How long am I to walk in the world
Now in a wheelchair, then on horseback,
Now in a wagon, now in a carriage,
Either in a cart or on foot?

Not in the ancestral den
Not among father's graves,
On the big me, know, road
The Lord judged to die

On the stones under the hoof,
On the mountain under the wheel
Or in a moat washed out by water,
Under the demolished bridge.

Or the plague will catch me,
Or the frost will ossify,
Or put a barrier in my forehead
Impaired invalid.

Or in the forest under the knife of the villain
I'll get to the side
I'll die of boredom
Somewhere in quarantine.

How long will I be in anguish hungry
Fasting involuntary to observe
And cold veal
Truffles Yar to commemorate?

Whether it's to be in place,
Drive along Myasnitskaya
About the village, about the bride
Think at your leisure!

Whether it's a glass of rum,
Sleep at night, tea in the morning;
Whether business, brothers, at home!..
Well, let's go, let's go!

A.S. Pushkin

"There is a house in Moscow, on the roof of which there is an encrypted sign that is most directly related to the fate of its owner. It was built by the architect V. E. Dubovskoy in 1907–1909 on Ostozhenka, 3. The house is angular, the right side goes to 1- th Obydensky Lane, therefore, it has a double number - 3/14.(It is strange, but under the number 3 on Ostozhenka there are two houses, completely different.

The prosperous merchant Ya. M. Filatov took a bitter drink. He lost clients, his friends turned away from him, they stopped believing his word of honor. He was treated. Did not help. It got to the point that thoughts of suicide began to visit him ... Let's not guess whether the case helped, whether willpower played its role, but the merchant “tied up”. And everything came back to him, even with a raise.

And the merchant gave himself a word to build a house, on the roof of which an overturned glass rises, neck down ... He decided to show "all Moscow", to repent to the whole world: I was a sinner, now I am corrected. In a word, "I am"! Muscovites went to stare at the new attraction, pointing to the glass tower: “Filatov has “tied up”. The merchant is a man of his word!

He told me this story in the early 1970s. one old taxi driver. Too bad I didn't get to know him. Apparently, he knew plenty of such stories. This is the first one, acquaintance with which was the beginning of my serious study of the history of Moscow. Where is the truth here, and where is fiction - it's not for me to judge. And the “glass” on Ostozhenka is still standing - overturned ...

Vladimir Bessonov. Moscow backyard. M., 2002. S. 407

The composition and principles of the arrangement of the decor bear the imprint of Art Nouveau: catchy decorative motifs of the building are unique and are no longer found in Moscow - they are saturated with stylized images of algae, shells, mollusks, fish heads, muzzles of some sea ​​monsters with open mouths, sometimes bordering on abstract sculptural forms.

P.S. While collecting material, I came across another story of the "origin" of the house)

".... There lived a rich merchant's wife Filatova and she kept profitable houses in Moscow. She had a son who drank godlessly ..... And she tried to treat him and went to church ..... Nothing helped. Son drank bitter .... And then one day they advised her to go to one priest. So he told her: "Build a house and rent out rooms and apartments in it to intelligent people: professors, doctors, etc. and take payment according to God ... .. do not take the guests in three skins. The son will be cured "Well, you can't do it for the sake of your own child .... said and done. The merchant's wife built a house on Ostozhenka, and began to rent apartments for the intelligentsia in it. And after a while her son stopped drinking ..... So the merchant's wife decided to attach an upside-down glass on the roof of the house ..... Here's a story. Believe it or not..."))

We continue to enjoy the beautiful monuments of the Art Nouveau era. This time our route begins in the vicinity of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Volkhonka and Znamenka and through the Old Arbat with its many lanes will lead us to Smolenskaya Square on the Garden Ring. We will see profitable houses, mansions and hotels, not only of the last century, but also modern ones, which will show us modernity in all its diversity and beauty, combined with a variety of architectural trends: neoclassical, neo-Greek, neo-Russian style and rococo. We are waiting for meetings with outlandish fairy tale and epic characters, inhabitants of the underwater kingdom, mermaids and mermen, with eagle owls, peacocks and firebirds, lions and griffins, with written beauties and beauties, from whom you can’t take your eyes off ... And, of course, all this will take place among the picturesque riot of greenery, plants and beautiful flowers, and in some places we will come across placers of ripe fruits.

1) Ostozhenka street, 3 - Profitable house of Y. M. Filatov, or "House under the glass"

". View from Prechistensky Gate Square.

This six-story tenement house was built in 1907-1909 according to the project of the architect V.E. Dubovsky with the participation of N.A. Arkhipov and belonged to the hereditary honorary citizen, merchant Yakov Mikhailovich Filatov, who owned warehouses of electrical and plumbing supplies.

Architect V.E. Dubovskoy, one of the Art Nouveau masters of the early 20th century, unlike his colleagues in the workshop, who most freely gave themselves to creative impulses mainly during the construction of mansions, designed and built exclusively profitable houses. And, despite the limitations present in this segment, imposed by the requirements of functionality and typology, he managed to bring freedom of form and artistic diversity. These features are also characteristic of the tenement house that appeared before us.

Fascinated by images European Middle Ages the author divided the building into several three-dimensional elements, having various forms and outlines of completion, which gave its silhouette a resemblance to a densely built-up medieval city. Particularly impressive in this sense is the courtyard facade, perfectly overlooked from the Volkhonka, which gives the impression of either closely adjoining various city buildings, or high walls and the towers of some fairy-tale castle. The perception of this bizarre firewall wall and the main facades facing Ostozhenka and 1st Obydensky Lane is very different.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Building corner.

If the courtyard façade stands out for its generalized plasticity of volumes and protrusions of the walls, then the main façades, first of all, attract attention with their unique stucco decoration and only secondarily repeat some figures of a fairy-tale castle, supporting the general idea of ​​the project. The decorative motifs of the main facades are very unusual and, perhaps, have no analogues in Moscow.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Decorative elements in window sill niches.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Decoration of second floor windows and bay window brackets.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Elements of stucco decoration.

On the walls of the house you can find stylized images of mollusks, shells, algae, fish heads, various sea monsters with open mouths, bizarre plants, water flows, waves, and even sea maidens hugging each other. The real kingdom of the sea! The composition and principles of arrangement of decorative elements are typical for Art Nouveau. Previously, a red-gray iridescent band of ceramic frieze, made of Abramtsevo tiles, stood out above the windows of the fifth floor. During the last renovation of the facades, it was painted over. In the entrances of the house, the original stained-glass window decoration has been preserved.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". The dome of the building is in the form of an inverted glass.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". The sculptural decoration of the building: a vase in a niche with a visor and a helmet-shaped cartouche under the dome-glass.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Stucco window panels.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Stucco panel with sea maidens above the entrance to the entrance.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". Stucco panel.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". View of the facade along the 1st Obydensky Lane. Attic above the bay window and decoration of the upper windows of the bay window.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass. View of the facade along the 1st Obydensky Lane. Stuccodecoration of the upper floors.

Profitable house Ya.M. Filatova, "House under a glass". An element of stucco decoration (left) and a stained-glass window and a preserved metal plate with the numbers of the entrance and apartments (right).

But the architect made the main emphasis on the corner part of the building, placing a bell-shaped tent above the turret towering there, resembling an inverted glass in shape. It was this detail that made the house recognizable at first sight, and it also determined the nickname of the profitable house - “The House under the Glass”. Moscow folklore associates a legend with this cup, hoisted on the roof, according to which it is a symbol of a vow from drunkenness of the owner of a profitable house - the merchant Ya.M. Filatov. Allegedly, the merchant was a big lover of "laid by the collar", and this pernicious hobby almost led him to ruin and a complete loss of respect in the business environment. But at the last moment, recollecting himself, he was able to overcome his passion for alcohol, restore his fortune and reputation, and as a sign of his successful struggle and final victory over the “green serpent”, he asked the architect to install an inverted glass on the roof of his house.

