A retired couple from the Primorye Territory constructed a palace out of ordinary garbage.
A retired couple from the Primorye Territory constructed a palace out of ordinary garbage.
The couple still believes in fairytales so they decided to build a palace for themselves. All they needed was hard-working hands, rich imagination, and most importantly, patience. The construction took sixteen years and it’s opened its doors to anyone.
The patio is inlaid with colored slabs. It has whimsical small towers and columns decorated with patterns typical of medieval knights’ period, which you can see as you step inside.
It is hard to believe that some time ago there was an ordinary wooden house on this spot whose hosts, Valentina and Alexei Krivovs wanted some excitement in their lives.
Their answer to boredom was the grand reconstruction project that is still under way. Legends about the Krivovs’ house already spread across the city. But not everyone knows that a fairytale can be built out of garbage.
Chunks of concrete slabs and pieces of bricks are the construction material the Krivovs look for on Artyom’s streets every day. Sometimes their neighbors help them.
Alexei Krivov, a former builder, now a pensioner from Artyom, Primorye Territory, on the roof of the “palace” he has been building since 1995 together with his wife, Valentina.
Valentina Krivova is a builder by profession and an architect by vocation. It was her idea to place the entire world in their back yard.
Scheherazade towers are placed next to church domes.
London’s Big Ben is placed opposite the Russian national emblem.
The Krivovs say their house looks best in autumn and summer, when the tiles become iridescent. Their pets find the palace attractive all year long. Fourteen cats and three dogs now live inside the palace’s domes and towers.
