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Samara city mansion with elephants photos
1 Comment · Posted by Sergei Rzhevsky in Architecture, Cities, Photos
The following mansion was constructed in Samara city on the bank of Volga river in 1908-1909 by the local merchant K.P.Golovkin. The whole idea of the project and all the details belong to the merchant himself. Today the place is also known as “The mansion with elephants”. The photos were captured by golema.
Tags: Samara city
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Al · March 23, 2012 at 7:33 am
Well done for showing us this hallucinatingly impressive Art Nouveau mansion on the Volga. If it was in Paris or Vienna it would be considered one of the world’s masterpieces. Visiting from the West I was unable to do other than get a glimpse of it from the front gates, which afford no view of the elephants or the best Art Nouveau lines of the house, towards the Volga. Like other tourists I would have paid good money to be able to be able to go in, restored or not. The elephants are reminiscent of the famous Trocadero elephant and rhinoceros sculptures at the 1878 Paris World Fair – and it’s a fair bet that K.P.Golovkin may have been influenced just by that famous exhibition. The Samara government authorities who own this wonderful villa should take note.
Well done!