After a refurbishment a few years ago, the old glass was replaced with a new one, less elegant than its predecessor.

Interestingly, after the construction of the building, the public appreciated it ambiguously. The Moscow Weekly, for example, commented on the tenement house as follows: “Each new year brings Moscow several dozen new, monstrously ridiculous buildings that crash into city streets with some kind of special, only Moscow characteristic, prowess. Well, where else can you find something like a new house at the beginning of Ostozhenka...” Well, time puts everything in its place. Today, apartment houses and mansions in the Art Nouveau style seem monstrous and ridiculous to few people. They define the image of old Moscow no less than the monuments of classicism. And Muscovites enjoy admiring the unusual bas-reliefs and masks that adorn their facades.

After the revolution, communal apartments were arranged in the "House under the Glass". Today, the building has retained the status of a residential facility, the former communal apartments have long been bought out and converted into luxury housing.

2) Soimonovsky passage, 1 - Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, or "Fairy Tale House"

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". View of the building from the Patriarchal Bridge.

The apartment building, located on the corner of Prechistenskaya Embankment and Soymonovsky Proyezd, opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, is simply striking in its unusual architecture and richness of decor. It's impossible to walk past him without noticing. Muscovites have nicknamed it "Fairy Tale House" for its intricate and fantastic appearance. The building is a vivid example of neo-Russian Art Nouveau, more precisely, it is located at the junction of Art Nouveau and Neo-Russian style. It is embodied in ancient Russian motifs: balconies-towers, turrets and tongs, majolica panels with images of fabulous animals. This is a real home!

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". View of the building from the gallery of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The history of the appearance of this building in Moscow began with the fact that the well-known engineer and entrepreneur, railway builder Pyotr Nikolaevich Pertsov, who was a passionate admirer of art, decided to build not just a traditional apartment building for that time with residential apartments, but also with studios-workshops, which he intended to arrange in the upper, attic floor of the building and rent them out at a reasonable price (and sometimes free of charge) to artists. The place for the construction of such a house "turned up" to him by accident. According to the surviving memoirs of P.N. Pertsov, in November 1902 he visited the newly erected mansion of I.E. Tsvetkov on Prechistenskaya embankment (the so-called "House-casket"), built in the Russian style according to the drawings of V.M. Vasnetsov and designed to store and display a collection of paintings by its owner. Pertsov was delighted with the view of the Kremlin from the windows of the mansion, and expressed his surprise to Tsvetkov at how he managed to find such a wonderful place to build. Tsvetkov, seeing the interest of his friend, offered to tell him about the method of acquiring an even more attractive plot for the house, on the condition that he also build a building in the Russian style on it. Pyotr Nikolaevich agreed, and Tsvetkov told him about the property for sale nearby, also on the embankment, in the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and that in the planned sale and purchase transaction, the buyer and seller had a bargaining regarding the price, which in this moment Peppers, if desired, could easily interrupt. The entrepreneur was not slow to take advantage of such valuable information, and the very next day the bill of sale for the plot with the building located on it was drawn up in the name of Pertsov's wife, Zinaida Andreevna.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Facade from Prechistenskaya embankment.

Pertsov started working on the design of the future building in December 1905. Bearing in mind that it must certainly have been built in the Russian style, and also taking into account the “obligatory” construction site - on the banks of the Moskva River, next to the Cathedral of the Savior and with an open view of the Kremlin, the entrepreneur decided to approach the issue with all due care and thoroughness and announced a closed competition for projects of a Russian-style apartment building. He sent an offer to participate in the competition to the artists A. M. Vasnetsov and S. V. Malyutin and the architects A. I. Diderikhs and L. M. Brailovsky, and invited artists V. M. Vasnetsov, V. I. Surikov, V. D. Polenov and architects F. O. Shekhtel, I. A. Ivanov-Shits and S. U. Solovyov. Previously, together with the city architect N.K. Zhukov developed a plan for the future building, corresponding to the conditions of the site, and suggested that the contestants adhere to it when drawing up their projects. The first premium was set at 800 rubles, the second - 500, and the customer was left with the right to choose for the construction of any of the awarded projects. As a result of the competition, the first prize was given to the work of A.M. Vasnetsov, and the second - S.V. Malyutin. However, Pertsov did not like Vasnetsov's project because of the seeming stereotype, and Malyutin's version, which he completed in the Russian Empire style, did not fully meet the conditions of the assignment. So the event would have passed without much result for the organizer, if Malyutin had not kept a sketch of his original project, which he did not put up for the competition, because. he did not correspond to the site plan. Pyotr Nikolaevich saw this sketch and was so captivated by its colorfulness and unusualness that he asked Malyutin to rework it, adapting it to the given layout. So the work on the tenement house went to the artist S.V. Malyutin. And he managed to fully implement all the ideas of the customer, creating a real work of art, expressing the originality of Russian culture with its appearance, combining the spirit of the traditions of ancient Moscow and full compliance with modern trends and technologies. Although several major specialists were involved in the construction of the house: technical supervision was carried out by engineer B.N. Schnaubert, the architect N.K. was responsible for the constructive and planning part. Zhukov, nevertheless, the author of the magnificent building, of course, should be considered S.V. Malyutin.

The construction of the house was carried out in 1906-1907, it was erected in 11 months, which is quite fast, taking into account the thoroughness of the exterior and interiors. The building gained wide popularity, becoming a textbook example of a "fabulously picturesque" version of the neo-Russian style, and was included in the popular guide "Around Moscow" published by M. and S. Sabashnikov as one of the main attractions of the city.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Loggia with a dome.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Roof fragment: loggia dome, chimney, decorative grille.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Balcony decoration.

The house is distinguished by a great variety of forms, it consists of many volumes, various ledges, balconies, turrets and niches. At the same time, it looks like an organic whole. Despite the apparent complexity of the layout and design, in terms of the house is simple and rational. This is evidenced by at least the fact that during the construction a three-story old building located on this site was skillfully built into it. It can be identified by three rows of small windows on the main façade along Soymonovsky proezd. The richness of the three-dimensional composition is created by sharp bursts of corner gables of the roof, two hipped roofs, towering turrets and several intricate balconies. Relief details, various in form, asymmetrically located windows, colored inserts between them, their frames, niches, ledges, colorful majolica - all these elements, invented by the artist, overcome the monotony of the traditional three-dimensional structure of a four-story house that is simple in plan, and bring into it a unique variety and originality.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Balcony brackets in the form of fabulous dragons. Among Muscovites they are also known as "crocodiles in bibs".

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Decorative column with an owl-shaped ending.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Majolica panel with a fighting bull and bear.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Majolica panel with the sun god Yarila.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Fragment of facade decoration.

The decor of the house, made in a fabulously epic style, is truly amazing. His motives are variations on the themes of ancient Slavic folklore and northern mythology. Heavy balconies are supported by toothy dragons, the facade is decorated with cone-shaped majolica ledges, the doorway is decorated with squat and solid stone columns, a lattice with lions and seahorses shines on the ridge of the roof, and a cockerel spread its wings on the tent of the green tower. But the most expressive part of the decor, of course, are the colorful majolica panels. From the walls of the building, the pagan god of the Sun Yarilo looks at passers-by, the mythical bird Sirin overshadows the portal of the entrance to the building, and a whole forest of outlandish plants and magical flowers blooms under the roofs. You can also find various living creatures on the facades: fish, snakes, firebirds, a bull and a bear. Looking at the intricate images, one can only be surprised at the inexhaustible imagination of the author.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Bay window decoration

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Window frames.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Majolica windows.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Registration of entrances to the building.

