No. 54 (1): F. Balle/Ballet Confectionary

Ushakov Building

54 Nevsky Prospect is on the corner of Malaia (Little) Sadovaia Street – the location of the popular confectionary F. Ballet (F. Balle) that Bely mentions in Petersburg. The Ushakov building was remodeled in 1882 – 1883 by Pavel Siuzor, the architect of the House of Singer on 28 Nevsky.  It is a typical example of a “profitable building” (dokhodnyi dom), a mixture of private apartments on the upper floors and shops and offices on the lower ones. The businesses that were located in the Ushakov building at the beginning of the 20th century, when this photo was taken, were V. Bessel’s Music Store, considered the best in the city for sheet music; K. Landrat’s fancy hat shop; French Maison Luxe for women’s clothing; Olivier’s beauty shop; the Brothers Mory; “Rome” Furnished Rooms; G.A. Borel’s photo studio; as well as O.N. Popova’s bookstore and publishing company; the famous antiquarian bookstore of E.K. Gartye (“Russian Bibliography”); and Z.I. Grzhebin’s publishing house, which collaborated with Maxim Gorky’s after 1919.