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Restoration of the theatre building. Winter-spring 1944
This is how the newspaper Leningrad Pravda described the state of the Kirov Theatre in early 1944: “The upper balconies have warped and sagged. The twelve-ton iron curtain is unusable. The emergency staircases and the pilaster gallery have collapsed. The lumps of falling rubble have smashed a hundred crystal chandeliers and almost all of the furniture in the elegant auditorium.
The stonemasons decided not to restore the gallery as they did not know the secret of the semi-circular cross-like inserts. At last two men were found – the carpenter Asyunkin and the mason Lobanov.”*
* Quote after M. Frangopulo. The State Academic Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre, Recipient of the Order of Lenin// Leningrad Theatres during World War II. Moscow-Leningrad; Iskusstvo, 1948. P. 95