Polychrome majolica covers the gables, the walls between the windows, the corners of the building and the railings of the balconies. It was made entirely according to the drawings of Malyutin in the workshop "Murava", formed by young artists of the Stroganov School, who at that time did not have a job and were on the verge of liquidating the company they had recently created due to a lack of orders. Malyutin advised Pertsov to entrust the order of outdoor majolica to Murave. And neither the customer nor the artist were disappointed with the result of its execution: the work was completed on time, with the highest quality and with accurate reproduction of the shades of the provided drawings.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Entrance portal in the tower part of the building.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Bronze bas-relief depicting the Sirin bird above the entrance to the building.

Profitable house Z.A. Pepper, "House-fairy tale". Roof decor: an openwork metal lattice with lions and a seahorse (top) and a cockerel at the end of the turret tent.

The building was distinguished not only by its original decor. During its construction, the most modern technologies construction, decoration and arrangement of premises. There were no wooden floors in the house, the installation of sewerage, electrical and water communications was hidden.

The interiors of the house were amazing too. The building was divided into two parts: a larger one, consisting of apartments for rent, and a smaller one, intended for the owners. The master's part was located in a building overlooking the embankment, occupied 3 floors and was serviced by a separate entrance. The interiors of the Pertsovs' apartment were completely decorated by Malyutin and Zhukov. The decoration was dominated by an orientation towards decoration in the style of a rich Russian hut. There were multi-colored tiled stoves, stained-glass windows, wood carvings. There was a smoking room in oriental style. Carvers, ordered from the Nizhny Novgorod province by Malyutin, according to his sketches, carved literally all the wooden surfaces in the house: the stairs connecting the floors of the master's apartment, entrance doors, portals, arches, hangers, wall panels, ceiling beams. Part of the premises and furniture were finished and made by the furniture maker Korshanov. All work was carried out under the direct supervision of Malyutin, who, when arranging the premises, showed not only a lot of taste, but also a fair amount of practicality.

Upon completion of construction, the house was almost immediately occupied by residents who appreciated the harmonious combination of the original architecture, visual arts and comfort. As Pertsov dreamed, artists settled in the studios of the upper floors: Robert Falk, Alexander Kuprin, Pavel Sokolov-Skalya and others. Malyutin also settled in the house. In addition, to store their paintings, some of which had quite big sizes and did not fit in the studio, he occupied one of the basements of the building.

The profitable house of the Pertsovs became the first home of the legendary theater-cabaret "The Bat". It was here that in 1908 the Moscow philanthropist and theatergoer Nikolai Tarasov and his friend Nikita Baliev came to look at the premises in the basement for the cabaret they had conceived. As they were descending the stairs to the basement, a large bat rushed towards them. It was she who gave her friends the idea to name the future artistic cabaret "The Bat". Soon, in the basement of the "fabulous" house, on a small stage, the Moscow Art Theater celebrities were already shining in comic improvisations, appearing before the visitors in the most unexpected roles. K.S. Stanislavsky demonstrated to the public "miracles of black and white magic" and danced with I.M. Moskvin Cancan, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko conducted an amateur orchestra, to which Alisa Koonen and V.I. Kachalov, and O.L. Knipper-Chekhova performed frivolous chansonnets.

There were many originals among the tenants of the apartment building. For example, director Boris Pronin lived here, famous throughout Moscow for his mischief and inventions. The atmosphere of crazy fun and creativity that he created around him invariably attracted a lot of people to him. And although Pronin himself, wandering from one Moscow theater to another, never staged anything, his indefatigable creative energy charged his friends and girlfriends, many of whom left a significant mark on Russian culture, for example, Alexei Tolstoy, Vera Kholodnaya, Alexandra Exter and Sergei Sudeikin.

Another madcap who lived in the Fairy Tale House was a certain Pozdnyakov. He rented an apartment of four huge rooms, he arranged in a very extravagant way. The largest room was turned into a bathroom by him. The floor and walls were covered with black cloth, in the center, on a specially constructed pedestal, there was a huge black marble bath weighing 70 pounds, lamps were burning around, and large wall mirrors reflected the person taking the bath from all sides. In another room, Pozdnyakov arranged a winter garden. Sand was strewn directly on the parquet, the floor was lined with tubs of palm trees and other green plants and garden furniture. In a spacious living room, covered with tiger skins, the owner of the apartment received visitors, wrapping himself in an ancient Greek toga and putting on sandals on his bare feet. At the same time, on thumb his feet shone with a magnificent diamond monogram. The host was served by a negro in a red livery, almost always accompanied by a black pug with a large scarlet bow around his neck.

In April 1908, a severe flood occurred in Moscow. Winter this year turned out to be snowy and cold, without thaws, and a warm and sunny spring came unexpectedly. Within a few days, all the snow melted, and the water in the Moscow River, without waiting for the end of the ice drift, began to rise rapidly. In a few hours Moscow turned into Venice. The overflow of the waters of the Moskva River, the Yauza and the Vodootvodny Canal covered almost a fifth of the city's area. From the Kremlin walls to Zamoskvorechye, one continuous lake stretched for a kilometer and a half, along which boats cruised, moving between flooded houses. Pertsova's house also fell into the flood zone. This cataclysm became a great tragedy in the life of the artist S.V. Malyutin. Many of his paintings perished in the flooded basement. Malyutin's wife Elena Konstantinovna, in the absence of her husband, tried to save the paintings, she took out from the basement what she could do. Frozen in the icy water, she caught a cold and fell ill. And at the end of the summer, Malyutin became a widower, left with four children. By this time, he and his family had moved to another apartment - it was too hard to continue to live in a house to which so much had been given and who wanted to take and took even more.

The life of the house of Pertsova, abandoned by its creator, flowed as usual after the flood. The flooded premises were repaired, some of the residents left, and new ones moved in. Some time after the flood, the Bat also flew away from its damp dwelling, settling in another basement - a house in Milyutinsky Lane. P.N. Pertsov attached the empty basement to his apartment. In it, he arranged a dance hall for his grown-up children, where they, together with friends, had fun parties, until a revolution broke out that radically changed everything.

After the events of 1917, contrary to the then established tradition, the Pertsovs were not immediately evicted from their home. Perhaps this was due to the fact that they managed to establish relations with a new influential tenant who appeared - Lev Davidovich Trotsky. He settled in Pozdnyakov's apartments, abandoned by his owner, the same ones with a luxurious marble bathroom and a winter garden. However, in 1922, Pyotr Nikolaevich Pertsov spoke out against the nationalization of church property launched by the Soviet authorities and tried to save valuables from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior from looting. Because of what he was put on trial and received 5 years in prison. Zinaida Alekseevna Pertsova, after her husband's conviction, turned to Trotsky with a request to help her husband's case and assist in his release. As a result of Trotsky's patronage, Pertsov was released in 1923, but his family was ordered to vacate the living space occupied in the former apartment building. Subsequently, their 4-storey apartment was occupied by Lev Davidovich. The memoirs of one of the British diplomats of that time tell of a magnificent reception arranged by Trotsky in his chambers for the diplomatic corps. The author admires his wonderful taste, not suspecting that the house that impressed him and the paintings, furniture, statues and vases in it were the legacy and merit of a completely different person.

