Parquet installation started in Georgievsky Hall of the Kremlin / TV Zvezda /14.03.19

The most recognizable and ceremonial hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace changes its appearance facing the Palace's anniversary. Now the hall is under repair. The furniture has been taken away, parquet flooring has been dismantled. Parquet flooring dating back to Nicholas I needs restoration. The job is difficult. 20 wood species were used in the original parquet flooring.

This hall was used for emperors' coronations, honouring of elite of the Central Committee, taking presidents' oaths. Now it is difficult to recognize Georgievsky Hall without carpets and gilded chandeliers. There are boards on the foundation, and new parquet flooring is now installed upon them like a puzzle.

A civil servant has not yet set his foot here. We are the first to walk on the new parquet flooring in Georgievsky Hall. It was made according to historical templates. However, it is still possible to see the historical parquet flooring made by George Muller's factory in 1845.

Nicholas I kept a close eye on the project, and Muller did his best: he used 26 different wood species. The flooring was perfectly done. It lasted 170 years. But all has its date.

«Parquet has risen in some places, planks have broken away. Some areas have slightly shrunk», said Olga Galanicheva, the chief project architect.

Parquet flooring as well as Georgievsky Hall itself barely survived in 1941. That year the bomb hit the roof of the Grand Kremlin Palace, but fortunately it did not exlode.

«Somwhere here there was a bomb crater, though it is already closed with panels. We saw this crater when the flooring was dismantled. According to the documents its dimensions were approximately 90 cm by one metre», said Anastasiya Pavlova, senior research assistant of the Grand Kremlin Palace.

There is a tradition since old times to name all report filmings from the Kremlin "parquet filmings". During the Soviet period it was decided to put carpets in halls to protect parquet flooring. And now we literally do parquet filming.

200 km far from the Kremlin. Belkovo village, Tula region. There was a coal mine before. Now there is a factory that produces the very elite parquet flooring that would be installed in Georgievsky Hall.

The factory's specialists were studying the old sketches and documents for 6 months. It was difficult to find exactly those wood species that had been used in the original flooring. It was found out that the wood had been delivered from four continents.

Flowers and small details are cut from exotic wood species on special machines, but they are gathered together by hand like 170 years ago.

Parquet flooring in Georgievsky Hall will play out in fresh colours. The very colours that Nicholas I saw himself. We are shown a fragment of the old parquet flooring and get the explanation. «The wood chages its colour drastically affected by ultraviolet light. Here you can see the wood that everybody got used to, and this is the wood after the lacquer was removed and after the wood was sanded. And you can see that the colour is different», said Sergey Kochanov, Director General of the company that produces parquet flooring.

This is affair of national importance. and the hurry is inappropriate. Parquet flooring will be installed only by the end of April. Carefully this historical puzzle will be collected together.