Hovrinskaya Hospital, Russia

Hovrinskaya hospital was an abandoned building in the Hovrino District of Moscow in the Hovrino area, near the railway station of the same name.

The architecture of the building was similar to buildings of the Soviet period. Hospital trёhluchevoy was designed in a star shape, with branchings at the ends. The three wings of the building came together in the middle, the side parts form three courtyards, with porches. Next to the main building was an annex housing the pathology department.

Due to the unfinished construction in some places there were only fragments of walls and floors. The basements were also flooded. According to one story construction was halted due to a lack of funding. Another story states shortcomings of the project prevented it from being completed. According to an old map of Moscow in 1952, the hospital was to be built by the river Likhoborka and surrounding wetlands. Sewage treatment facilities were located nearby.

The abandoned building was well known among fans of urban legends as one of the most mystical places in Moscow. Among urban explorers, the hospital became known as “The Umbrella”‘ for its shape. It was similar to both the Umbrella Corporation logo from the video game and film series Resident Evil and the biohazard symbol.

History

Construction of the hospital began in 1980 and was suspended in 1985. Since then, the building was unfinished and dilapidated until its demolition in 2018.

The hospital was designed to have a capacity of 1300 beds. The building was built in the style of brutalism.

Since the mid-1980s, the hospital was a frequent place for urban explorers to visit. It was also a popular spot for industrial climbers. There are also urban legends about the ghosts of hospital staff, satanists, the homeless and other criminal elements. In 1990, a woman was killed in the hospital building. At the end of March 2011 a photographer was involved in an armed assault. The hospital was considered unsafe by the local community.

On the second floor there was a memorial to Alexey Krayushkin. A 16-year-old boy who was killed in 2005 when he threw himself from the roof because of unrequited love. On the walls of the unfinished building there was a large amount of graffiti. One of the most famous tags read: “This hospital – the land of miracles, has gone into it and it was gone”.

In July 2012 it was decided to demolish the buildings and begin the construction of two new buildings. In October of the same year the building and the land was put up for auction (auction held in December 2012) for an initial value of nearly 1.8 billion rubles. Some experts believe that this amount is significantly overestimated.

November 15, 2014 the Deputy Mayor for urban policy and the construction of Marat Khusnullin stated that the building will be put up for auction in 2015 for later demolition and construction of a new health care facility.

At the end of March 2015, it was again announced that the government was considering the possibility of demolishing Hovrinskaya Hospital (with an estimated cost of – 0,8-1 billion rubles). In April 2016 the city authorities announced that in the late summer of 2016 they plan to begin dismantling the hospital due to the city budget. They planned to sell the land at auction to attract investors.

In the second half of 2015, plans were made to start filming a Blair Witch-style horror documentary called “Hovrino” about the abandoned hospital.

Hovrinskaya Hospital was demolished in October-November 2018.