But not for long the new inhabitants of the house and visitors were destined to enjoy the unique interiors of the Fairy Tale House. Who knows, maybe not all of them were delighted with them ... Data on who and when exactly gave the order to carry out repairs inside the building have not been preserved. But its deplorable results are known. Cardinal changes were made: all the carved decoration of the premises was destroyed, the walls were smoothly plastered, painted, the painted ceilings were covered with a thick layer of whitewash. They say that when the artist Malyutin found out about this, he cried for the first time in his life ...

All that has miraculously survived to our times is carved decorations for exterior doors and apartment doors, stair railings and decor. front staircase in the former apartments of the Pertsovs. Everything else has sunk into oblivion without a trace.

However, we can say that the house is still lucky. Indeed, according to the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow in 1935, all buildings between Prechistenskaya Embankment and Volkhonka from Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge to 2nd Obydensky Lane were to be demolished for the construction of the Palace of Soviets and two squares around it! Fortunately, this did not happen. Apparently, fate favored the writer of fairy tales more than the one who developed plans.

3) 2nd Obydensky Lane, 11 - Profitable house E.E. Constant

Profitable house E.E. Constant

The profitable house was built in 1903 by the architect Franz Andreevich Kognovitsky by order of Ekaterina Evgenievna Konstan, the founder of the famous private women's gymnasium, located here, next door, in the house number 9 on the 2nd Obydensky Lane (today it is the gymnasium No. 1529 named after A.S. . Griboedova).

The building of the apartment house is quite ordinary in its volumetric and spatial structure. The composition of the façade was designed with extreme brevity: along the central axis - a vertical narrow bay window, resting against a horizontal solid balcony, elongated along the entire length of the façade, at the level of the sixth floor - a horizontal axis with three balconies of various types located on it. In a constructive sense, the bay window is interesting: it is made of logs, like a log house, built into the masonry of a brick wall and smoothly plastered. The house has a rather eclectic and unbalanced façade decor, which, however, attracts attention with elements unusual for Moscow architecture in the style of decorative Art Nouveau. These original elements are the "sculptural" balconies of the fifth floor, made literally on the verge of kitsch. Even today, they are perceived very ambiguously, and among the aesthetes of the early 20th century, they certainly caused a nervous tic, because they seemed like a real slap in the face of public taste. It is difficult to say, thanks to whose idea they appeared on the facade. On the original plan, developed by F.A. Kognowitzky, these extravagant details were absent, and all balconies were designed in a more uniform style - with openwork wrought iron railings.

Profitable house E.E. Constant Balconies.

Profitable house E.E. Constant The original plan of the facade, arch. F. Kognovitsky.

Outwardly, it seems that the voluminous balconies are made of concrete or stone, but in reality they are made of forged zinc sheets. The "fluid" forms of balcony railings largely imitate the peculiar plasticity of the facade of the Parisian mansion of the singer Yvette Guilbert on the Boulevard Berthier, built in 1900 by the architect Xavier Schoelpkoff. This mansion became one of the sights of Paris during the days of the world exhibition and aroused general curiosity as a unique example of the new Art Nouveau style. It gave the impression of being molded from plasticine - the shape of all parts of its decor seemed so unified. In it, even the balconies seemed to be protruding parts of the plastic walls - their railings were so thick with small bizarre-shaped holes. Perhaps the sensational and widely known house of Yvette Guilbert so impressed F.A. Kognovitsky or the customer herself, E.E. Konstan that they decided to include decorative elements similar to it in the decoration of the apartment house under construction, contrary to the original project. Be that as it may, today dark gray balconies adorn the facade of the house and are its main decorative accent. They seem to flow down the wall, threatening to "flood" the lower floor.

Mansion of Yvette Guilbert in Paris. It has not survived to this day.

The remaining details of the building's decor, although also made in the Art Nouveau style, look much more modest. The openwork forging of the balcony railings is uniform and looks quite elegant. The gate in the arch leading to the courtyard of the building is slightly more elaborate in a modernist way. Under the windows of the fifth floor one can see a stucco frieze, the fourth - relief panels. Above the entrance to the building there is an oval-shaped window - the so-called. "bull's eye", and on both sides of it, a balcony and a bay window support sculptural consoles-brackets, decorated with cartouches and hanging garlands.

Profitable house E.E. Constant Making the entrance to the building.

Profitable house E.E. Constant Arched gate.

Profitable house E.E. Constant. Relief panel.

Profitable house E.E. Constant Balcony-gallery of the sixth floor.

You can argue about artistic integrity of the external appearance of this house, however, individual parts of its decoration, of course, deserve the closest attention.

4) 2nd Obydensky Lane, 13 - Profitable house G.E. Broido

Profitable house G.E. Broido.

The house, which attracts attention with its elegant decor, was built as a profitable building for 18 apartments in 1904-1910 by architect Nikolai Ivanovich Zherikhov, commissioned by German Efimovich Broido. We have already talked about the fruitful union of the architect and the homeowner in the first part of Moscow Modern. So, the building in front of us is one of the projects they have implemented. True, in some sources, the architect Nikolai Grigoryevich Faleev acts as the author of the house. It is difficult to say why there is such a discrepancy. Perhaps the architects worked together on the design of the building.

Profitable house G.E. Broido. Side risalit of the building.

The building is separated from the red line of the alley, a small front garden separates it from the roadway. The central part of the façade is flanked by two side risalits protruding forward, which, together with the side ends of neighboring houses, form a kind of shallow kudoner (front yard). All this creates a resemblance to the space-planning compositions characteristic of the era of classicism. This impression of commonality with classicism is reinforced by Ionic pilasters, snow-white stucco friezes of antique motifs, window frames and many other decorative details. However, the outline of the central windows of the risalits, towering on the roof of the attica with flowerpots, huge bas-reliefs depicting half-naked female figures in flowing clothes, original semicircular balconies, and a wrought-iron fence allow us to assert that an experiment on the Art Nouveau theme could not have happened here. The result is an interesting compilation of classic, neo-Greek and modern elements.

Profitable house G.E. Broido. Fragment of the central part of the facade.

Profitable house G.E. Broido. Antique frieze.

The relief panels above the windows of the second floor depict winged lions holding torches in their paws. A frieze with antique scenes stretching along the entire length of the facade visually separates the space of the second and third floors from the upper one. This dismemberment is also emphasized by the different texture of the walls: the second and third floors are lined with glazed tiles - “boar”, and the upper one is simply plastered. Women's mascarons instead of keystones in the sandriks of the windows on the first floor are borrowed from Art Nouveau paraphernalia.

Profitable house G.E. Broido. Bas-relief with female figures.

Profitable house G.E. Broido. Stucco decor.

Profitable house G.E. Broido. Window decoration on the second floor.

But the most impressive elements of the stucco decoration, of course, are the large bas-reliefs framing the arches of the main windows. On them are half-naked women and flowing clothes, as if flying towards each other. They reach out towards each other and drop from their upraised hands laurel wreaths. One of the women holds a torch in her hand, the other a winged staff wrapped around a snake. Who are they? Maybe the Athenian wingless goddesses Nike are symbols of triumph and victory?

In 1907-1913, in the apartment building of G.E. Broido in 2nd Obydensky Lane lived Marya Semyonovna and Arkady Mikhailovich Kerzin, the founders of the "Circle of Russian Music Lovers", which promoted the works of Russian composers.

