Main Building of the Cannon Yard

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

The Main Building is a component of the Cannon Yard Complex.

The building was constructed in the middle of the 18th century to house an armoury and arsenal here. In 1825, the building was renovated as apartments for the Junker Military School officership, under the design of architect A.K. Schmidt. The Kazan garrison’s soldiers’ canteen was established here in the first part of the XXth century.

The Main Building of the Cannon Yard is made up of three two-storey sections joined by one-storey sections. The exterior design is made in the Baroque style. The ground floor of the building is rusticated, there are lesenes between the windows (decorative narrow projections in the wall), and two–storey sections are decorated with pilasters (a flat vertical projection). The arched windows on the sides are limited by counter-architrave (decorative projections) that terminate in little brackets, which are supported by profiled archivolts (framed with a protruding arc) with keystones (voussoirs in the top portion of the arch), covered with a mansard roof (Gambrel type) with dormer windows-lucarnes (a window opening in the roof slope with a vertical frame) with lugs (an upper corner break). The exterior risalites are ornamented with rusticated pilasters with capitals and bases, as well as ornamental panels (recesses) above and below the windows. Architraves with lugs surround the windows; the central lock on the ground floor has a rounded top and is surrounded by a double keystone. A two-part profiled cornice fits beneath the roof. The roof is pyramidal with balustrade fencing (as figured columns).

The decorations of these three sections almost entirely replicate one another. In the central part, a pediment made of profiled cornices rests on capital-studded pilasters along the façade’s axis. A brick turret-guardhouse, an octagon (octahedron), is located in the centre of the roof and is lavishly ornamented with lesenes between arched windows on both faces. The windows are topped with archivolts with a keystone. The guardhouse is outfitted with an octagonal helmet-shaped roof and four lucarnes.

The central volume of the building also has a vase-shaped dome (added after restoration) with two crossed cannons. There is a heap of cannon balls on the cannons. There is an octagonal spire above it, and it is surrounded by four acanthus sheets from below. The top of the spire is crowned with the image of a Zilant and a metal weather vane with the carved inscription “Cannon Yard”.

In 1995, during archaeological digs in the southern risalite, a cannon foundry pit was discovered. Nowadays, the pit is museumized. The presence of this unique object inspired the establishment of the Cannon Yard Museum in the southern risalit of the Cannon Yard’s Main Building, which hosts exhibitions as well as cultural and educational activities.