Ruins of a Bone-Burning Plant: History and Future
More than twenty years ago, the air on Gutuevsky Island was saturated with the smell of rendered bones, fat, and burnt shashlik. Today, only ruins remain of the plant that once produced an export product. The site covers nearly 5 hectares, with about seven buildings surviving to the present day. The cadastral map lists only two structures — built in 1890 and 1939.
Two buildings have been repaired and leased out: holes were patched with brick, and first-floor windows were turned into doors and gates. The other buildings are crumbling. One of them — a four-story concrete building — has been taken over by graffiti artists, who decorated the walls with images of the Garden of Eden. The grass on the site reaches over two meters tall — apparently, the nitrogen and phosphorus from the bones fertilized the soil for decades. However, the smell is still noticeable, especially when the wind blows from the Western High-Speed Diameter.
Tenants do not complain about the odors, but they do complain about the flies. «Last year there were swarms of flies, we didn»t know where to go or how to deal with them,« they shared. The factory warehouse building, listed as an identified cultural heritage site, partially retains its doors, wrought-iron grilles, and panels with the letters »OKZ.« However, inside, the walls and floor beams have collapsed.
The plant«s history began even before the port was built. In the 1840s, the merchants, the Kobyzev brothers, founded a bone-burning operation. It moved to Gutuevsky Island in the 1850s, and from 1859 the enterprise was run by Mikhail Kobyzev, who became the first director of the Society of Bone-Burning Plants (Obshchestvo Kostyeobzhigatelnykh Zavodov). The construction of the Sea Canal and the port made the island an ideal location for hazardous industries: slaughterhouses were nearby on the Obvodny Canal, and water and rail logistics reduced transportation costs.
The plant«s products included bone meal, glue, fat, fertilizers, bone charcoal, and ammonia salts. Bone fat, or bone tallow, was used for frying in taverns. »Along with offal and brains, bone tallow was considered the lowest form of public catering in St. Petersburg,« said local historian Andrei Kulik. Before the plants appeared, raw bone was exported to England. In 1862, 368,000 poods of bone were exported from Russia; by 1874, that figure reached 1,147,000 poods (almost 19,000 tons). After the Society was founded, raw bone exports fell, while bone meal exports rose.
In 1883, a duty of 10 gold kopeks was imposed on raw bone and 2 kopeks on ground bone. Exports that year comprised: 471,000 poods of raw bone, 802,000 poods of bone meal, and 766,000 poods of bone charcoal. In total, over 2 million poods of products, of which only a quarter was raw material. With a 70-percent yield of finished products, at least 2.2 million poods of raw bone went into producing meal and charcoal. All exports brought the country 2.6 million rubles (approximately $28,900 at current rates). Bone was sold at 18 rubles per kilogram ($0.20), meal at 10.5 rubles ($0.12), and charcoal at 12.9 rubles ($0.14) per kilogram.
The processing technology involved treatment with high-pressure steam to make the bones brittle. Later, steam was replaced by fat solvents — gasoline and petroleum ether — which preserved the nitrogen-containing cartilage. By 1913, the Rezvy plant remained a monopoly in St. Petersburg, and its network expanded to Saratov and Yaroslavl. The management office was located on Admiralteysky Prospekt. After the revolution, the plant was nationalized and renamed «Kleykost» (Stickiness), and later became the Leningrad Glue Plant.
The number of workers as of 1 January 1917 reached 235, and by 1932 it had grown to 634. In 1968, the plant tried to sell a ton of natural fertilizers for 5 rubles — cheaper than two bottles of vodka. Production operated with virtually no modernization, retaining a foul smell that, in Soviet times, would envelop the Narva Triumphal Arch if the wind blew. «Throughout the Soviet period, if the wind blew toward the Narva Arch, the entire square was filled with the terrible smell of evaporating bones,» recalled the local historian.
The plant closed in 2007 under the name Glue Plant LLC (OOO «Kleyevoy Zavod») — it was removed from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRUL) on 24 April. Since then, some of the buildings have collapsed; one warehouse received the status of an identified cultural heritage site, but no restoration projects have been submitted. According to the General Plan, the territory is zoned for multifunctional public and business development (TD1-2), which permits offices up to nine stories, shopping complexes, hotels, and scientific, cultural, and sports facilities. However, in the year since the plans were announced, the Committee for Investments has not received a single application.
Director of Research at the TSUR Group, Dmitry Lisitsyn, noted that the site could become attractive for lofts and creative spaces, but St. Petersburg has a lot of historic real estate and limited demand. «This is historic St. Petersburg, but not the center. There is an idea of sub-centers of St. Petersburg. This place could become part of one of them. But the question is how the current market will cope with it. It is a matter of will and money,» the expert concluded.
