The Sutyagin House was a wooden structure in Arkhangelsk, Russia. The 13-story, 144-foot tall residence of a local entrepreneur Nikolai Petrovich Sutyagin was reported to be the world’s tallest wooden house.
The house belonged to Russian businessman Nikolai Petrovich Sutyagin who made his fortune in the lumber business, some say through gangsterism.
How To Reach Wooden Gangster House in Arkhangelsk With
Public Transportation
There are 2 ways to get from Moscow to Wooden Gangster House in Arkhangelsk by plane, train, bus, or car:
- You have to catch a local train operated by Russian Railways from Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Vokzal to Arkhangelsk Train Station. It wiill take approximately about 20-21 hours to get from Moscow to Arkhangelsk by train with two to three trains per day.
- Get down at Arkhangelsk Train Station., and take a bus n. 10 or bus n.69 to Solombala (northern part of Arkhangelsk)
- Get down at Solombala and it will take 1.5 km walk at the end of the bus ride to get to the Sutyagin Wooden Gangster House
Sutyagin Wooden Gangster House is about 30 km from the center of Arkhangelsk and it’s most easily reached by car or taxi. The journey takes about 20-30 minutes.
The History of Sutyagin Wooden Gangster House
The port where Nikolai Petrovich Sutyagin, the builder of the house, was born and raised was mostly home to fishermen. Sutyagin was a Russian businessman who was infamous for earning most of his fortune through crime.
Sutyagin began building in 1992 and in the original plans, it was only going to reach two stories high, a normal house. Yet he was inspired by the vernacular architecture and wooden houses of Japan and Norway to keep going.
Sutyagin wanted his home to stand out, and despite buildings of over 2-storeys being banned in Arkhangelsk, he continued to add more floors with the excuse that the house looked incomplete. In the end, he created an eccentric log mansion featuring 13 floors, with a dome topping off the 44-meter elevation (height of 144 feet).
Sutyagin even built a five-storey bath house in the garden, complete with rooms where he could entertain his colleagues from his construction company, and their girlfriends. But before he could complete his dream, Sutyagin was arrested on racketeering charges in 1998 and sent to prison for four years.
Once freed from prison, Sutyagin and his wife lived a frugal existence on the ground floor (his wealth having been wrested from him while in jail). Amongst rotten wooden boards, he invited visitors to survey his ruined palace, the tower has long since collapsed.
in 2008, the house was condemned as a fire hazard, and ordered to be destroyed. The reason for this was that even though the authorities had forbidden him to build a wooden house bigger than two floors, he added a roof on top which he claimed to be only for decoration. It was slowly demolished the following year. The remained structures were finally destroyed in a fire in 2012.
Photos of Sutyagin Wooden Gangster House destroyed by fire
Stunning Photos of the Sutyagin Wooden Gangster House
