Rhodes Villa Restaurant

Categories / City Services/Restaurants, Cafes, Cafeterias
RHODES VILLA. A country restaurant opened in 1908 by entrepreneur A.S. Rhodes at the corner of Novoderevenskaya Embankment and Stroganovskaya Street (today Primorsky Avenue and Akad. Krylova Street) in the Crystal pavilion; it was constructed on the location of the Pompeii Restaurant, which had operated there from 1885. The Rhodes Villa featured a large summer theatre and a summer terrace-restaurant with a stage where famous actors gave performances (including N.V. Dulkevich, A.I. Mozzhukhin, and others). A.A. Blok dedicated several lines to Rhodes Villa (" I sat by the window in a crowded room. ..."). As contemporaries witnessed (K.I. Chukovsky, M.K. Kuprina-Iordanskaya), Rhodes Villa there was visited by a stash of "golden youth". After the February Revolution of 1917, the restaurant was closed down; the Iskra Political Club operated on its premises from April of 1917 (Lenin gave a speech at its opening ceremony). In the 1920s, the building housed the Fakel Cinema; from the late 1920s, it housed the Iskra Plant № 23 Club. In 1954, the building burnt down, and in its place a plant-stadium was constructed; later a part of its territory was given to the Sverdlov Hospital, and a park was put on the other part.

Reference: Векслер А. Ф. В парке у Черной речки // Диалог. 1989. № 20. С. 26-32.

I. A. Bogdanov. Akademika Krylova St./Saint Petersburg, city
Primorsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city
Векслер А. Ф. В парке у Черной речки // Диалог, 1989