From 1925 to 1935, 12 bread factories were constructed in Moscow. Soviet authorities sought to optimize bread production in a country starving after the revolution and civil war. The most advanced technology was also used, such as the circle bakery cycle designed by engineer Georgy Marsakov. The basis of the system was a circular conveyor, which allowed the process of baking bread to be automated. Products moved step by step in a circle from top to bottom. The first of Marsakov’s completed projects was this factory built on Khodynskaya Street in Moscow in 1931 and was assigned serial number 5 (‘Khlebozavod № 5’). It functioned until the early 2000s.
The building is a great monument to Soviet Constructivism architectural style. The cylindrical composition of the factory is framed by towers with stairwells. In 2022, the restoration of the factory was completed, preserving not only the original architecture, but also the late transformations of the building, made during the work process and as epochs changed.
Now ‘Khlebozavod № 5’ will be opened again as Russia’s first center exploring Constructivism. The new center is named ‘Zotov’, in honor of Vasily Zotov, Minister of Food Industry of the USSR, who started his career as an ordinary baker and who organized the mass construction of bread factories in Moscow.
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