Sandunоvskie Baths (russian: Сандуновские бани) or Sandunу (, ) is a cultural and architectural landmark in downtown

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, located at 14 Neglinnaya street adjacent to the Central Bank of Russia. First opened in 1808, the baths were founded by and named after the Georgian businessman Sila Sandunov (Zandukeli) (1756–1820), who was once an actor at the court of

Catherine II , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anha ...

during the 1790s. He bought a land plot on the Neglinnaya River in 1800 to construct baths there.

History of ownership

In 1869, owned by merchant and landlord Ivan Grigorievich Firsanov, the baths were willed to Ivan Firsanov's only daughter, Vera Ivanovna, after his death in 1881. After Vera divorced her first husband, she married again to the officer Alexey Nikolayevich Ganetskiy, who was a son of General Nikolai Stepanovich Ganetskiy, participant of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. Alexey proposed the idea of building new baths of the like Moscow had never before seen on the place of the decaying building. In 1894, Ganetskiy hired a well-known architect Boris Viktorovich Freidenberg, but he dropped the project and left Moscow. However, the baths were finished by S.M. Kalugin and opened on February 14, 1896. Not long after completion, Ganetskiy lost ownership of Sanduny playing cards; afterward, Vera Ivanovna paid his debts and divorced again. The baths received water via a specially built aqueduct from the Babyegorodskaya Dam on the Moscow River and from 700 feet of

artesian well An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. An artesian aquifer has trapped water, surrounded by layers of impermeable rock or clay, which apply positive pressure to the water contained within th ...

. Electrical illumination was provided by a private electric power station, which was also used on the coronation of Nikolai II. Besides the baths, Sanduny also included a hotel, restaurants, and even the ''Zoological shop of F. A. Achilles''. Sanduny was serviced by approximately 400 attendants.

External links

*
Official website
* {{in lang, en}
Official website

Buildings and structures in Moscow 1896 establishments in the Russian Empire Public baths Cultural heritage monuments of regional significance in Moscow