In the mid 16th century, the Stroganovs were granted lands. They soon became the major salt producers, and later manufacturers of decorative tiles. The region was incorporated into the Russian state and became a springboard for the colonisation of Siberia. The city itself was founded in 1723, and in 1780 Catherine the Great made Perm the regional capital. The city became the administrative, commercial and spiritual centre of a huge and strategically important area. It occupied a significant location for river transport, and became an even more important transport hub with the building of the trans-Siberian railway. When the geology of the region was studied, it was established that two hundred million years ago most of the region had been covered by sea, which left huge deposits of limestone. This discovery was named after the city, hence the name ‘Permian’ in the geological hierarchy. The central part of the city is laid out on a grid plan, with a series of streets parallel or perpendicular to the river Kama. One which led east from the port was called ul Sibirskaya (Siberia Street), and was renamed Marx Street after the revolution.The city itself was renamed Molotov after the second world war, and became a closed city forbidden to foreigners. With the political thaw came east-west contacts, and subsequently the twinning of Perm with Oxford. I was asked to visit and discuss conservation and urban design with architects and planners in the city. Dominating the city and located at the highest point of the old town is a huge cathedral complex of 1798. The site was originally part of a dense forest of fir trees, some of which remain on the hilltop. The building has characteristic features of the Urals, with brick walls up to two metres thick, metal gratings on the windows and cast-iron doors. In 1818 the massive belfry was built. After the revolution the cathedral was turned into an art gallery and museum. The RussoByzantine style is represented by a number of former churches with characteristic golden domes. These buildings where generally converted to secular use, but some have returned to religious use. In the final years of the tsar, a mosque was built in the part of town where most Moslems lived. It is a very striking green-and-white building, with silver-coloured dome and spire. In the soviet period the building was used to house the party archives, but it was returned to the Moslem community in 1990. Perm is a well-known centre for opera and ballet. The neo-classical opera and ballet theatre is of 1879. It was famous for fine acoustics, and words whispered on the stage were perfectly audible to the audience. Spruce was used for the ceilings, with upturned pots in the corners to enhance the sound. Under the stage were china pipes with openings along their length. Unfortunately, a soviet remodelling of 1956–59 resulted in the loss of the magical acoustics. Nonetheless, the four performances I attended were more than equal to the Oxford Playhouse.
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