The amateur circle soon became a significant phenomenon in the Moscow musical life and grew into a serious concert organization, which during the years of its existence (from 1896 to 1912) organized more than a hundred concerts of chamber and symphonic music. Concerts were held in the "Slavianski Bazaar", and since 1902 - in Great Hall Noble assembly. The circle focused its attention and widely promoted the works of domestic authors. For the first time in Moscow, it was within the framework of the activities of the Kerzin circle that significant works by A.P. Borodina, M.P. Mussorgsky, the premieres of S.V. Rachmaninov, S.I. Taneeva, A.K. Lyadova, N.K. Medtner, R.M. Glier and others. The concerts, usually free of charge, were a great success. The society contributed greatly to the development of Russian chamber vocal music and the formation of its performing style.

Perhaps, in the Kerzins' own apartment in the house on 2nd Obydensky Lane, works by Mussorgsky, Rachmaninov and Cui sounded ... Let's listen! Do they still sound today?

Former tenement house of G.E. Broido is also known for the fact that in 2010-2012 the filming of the series "House of Exemplary Content" was carried out in it. Its residents patiently and understandingly put up with sealed windows, smoke from pyrotechnics, noise from filming equipment and endless fuss all this time. But today we can see the exteriors and interiors of the building in many episodes of the series.

5) Volkhonka street, house 7 - Profitable house K.G. Lobacheva

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev.

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. Figured attic above the cornice and the domed completion of the bay window.

The first thing you pay attention to when looking at this building is a corner two-story bay window with a figured pointed end. It really looks like a tower. Its dome is crowned with a weather vane with a dove. With this pronounced accent, the architect emphasized the location of the building at the intersection of two streets. The composition of the facades of the building is typical of the end of the 19th century and does not carry any special innovative features. The shape of the cornice and the unusual decor of the house testify to belonging to Art Nouveau.

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. The decoration of the central part of the facade along Volkhonka (left) and the dome with a weather vane above the bay window (right).

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. Decor details: molded window frame (left) and cartouche (right).

The stucco work presented on the facade was made in the workshop of P.A. Gladysheva. Its plot is compilative: floral ornamentation is combined with images of various animals and sculptural female and male heads. But in the motif of the decor, there is some general demonism. On relief panels and friezes, one can distinguish the inflorescences and leaves of thistles - a symbol of unlimited magical power. Mascarons, which are usually neutral in architecture, are distinguished by very unkind facial expressions, and some even squint, as if plotting something bad. But especially striking are the stucco images of a snake with its gaping mouth and some kind of dragon, or some unknown prehistoric lizard, bent in a predatory grin. You will probably not find such people anywhere else in Moscow. So one can only marvel at the remarkable imagination of the author who invented them.

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. Stucco window frame.

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. Overhead relief panel with a prehistoric lizard.

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. Bay window decoration.

Profitable house K.G. Lobachev. The floral decoration of the building: thistle frieze (above) and medallions with vines (below).

In 1972, for the arrival in Moscow of US President Richard Nixon, they decided to widen the crooked, narrow Volkhonka. Two-story houses from the first to the fifth on the odd side were demolished, using the vacated space for the pavement, sidewalk and a small slope with a lawn. The former apartment building Lobachev, fortunately, avoided demolition. Not otherwise, the facade demons saved their abode from a fatal fate. But in the corner part of the house, on the first floor, where the bakery used to be, they made a through passage for pedestrians. Otherwise, the layout of the building has remained unchanged, although it has gone through several renovations.

By the way, once in the house there was a Soviet dumpling. In it, for 1 ruble and 2 kopecks, you could buy a double portion of dumplings with sour cream, a glass of coffee from a tank and two unleavened buns from fat saleswomen. There were many visitors, including bathers from the Moskva pool, who, having worked up an appetite for swimming, came here for a bite to eat on the way home. Today, the building also houses dumplings, but the assortment, surroundings and atmosphere, of course, are not the same anymore. In this regard, the indigenous inhabitants of Volkhonka are sad and indulge in nostalgia for the old days.

6) Znamenka street, house 8/13 - Profitable house of A. I. Shamshin

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin.

In the 18th century, on the site of modern houses No. 13 and 15 on Starovagankovsky Lane, there was the estate of General-in-Chief Vasily Yakovlevich Levashov, a member of many military companies, the founder of the city of Kizlyar and the Moscow commander in chief. From 1751 to 1828, the extensive property belonged to his children, and after that it was probably sold in parts. The plot of the estate, on which the garden was located, at the beginning of the 20th century became the property of the manufacturer Alexander Ivanovich Shamshin, co-owner of the gold-weaving and galloon manufactories, and his wife, Lyubov Vasilievna.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Entrance to the building.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Decorative design of the entrance to the building.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Stained glass panel of the visor above the entrance to the building.

The Shamshins, who invested a lot of money in construction and were the owners of several households in Moscow, decided to build an apartment building on the acquired estate. To implement this idea, they invited the architect Nikolai Nikolaevich Blagoveshchensky. By their order, he developed a project for a six-story building with facades overlooking Znamenka and Starovagankovsky lane. But the decor of the building seemed to the customers not interesting enough, and they attracted Fyodor Osipovich Shekhtel to rework the exterior and interior plans of the house. Thus, the tenement house erected in 1909 had two authors - N.N. Blagoveshchensky and F.O. Shekhtel. The first belongs to the work on the general plan of the building, the second - the architectural processing of the facade and interior design.

F.O. Shekhtel redesigned the facade of the building in the Art Nouveau style, already close in essence to rationalism. The exterior design of the house is quite restrained, even sparingly. Decorativeness here is mainly created by the rhythm of structural elements and the selection of wall cladding materials.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Rotunda.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Relief frieze under the eaves.

The façade composition is mainly built on the rhythm of semicircular bay windows four stories high. Particularly noteworthy is the tower-like bay window at the corner of the building. It is crowned by a small rotunda with an egg-shaped pointed dome. With the help of these details, the architect focused on the corner part of the building overlooking the intersection of Znamenka and Starovagankovsky, and at the same time successfully played an analogy with a cylindrical belvedere on the roof of P.E. Pashkov. With its base, the corner bay window rests on a semi-column protruding from the wall. This nuance introduces some instability into the appearance of the building, somewhat softening the impression of monumentality and austerity produced by the building.

The difference in the decoration of the walls of the upper and lower floors of the house creates a large horizontal articulation of the facade plane. The two lower floors are finished with cement plaster, the color and texture similar to natural stone cladding, the top four floors are covered with ceramic "boar". Previously, the rhythm of the horizontals, and the general appearance of the house, were more diverse due to the ribbon balcony that encircled the entire upper floor, and smaller balconies - one- and two-section - located on the fourth and fifth floors. The railings of the balconies were made of metal and had a simple pattern made up of horizontal rods bent in small ripples. Unfortunately, the balconies have been dismantled. To whom and why they interfered is not very clear. Only in some apartments, after dismantling, the balcony openings were preserved and decorated with lattices of French balconies (they can be seen from the side of the alley), the rest were bricked up and turned into ordinary windows.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Photo from 1909-1911. On the building you can still see balconies and a metal grill over the cornice.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Decoration of the bases of the bay windows.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. Doorhandle.

Profitable house A.I. Shamshin. The gate of the arch leading to the courtyard (on the left) and a fragment of a metal lattice on the first floor window.

An echo of the earlier trends of Art Nouveau are the surviving relief stucco compositions that adorn the walls of the house. The first thing you notice is the frieze encircling the entire front facade, located under the cornice. It depicts gracefully curved fan-like leaves of some plants. If you turn into an alley, you can find an even more spectacular sculptural detail - framing the main entrance to the building. Here, whole fruit garlands hang over the door. And the keystone above the arched window seems to depict a basket overflowing with fruits. The canopy suspended on chains with stained-glass inserts and hanging lanterns, as well as an unusual door handle with tips in the form of eagle heads, are very beautiful. The bases of bay windows and the capital of the column supporting the corner tower are decorated with smaller stucco elements. On the tower, between the fourth and fifth floors, there is a panel with a cartouche.

