Legendary restaurant "Yar": Why Chaliapin and Glinka loved it, and how Belmondo and Gandhi ended up in it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The French tavern "Yar", and later - the legendary Russian restaurant, was a cult place of Moscow bohemia of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In terms of luxury, high quality gastronomy and extravagance, the pre-revolutionary "Yar" was considered the number one institution and so far no Moscow restaurant has been able to surpass it. History has preserved many amazing facts about this unique institution.

The Yar restaurant, founded by the Frenchman Trankil Yard (Yar), was opened in 1826 in the center of Moscow, at the corner of Neglinnaya and Kuznetsky, and then moved to Petrovka. When the inn could no longer accommodate all the visitors, it had a branch outside the city. The beginning of Leningradsky Prospekt, which now cannot even be called the outskirts (rather, the center), was then considered a backwater. However, it was this building behind Tverskaya Zastava that became incredibly popular, making Yar one of the best restaurants of those years. Over time, the old building was completely closed, and the branch began to expand, modernize and grow rich.

The horses were fed for free

The remoteness of the new Yar did not bother anyone. Every evening wealthy merchants and nobles raced to the restaurant on trotters, and the coachmen considered such orders very lucrative. Firstly, the passengers paid the cabs generously, and secondly, the restaurant gave them hay for free. And in the 1890s a tram line began to pass by "Yar". Gradually, from one hall and several offices, the room turned into the most chic and fashionable drinking establishment in Moscow.

Caroling at the Orange

Since 1871, the restaurant has become the property of the merchant Aksenov, whom everyone called Orange for his full figure and bright blush. At this time, such reckless and loud merchant revels were practiced in "Yar" that the memory of them still boggles the imagination. For example, merchants who took a walk liked to play "in the aquarium": the piano standing in the hall was filled with champagne and fish were "allowed" there - not live, but butter sardines from a can. This tradition remained in the restaurant under the next owner. And also merchants smashed dishes for fun. The cunning Aksenov decided to turn such hooliganism to his own advantage: he established a kind of price list, according to which every such offense was punished in a restaurant with a fine. Smearing the face of the waiter, throwing a bottle into the mirror, throwing plates - all this cost a lot of money. And this is despite the fact that all the property of the restaurant was insured.

Within a few years, the restaurant began to bring in huge profits. The owner made a winter garden in Yar, installed a fountain and even installed gas lighting.

Feast of the stomach

Yar reached its peak at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1887, Alexei Sudakov became its new owner, who once served as a waiter in the same restaurant, and later ran lower-rank taverns. With the help of the architect A. Erichson, he rebuilt the building. Two luxurious halls appeared here, which were decorated with living tropical plants and fragrant roses brought to Yar directly from Nice.

There were wide pools in the hall, in which fish of various varieties splashed. Any visitor could choose a fish, and before the restaurant employee took it to the kitchen, the “client” cut a piece out of the gill. When the prepared dish was served, the visitor applied the missing piece, checking if it was really the same fish.

With the advent of motor transport, "Yar" acquired its own and a garage so that the driver could go after the most eminent visitors.

Sudakov increased the portions in the restaurant, and also constantly monitored the freshness of the dishes. Fyodor Chaliapin, for example, called the restaurant's gastronomy "African splendor."

Yar was truly an expensive, elite place. According to the recollections of contemporaries, breakfast here was at a cost equal to a grain wagon train. And grilled chicken cost as much as the monthly salary of an ordinary Muscovite - and that's not counting the side dish. For the divine and unique taste of Yarovskaya steaks, truffles, chickens, partridges and steamed bream, rich gourmets were ready to spend any money without hesitation.

By 1911, the restaurant had its own power plant, water heating was installed in all the premises, an artesian well was drilled on the territory. The courtyard of the restaurant was surrounded by an artificial rock made of plaster, with bridges, gazebos and a waterfall. At that time, "Yar" could accommodate a thousand people.

Even people from abroad came to listen to the gypsies

The gypsy choirs that performed at the Yar were famous not only throughout Moscow - rumors about them spread beyond its borders. Whole dynasties of hereditary singers and musicians performed at the restaurant - Panins, Shishkins, Lebedevs. I. Turgenev, A. Ostrovsky, A. Fet, composer Mikhail Glinka specially came to listen to the gypsies. Even Franz Liszt attended a concert at the Yar during his tour of Russia.

It is noteworthy that these performances were organized very professionally and were not just a backdrop for drunken eaters, but cultural concerts. There were stages in both rooms of the restaurant. Each of them was clearly visible from anywhere in the room.

Guests wishing to dine in a closed office could watch the concert from the box. We can say that "Yar" became the progenitor of modern art clubs and restaurants with professional live music.

Later, in addition to the gypsies, other national choirs, chanson performers and even circus and variety artists began to be invited here. During such concerts, visitors-moneybags practiced such fun: they threw jewelry into a crystal vase, and then, as it was empty, presented them to their companions or singers as a token of gratitude.

Soviet "Yar"

After the revolution, the restaurant quickly lost its splendor. In 1918, the Chekists came to "Yar" and arrested Sudakov. The Bolsheviks removed all the "decorations" and signs of "bourgeois luxury" from the restaurant. During the NEP times, the institution was reopened under the name "Krasny Yar", but it did not work for long.

Until 1947, completely different organizations were located in the building of the restaurant - from a hospital to the Institute of Cinematography. In the late forties, a hotel complex was added to the building and, finally, a restaurant was reopened here. It was named, like the hotel, "Sovetsky", and it was served by nomenklatura workers, the party elite and high-ranking foreign guests invited by the Soviet authorities.

For example, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Konrad Adenauer, Jean-Paul Belmondo dined at Sovetskoye. Since the 1960s, the famous gypsy theater Romen has been located in the White Hall of the former Yar.

At the end of the last century, the original name of the restaurant was returned, but the legendary "Yar" remained only in memories and legends, like the bygone pre-revolutionary era.

History is no less interesting the legendary Moscow restaurant "Hermitage"