'A Spectacular Vomit': Artemy Lebedev Blasts Mansion in Yekaterinburg
Designer Artemy Lebedev visited Yekaterinburg and slammed the presidential envoy's residence, calling it 'a spectacular vomit,' while praising a neighboring building by Norman Foster.
Feb 28, 2026 0
The designer«s social media post highlights the architectural contrast between two buildings in Yekaterinburg.
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Designer Artemy Lebedev visited Yekaterinburg and immediately criticized the city on his social media. The blogger praised the appearance of the main office of the Russian Copper Company and trashed the residence of the presidential envoy in the Ural Federal District.
The presidential envoy«s residence was built over a decade and is located on Dobrolyubova Street.
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«Yekaterinburg is a city of contrasts. On the right is the most beautiful building of the Russian Copper Company, designed by Norman Foster. And on the left is the presidential envoy»s office in the Ural Federal District. A spectacular vomit. Designed by a caretaker in the style of Albanian Baroque,« Lebedev stated.
The envoy«s office explained to E1.RU that they do not comment on designers» opinions.
Note that the residence building was designed and approved over eight years, and the construction itself took another two years. For a long time, the location was chosen — in the end, the building was placed on Dobrolyubova Street. Before the revolution, there was a merchant settlement here, some houses of which eventually collapsed to the ground. The mansion was commissioned in 2010.
«The residence of the presidential envoy in the Ural Federal District became the first such facility in Russia. The yellow-white three-story mansion, executed in classical style, very quickly became one of the iconic buildings of Yekaterinburg. Behind its back, it was initially called »Buckingham Palace« by analogy with the residence of the British royal family,» the envoy«s office noted.
The headquarters of the RMC, created according to the project of the British architectural bureau Norman Foster, opened in 2020. The construction of the tower took five years. We showed what the office looks like from the inside. The building is regularly noted in architectural awards as one of the best in Russia.
Lebedev closely follows Yekaterinburg. In the fall, he tore apart the updated keyboard monument in his news review.
Before that, the blogger drew a full house at his performance at the 100+ TechnoBuild forum in Yekaterinburg. And a year ago, Artemy talked about what«s wrong with the cities we live in, and also called Sredneuralsk (a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast) a word beginning with »zh«.
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