Distillery and Hotel in the historical ethnographic and architectural museum-reserve Staraya Sarepta

The distillery building was originally built in the 1770s of wood and brick on a stone foundation. It was later rebuilt in stone and brick. The building includes several rooms and a basement built in different years of the 18th century, as well as extensions of a later period (19th century). The community distillery produced bread, grape and fruit vodkas from local and imported raw materials. German brandwein, schnapps and liqueurs were also produced. The range of liqueurs was wide: apricot, prune, benedictine, mint, curacao, blackcurrant, cherry, raspberry and vanilla. The distillery also produced gin, rum, cognac, bitters, sweet liqueurs and balm. Sarepta balsam successfully competed in the Russian market with “Riga black“, was well known as a therapeutic and prophylactic agent in Russia and abroad. The building is currently not used by the museum. Restoration work was not carried out. The inn (hotel) was built in 1769. A sample of a residential building of the classicism era, typical for the ordinary building of Western European settlements of the 18th-19th centuries. It is no coincidence that Sarepta appeared at the intersection of several trade roads:; the navigable Volga flows nearby. Hernguters always tried to establish their settlements on trade roads or in port cities. This provided an ever-increasing flow of visitors, travelers, trading partners, foreign merchants, buyers and sellers. Initially, in 1766, the visiting (inn) yard or “community apartments“ was combined with trading and bread shops, as well as with a tobacco factory. In 1768, the construction of a stone, one-story building for an inn (“Gasthof”) began. By 1769 construction was completed. Historian Sarepta G. Khafa mentions that the inn was run by one married couple, 2 unmarried brothers and 1 unmarried sister. Already in the first years of its existence, passing officers, diplomats, scientists, travelers, officials, landowners, etc. stopped at the hotel. The inn and its owner acted on the basis of a special instruction of the College of Gerngut abbots in 1770: “The inn or rooms for visitors cannot have any other intention in the community of the Lord than to serve their neighbors and provide passing guests day and night with help and all possible conveniences” . The owner of the inn informed the rector of the community about the progress of his economic activities. Without the permission of the abbot, he could not change the order of using the inn. Every year, the owner, with the consent of the rector, acquired the necessary things for the work of the yard (inventory, property, food, fodder). Major repairs or new buildings could not be erected without the permission of the abbot. Sarepta’s inn also performed missionary tasks. Its workers shared the religious worldview and communal thinking of the Hernguters, considered themselves in the service of the Lord. They built their work on courtesy, honesty, served as an example for their neighbors. The inn was the “face of the community“, a guest, trading and missionary house for meetings, acquaintances and negotiations with guests. Yard workers, when communicating with representatives of other faiths, had to demonstrate the moral, ethical and cultural characteristics of the community. The task of the staff was to create a favorable attitude towards the gernguters on the part of visitors of any confessions and classes. In 1769 - 1773. the courtyard building had 2 family apartments, 3 guest rooms, a cellar. A German-style tavern and kitchen were located on the first floor. In separate rooms there was a kitchen for visitors (Russians, Tatars, Persians, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chumaks) with a stove, a residential building. Food was prepared in the kitchen of the tavern, in a large German-type cooking oven with a stove, a vault and an open hearth. In the morning, the servants went around the rooms and collected orders for dinner. There was a buffet with takeaway and draft. Crockery was used inexpensive local production and imported (porcelain, silver). Hot food was served in the room and cooked 3 times (breakfast, lunch, dinner). Tea or coffee with sugar, cream and muffins could be ordered from the samovar at any time. It was allowed to cook on their own from their products in the kitchen on the stove, paying for firewood. Auxiliary wooden buildings - a cellar-glacier, a firewood shed, a barn, a stable, a barn for oats, a hayloft, a shed and a shed for wagons stood along the perimeter of the yard. The building was connected to a water supply from a spring and an indoor pool with separate tanks for drinking and laundry, as well as a fish tank and a watering hole for livestock. Since 1775, many visitors to the Catherine’s resort, opened by I. Vir, have stayed at the hotel. A fire in the colony on July 28, 1823, destroyed the hotel with outbuildings. Since it was designed to serve travelers and was always profitable, the community restored it among the first es