In April, we will celebrate the 90th birthday anniversary of Irina Lazareva. She was an outstanding scientist and urban planner, one of the first to graduate with honours from the Faculty of Engineering and Construction of the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute, the future Institute of Architecture and Construction of SUSU.
Irina Lazareva was the first not only in this. She became the first in Russia to hold a patent in urban planning, the first to defend her doctoral dissertation in the specialty of "Urban Planning, Planning of Agricultural Settlements", and was one of the co-authors of the first, still Soviet, Urban Planning engineering reference book.
Irina Lazareva was an urban planner not only by vocation, but also by dynasty. Her grandfather Innokenty Shestunov had designed and built the most important facilities in Chelyabinsk: from the Trans-Siberian Railway to the ChTZ plant and the metallurgical plant. Her father Vladimir Lazarev, who had managed the track construction of the railway, had also been associated with the South Ural Railway.
It is difficult to make a different choice in such a family. In 1952, Irina Lazareva entered the newly opened Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute. She graduated with honours and was assigned to Eastern Siberia, but her soul was drawn to science. Irina Lazareva entered graduate school at the USSR Academy of Construction and Architecture and defended her dissertation on the restoration of "disturbed territories" (i.e., quarries, slag heaps, etc.) for urban development. The young scientist was hired by the Central Research Institute of Urban Development (now the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Central Research Institute of Urban Development of the Ministry of Construction of Russia"). Irina Lazareva worked there until the end of her life. However, she did not lose touch with her alma mater, the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute.
Her co-author of scientific works, Professor of the Department of Urban Development, Engineering Networks and Systems Valentin Olenkov recalls:
"I graduated from CPI in 1978 and was invited to do postgraduate work with F. Serebrovsky. While working on my dissertation, I had to go on a business trip to Moscow to deliver a scientific report to the Central Research Institute of Urban Development. All I had to do was hand over the folder. I went up to the 22nd floor to see Irina Lazareva, and she began to criticize the report, saying that everything was done wrong. I said that I was a first-year postgraduate student and did not participate in this work. Then she asked me about my dissertation, about wind regimes. And she gave me an idea: to study disturbed areas, quarries and waste heaps. When I returned, I told my supervisor Fyodor Serebrovsky about this, and he also found this topic interesting.
When I was finishing my dissertation, Fyodor Serebrovsky died suddenly. I was thinking what I should do, how and where to look for opponents, how to submit documents to the council? I called Irina Lazareva in Moscow, and she helped me cope with all the difficulties.
That's how we became friends. Although... it seemed strange to me then, I am a candidate of sciences, she is a candidate too, and she has so much knowledge under belt. Soon she defended her doctorate.
She did not have a family, did not get married, and devoted all her energy and thoughts to her favourite work. But she managed to travel the world, present her scientific achievements in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, China, Japan (in Kyoto), Portugal, Turkey, Bulgaria, and other countries.
I remember when I invited her to the Zodchestvo exhibition in Moscow in 2020. The exhibition is regularly held by the Ministry of Construction. The works of Chelyabinskgrazhdanproekt were presented there, and with them our projects for the restoration of churches. She came, looked carefully, and asked in detail. She was always interested in what was happening in the architecture of Chelyabinsk. It seems that was the last time we took a photo together.
And then Irina Lazareva passed away. Her small apartment on Leninsky Prospekt was turned into a unique library during her lifetime. I managed to visit there for the last time before her relatives rented out the premises. Everything was abandoned, the books lay tied up in bundles like useless junk. Her sister allowed me to take some things as a keepsake, but how much you can take with you on a plane, in your hand luggage…”
In the photo, Irina Lazareva at the Chelyabinsk Region stand at the "Zodchestvo" International Exhibition (Moscow, 2020) with the main specialists of the Chelyabinsk Region Department of Architecture and Urban Development.
Together with her brother, Honorary Member of the International Academy of Architecture Vitaly Lazarev, Irina published a Glossary on the Prevention of Emergencies in Urban Development.
Another work, jointly with her brother, is the Urban Planning and Architectural Traditions of Rus – Russia textbook. Not only architectural historians, but also humanists (including literary scholars) spoke positively about this book. On the cover of the book is the outline of Arkaim, a Ural settlement of the Bronze Age – this is where the authors trace the history of Russian architecture to. However, it also narrates about the architectural monuments in Moscow, the Belozersky Monastery, and the original buildings in Tobolsk...
One of the last significant works by Irina Lazareva as part of a team of authors was the monograph on "National Space", covering the topic of ethnoecological features of settlement complexes and the patterns of their development in modern conditions using the example of Russian cities. The studies conducted by the authors are interdisciplinary in nature and are aimed at identifying the prerequisites and conditions for sustainable urban development.
So with every line of her works, every idea, every sketch, Irina Lazareva served the prosperity of her native Russia.