Today, a glazed superstructure can be seen on the roof of the building. She appeared there in the 2000s by the unauthorized decision of one of the apartment owners. This, unfortunately, happens, even despite the approved historical and cultural value and the conservation status of objects. cultural heritage.

7) Gogolevsky boulevard, building 31 - Russo-Balt Hotel

Hotel "Russo-Balt".

The five-story beautiful house attracts attention from a distance with a floral mosaic on the facade and a luxurious decoration of the lower floor with a tree. It makes you want to get closer and consider every detail of it. The most surprising thing is that the house is a remake. This is the Russo-Balt hotel built in 2007. You rarely see a modern building in Moscow, so carefully designed, stylistically verified and executed at an unconditionally high level. The style of the hotel building is an elegant variation on the Art Nouveau theme.

The house was erected as a result of a total reconstruction of an apartment house built in 1879 (the author of the pre-revolutionary house is the architect P.P. Zykov). Initially, the three-story building was built on with two more floors, the facade and the interior of the building have undergone major changes. The exterior and interiors were given the features of Art Nouveau style. And although, strictly speaking, this is only a game of modernity, it is very, very reliable.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Fragment of the facade.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Decoration of the pediment and upper floors.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Entrance to the building.

The decoration of the building is very elegant and harmonious. The walls of the second and third floors are finished with pale-yellow ceramic tiles imitating the famous "boar". We say “imitating”, because manufacturers of modern tile materials are only trying to repeat the recipe and manufacturing processes of the pre-revolutionary wild boar, the performance of which is unique, and the service life is measured in centuries.

The smoothly plastered fifth floor is adorned with a motley majolica frieze of tiles ranging from light mint to dusky blue. Narrow panels made of the same ceramics can also be seen under the windows of the second floor. Between the windows of the second and third floors there are excellent mosaic panels depicting flowers in golden thin frames. A very elegant piece of decor. The semicircular pediment is decorated with a snow-white panel with floral ornaments. The relief panels above the windows of the third floor also have a floral pattern.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Sculpture panel.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Mosaic panels.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Mosaic on the first floor.

Hotel "Russo-Balt". Finishing the first floor with carved wood panels and mosaics.

Some windows are decorated with wrought-iron French balconies. On the roof parapet, you can also see wrought iron bars. The lanterns placed on the facade and on the glazed canopies above the entrances to the building are magnificent: those in the upper part of the building have white plafond balls, those at the entrances have orange ones. The brackets of the lanterns are also forged, made in the same style as the French balconies and lattices.

The decoration of the first floor with carved wooden panels and mosaic panels is interesting. A dark and rich shade of wood gives the building respectability and chic. In the carving, as in the whole decor, floral motifs can be traced. Drawing of large mosaic panels harder than drawing small, but echoes with it: here, too, blooming flowers with intricate bends of leaves, the same golden canvas along the contour. Placed on top of wooden panels, the panels look like paintings in expensive frames. On the golden rod, which stretches almost the entire length of the facade, there is an inscription "Gogolevsky Boulevard, 31". This is both the address of the house and the name of the cafe that occupies the first floor of the building.

By the way, the interiors of the hotel and cafe deserve no less attention than the exterior decoration of the house. So those who wish to continue their journey to beautiful world Art Nouveau, so excellently recreated by the authors of this building, may well do it once inside.

8) Gogolevsky boulevard, house 29 - Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Compound

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion.

The house was built in 1892 as a profitable building by one of the most popular Moscow architects of that time, A.S. Kaminsky for the Jerusalem Patriarchal Compound. The building was designed in the then fashionable eclectic style.

Compounds of Orthodox monasteries are their remote representative offices located in other cities and even countries. The largest monasteries from the time Ancient Russia built farmsteads in Moscow, which performed representative, residential and commercial functions. For your material support farmsteads acquired various commercial facilities in the capital or bought out land plots and independently erected buildings on them, which made it possible to receive income in the future: when selling property, renting it out and placing trading shops and shops in the built premises. Income from such third-party "business projects" usually exceeded the amount of donations and profits from the sale of church goods. An example of such a “business project” is the profitable house that we see in front of us. It was erected by the Jerusalem Compound not far from its own "headquarters" - the Church of the Resurrection of the Word on the Arbat (located in Filippovsky Lane).

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion. Photograph 1900-1904. The original eclectic look of the building.

In 1905, the originally four-story house (the number of storeys is given without taking into account the basement floor) was built on with one more floor and partially rebuilt by the architect Georgy Pavlovich Evlanov. During the rebuilding process, the facades of the building were redesigned in the Art Nouveau style. The building was well drawn as a whole, and its details testify to the author's talent as a decorator.

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion. Entrance to the building and bay windows.

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion. Stucco decoration of the bay window.

After the restructuring, the bay windows of the house acquired the wavy characteristic of this modern style. The wall cladding is made of ceramic tiles, and Abramtsevo "watercolor" ceramics are also used in the decoration, creating picturesque transitions of delicate mother-of-pearl blue hues. Other decorative elements also speak of belonging to Art Nouveau: the graceful curves of the metal lattices of the balconies, the expressiveness of the forging of the arched gates, the shape and framing of the central doorway, the sculptural brackets supporting the bay windows, and the stucco molding with floral motifs in the Secession style. The lancet of the windows on the fifth floor, which is not quite characteristic of Art Nouveau, repeating the shapes of the window openings on the fourth, is due to the architect's desire to harmoniously combine the superstructure and its base.

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion. Fragment of the facade: balconies and lancet windows.

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion. Rooftop balcony.

Profitable house of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Metochion. Elements of sculptural decoration.

In 1930, the building was rebuilt on one more floor, and, unfortunately, the upper silhouette of the building was lost.

In 2004, as part of the construction of the residential complex "Russian Modern", a major reconstruction of the building of the former apartment building of the Jerusalem Patriarchal Compound was carried out. Only the façade wall remained of the original building. The entire interior of the building was rebuilt, another floor and an attic were also added, the foundation was strengthened, the basement floor was converted into a parking lot, all load-bearing structures were replaced, and modern engineering systems and communications were installed. The facade of the house, after reconstruction, has retained the famous ceramic tile-boar, Abramtsevo colored ceramics and all decorative elements. The basement of the building was finished with natural granite. On the basis of pre-revolutionary sketches and available photographs, the drawings of the bindings of windows, doors and balcony railings were recreated.

9) Bolshoy Afanasyevsky Lane, 32/9 - D Ohodny house O.O. Vilner (N. Kalinovsky)

Profitable house O.O. Vilner.

The building of this profitable house was erected in 1905-1906 according to the project of the architect Nikolai Ivanovich Zherikhov, very popular in those days, by order of the landlord Osip Osipovich Vilner.

N.I. Zherikhov - recognized master era of modernity. His authorship belongs to 46 tenement houses in the most prestigious districts of Moscow. We already had to deal with some of them both in this walk and in the previous one. Coming from a poor peasant family, he did not receive a full-fledged architectural education, but this did not prevent him from becoming one of the most sought-after architects of the capital in the period from 1902 to 1915. Most of the buildings he built still play a prominent role in the panoramas of Moscow streets. Among them, several houses built for homeowners by O.O. stand out. Vilner, G.E. Broido and P.P. Zaichenko, distinguished by original ceramic and sculptural decor. Zherikhov’s path from a simple “scientific draftsman” (most likely, Zherikhov graduated from the Stroganov School and received just such a qualification) to a successful and fashionable architect has practically not been studied. There are suggestions that his career is connected with one of his main customers - O.O. Vilner, who was a civil engineer and, most likely, independently erected his houses for their subsequent resale or rental, i.e. in fact, he acted as both a developer and a homeowner. Probably, Zherikhov was a full-time architect at Vilner's office. Be that as it may, one of the fruits of the collaboration of the architect N.I. Zherikhov and customer O.O. Vilner is in front of us.

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. Bay windows.

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. Sculptural cornice brackets with female mascarons.

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. Stucco decoration of the pediment.

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. Relief frieze with mermaids.

This apartment building is a reflection of Zherikhov's corporate style, who preferred an abundance of stucco and sculptural forms in the decor. The structure of the building is rational and simple, but the exterior design, made in the style of decorative Art Nouveau, is very diverse. The location of the building at the intersection of two lanes is punctuated by three wide bay windows three stories high, which the architect placed at the corner of the house. The cornice, made with a large extension above the walls, informs the building of monumentality, and its shape, following the contours of rectangular bay windows, visually makes the silhouette of the house ledge and graphic. Above the bay windows - a complex attica, above the facade, stretching along Maly Afanasevsky Lane - a circular pediment. The windows of the house are different in shape and size, they have dark brown frames.

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. Elements of stucco decoration: a panel with blooming poppies (above) and a high relief of poppy leaves, boxes and scrolls (below).

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. Mascaron depicting a dormant goblin.

The façades are decorated with ceramic tile-boar: matte gray-beige and glazed dark green-blue. Some of the walls are plastered and rusticated. The corners of the bay windows are decorated with rectangular semi-columns, harmonizing in shape and style with the cornice. The cornice is supported by two types of brackets: solid sculptural ones, with female mascarons, and more elegant wrought iron ones. But the main decoration of the building, of course, is the stucco molding. Especially original is the frieze depicting naked mermaids with flowing hair, depicted against the background of sea shells and unknown plants. In the design of the pediment above the facade along Maly Afanasevsky Lane, male mascarons were used, probably depicting goblin - forest spirits. Everything is right according to Pushkin: “there are miracles: a goblin wanders there, a mermaid sits on the branches ...” The rest of the stucco elements have a floral pattern. On large panels between the windows of the second and third floors there is a scattering of flowering poppies, on a smaller panel there are cartouches framed with leaves. The high-reliefs on the walls of the bay windows are a combination of poppy leaves, flowers, their fruit-boxes and bizarre curls.

In 1996-1997, the building of the former tenement house of O.O. Vilner - N. Kalinovsky was reconstructed. The work was carried out under the guidance of the now well-known architect Alexander Rafailovich Asadov. The facade of the building was preserved in its original form, it was only slightly updated. Ceilings were replaced inside the building, fireplaces were restored, parking was arranged in the basement, everything is equipped for comfortable living in accordance with the trends of the time. The house was built on several floors. Its roof now has a futuristically complex multi-level structure. You can't tell right away how many floors there are. It seems that there are 4 of them, i.e. 8 in total with the pre-existing ones. By the way, it was precisely this kind of deconstructivist superstructures and extensions that A.R. Asadov.

Profitable house O.O. Vilner. House renovation plan. Architectural Bureau A.R. Asadov.

Despite the extravagance, the add-on, fortunately, is executed quite correctly (as far as it is generally possible in this kind of project). Its main part is not visible from most vantage points in the lanes and therefore does not come into open conflict with historic building. The visible part is well combined with the appearance of the Zherikhovsky building and echoes with individual decorative elements, complementing it somewhere, emphasizing somewhere, borrowing somewhere. (In a similar manner, Asadov reconstructed and built on house No. 8 in Khlebny Lane). For example, two cornices coexist very organically: the graphic Zherikhov and the smoothly flowing, as if outlining its contours, Asadov. Attics are adapted as sculptural balcony railings. Balcony forged railings of the fifth floor do not contradict the railings of the lower balconies and brackets, and "in absentia", from some angles, perform the function of parapet gratings. The windows of the superstructure, although panoramic, are also different in shape and glazed similarly to the windows of the lower floors. In a word, everything is not as bad as it could be in the era of aggressive urban planning by Yu.M. Luzhkov.

Today, the reconstructed former tenement house of O.O. Vilner - N. Kalinovsky is considered one of the best luxury residential complexes in the Arbat area.

10) Arbat street, house 23, building 1 - Hotel A.K. Echkina

Hotel A.K. Echkin.

Until 1901, on the site of the current house, there was another building - a small mansion. In the 1830s it was owned by statesman, historian and archeographer Dmitry Nikolaevich Bantysh-Kamensky, author of the fundamental Dictionary of Memorable People of the Russian Land and other historical and other works. By the way, Bantysh-Kamensky advised A.S. Pushkin. And repeatedly invited the poet to visit. He, however, did not take advantage of any invitation - either it did not work out, or there were personal motives.

In the 1840s, Aleksey Khomyakov, a philosopher and one of the founders of Slavophilism, lived in the house with his family. Khomyakov talked a lot with Gogol, and Nikolai Vasilyevich, unlike Pushkin, often visited the mansion on the Arbat, where during his visits he discussed topical problems of society with the owner of the house.

From 1879 to 1901, the well-known lawyer Vladimir Mikhailovich Przhevalsky owned the mansion. He was one of the most powerful and eminent Russian lawyers of that time, had an extensive clientele, a rare major case did without his participation. Among those defended by him at the trial were the famous Jacks of Hearts, Abbess Mitrofania and many other venerable defendants. Vladimir Mikhailovich was visited by his no less famous brothers: Evgeny Mikhailovich, a mathematician, author of the Five-Digit Tables of Logarithms and other mathematical manuals, which were repeatedly reprinted later, and Nikolai Mikhailovich, a brave traveler, naturalist, explorer of Central Asia.

In 1901, the property on Arbat, 23 was bought by entrepreneur A.K. Echkin, owner of the Echkins commercial and industrial partnership for the manufacture, sale and hiring of various carriages, carts and wagons. The company was well-known, prosperous, the lines and crews of the Echkins cruised all over Moscow and the "dacha" suburbs. In addition to managing the office, A.K. Echkin also labored in the real estate market - he acted as a homeowner of several buildings. He bought a mansion on the Arbat for demolition, and planned to build a multi-storey hotel in its place. This is how the building that we see today was born.

Four-storey hotel A.K. Echkina was built in 1902 by architect Nikita Gerasimovich Lazarev. The customer, who wanted to surpass the neighboring houses in wealth, did not skimp on financing and wished to build a building in the Art Nouveau style, which was then fashionable, with an abundance of spectacular stucco and other decorative elements.

N.G. Lazarev was, like many architects of that era, both an architect and an artist. Therefore, he began to fulfill the wishes of the customer with enthusiasm. During the construction of the hotel, his extraordinary talent as a decorator manifested itself in full force. His author's seal is invisibly present not only in the appearance of the building as a whole, but also in each of its individual details. Lazarev independently worked out each element: he drew sketches of stairs, railings, balconies, lamps, doors, handles, and even stained-glass windows and doors. In the design of the building, he turned to the techniques and motifs of various trends of Art Nouveau: French, Belgian Art Nouveau and the Vienna Secession. And despite some compilation, the appearance of the building turned out to be surprisingly harmonious.

The building is located on a plot of non-rectangular shape, so its end walls are sloping in order to extend the facade along the entire length of the front of the site. The facade is symmetrical, its plasticity is defined by pilasters, which visually highlight the center of the building and its lateral parts, interpreted as risalits, as well as uniform “stitches” of paired window openings and balconies.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Upper and attic floors. Round windows of studios. Dome on the roof.

Designing a four-story building, Lazarev built three attic rooms without amenities into its attic, suggesting them as studios for artists. In the attics, the architect provided for large, round windows that let in a lot of light, overlooking the street, as well as a separate window that gives overhead light, which is so important in the work of sculptors and artists. The idea to add attic studios to the project did not arise by chance. The fact is that next to the future hotel there were classes of the popular Moscow private art school, which was headed by Konstantin Yuon, so the idea with the studios was quite rational.

The presence of attics in the house and the need to create additional lighting in them led to the appearance of a large metal dome on the roof of the building. Too bad it's hard to see from the street. It is faceted, quadrangular at the base, tapering upwards with a graceful curve and decorated with a forged lattice. It seems to crown the central part of the house, highlighted by pilasters, and thus further separates it from the rest of the building.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Window decoration on the second, third and fourth floors.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Window decor on the third floor.

The walls are clad with matte fawn-coloured ceramic boar tiles and swamp green majolica. Window openings of the second-fourth floors are framed with platbands. Each floor has its own form of framing. The windows of the second and third floors of the risalits are compositionally united by a single casing. And the openings of the fourth floors, leading to small balconies, are decorated as aedicules. The window of the fourth floor in the center of the facade is similarly decorated. The main staircase of the apartment building, according to the tradition of Moscow Art Nouveau, is moved to the front of the building and is located in the center of the facade. It is framed by a large, two-storey, arched window and another, smaller one, separated from it by a beautiful plastic casing.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. The central part of the façade: a balcony above the entrance to the building, a plastic casing for the light window of the main entrance, decorative consoles "flowing" down.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Balcony of the third floor of the side risalit.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Decor of the upper floors of the side risalits.

In terms of aesthetics the greatest interest cause, of course, stucco and metal decorative elements. The capitals of the pilasters are originally made - they are rocaille cartouches. Above them are small, finely drawn panels depicting naked women. Some squatted down, others on their knees. Even higher - thin stucco branches of a flowering tree. The tympanums of the platbands of the windows of the third floor and window panes on the same floor have a floral ornament. All these are the motives of modernity. Multifaceted, rich and varied. The consoles “flowing down” along the wall, on which the pilasters of the central and risalite parts of the house rest, are also very modern.

Incredibly beautiful and intricate pattern of forged balconies. The curves of his lines are simply mesmerizing. No less interesting is the elegant pattern of the second floor window frames.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Relief panels depicting naked women.

Hotel A.K. Echkin. Elements of stucco decoration: a cartouche on a pilaster, a tympanum of the window casing (above) and a relief window sill panel (below).

In 2008, the building of the hotel A.K. Echkin was reconstructed, scientific restoration and restoration of stucco and painting according to historical drawings was carried out. Fortunately, unlike many of the rebuilt buildings of the early 20th century, the former hotel has retained its original appearance. Today the house has 8 apartments and several non-residential premises.

History of the A.K. Echkina, like the story of her predecessor - the demolished mansion - is associated with the names of many famous personalities. At the beginning of the 20th century, in the attic of the house there was a workshop of the outstanding artist and sculptor Sergei Timofeevich Konenkov - the “Russian Rodin”. During the uprising of 1905, he took an active part in its events: together with the revolutionaries, he built barricades on the Arbat, in his workshop he sheltered the rebels at night and, moreover, allowed them to keep weapons and grenades. In those restless days, he met the revolutionary Tanya Konyaeva, who later became his wife.

In 1910, Echkin sold the hotel, and Stepan Borisovich Veselovsky, a historian and archeographer, became its new owner. He registered his purchase with his wife Elena Vasilievna, daughter and heiress of the French scientist and entrepreneur Sifferlen, who was a shareholder of the Günther Printing Factory Society. The Veselovskys lived on the fourth floor of the hotel they had acquired, in a spacious apartment.

From 1920 to 1934 he lived and worked in the attic of the former Echkin hotel. famous painter Pavel Dmitrievich Korin. It was here that he began to paint his grandiose canvas "Departing Russia". The workshop was shared with him by his brother, painter and restorer Alexander Dmitrievich, and uncle, artist and graphic artist Alexei Mikhailovich Korin. Maxim Gorky, who provided patronage to the Korins, often visited the abode of the family artistic clan.

11) Arbat street, house 27 - Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva

Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva.

This tenement house appeared on the Arbat in 1912. It belonged to Sergei Egorovich Tryndin and his daughter Anastasia Sergeevna Shchepoteva, co-owners of the E.S. Tryndina Sonov, engaged in the production of physical, optical, geodetic instruments and medical devices. The building was erected according to the project of the architect S.F. Kulagin in a style that combines modern and neoclassical techniques.

Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva. The upper floors of the house and the turret.

Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva. Corner tower.

The building has only a few individual elements in common with the Art Nouveau style. This is a light turret rising above the house and accentuating its angular location, arched window and doorways and curves of the cornice protruding above the sixth floor. The shape of the attics previously testified to the participation in modernity, but today they are lost: in the mid-2000s, during the reconstruction, the house was built on with one more floor, which significantly distorted the proportions of the building.

Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva. Photo taken in 1912. Visible are the attics above the cornice and the original form of the domed completion of the turret.

In the decoration of the facades of the house, the architect applied neoclassical decorative details. The building was built at a time when Art Nouveau had almost disappeared from the city's construction practice, perhaps this was the reason for the scarcity of Art Nouveau features in its appearance. Undoubtedly, the most striking details of the decor of the building are the corner tower crowned with a dome in the form of an inverted bowl with a cylindrical top stylized as a lantern, and a relief composition on the facade depicting lion-headed griffins.

Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva. Relief with lion-headed griffins.

Profitable house S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva. Relief composition above the window of the second floor.

According to the project, there were only 2 apartments on each floor of the apartment building. Judging by the currently available offers for the sale or rental of apartments in this house, these are premises with an area of ​​​​300 or more square meters, and the number of rooms is 7-9. The first floor was reserved for trading functions.

The history of S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva is associated with the names of many famous personalities. different eras. For example, the surgeon-urologist Pyotr Dmitrievich Solovov lived here, who founded nearby, on Bolshaya Molchanovka (today this building has the address Novy Arbat, 7) his own hospital, for which he specially purchased a plot of land and built a four-story building. In Soviet times, the hospital was named after G.L. Grauerman, and the building housed the famous maternity hospital, the birth of which was considered a sure sign of a native Moscow origin.

One of the apartments in the house was owned by the singer and actress Lika Mizinova together with her husband Alexander Sanin. Mizinova was a friend of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who fell in love with him unrequitedly. Despite unrequited feelings and fruitless attempts to seduce Chekhov, who did not want to enter into any kind of love relationship, she became a kind of muse for him. Her playing and singing left a mark on the writer's work. Her girlish dreams of the stage are reflected in the immortal "The Seagull", for whose heroine - Nina Zarechnaya - she became the prototype. And he captured her singing in "My Life" and "The Black Monk". The Moscow theater beau monde often gathered in Mizinova's apartment.

After Mizinova and her husband emigrated, part of their 300-meter apartment passed to the publicist Iosif Aizenshtadt, who bought it from them. Joseph Aizenshtadt is the great-grandfather of our contemporary writer, TV presenter and feminist Maria Arbatova. In his Arbat apartment, at that time already communal, all her childhood and youth passed. About this period of her biography, about neighbors in the apartment and house can be read in the memoirs of the writer. The Arbat house left so many memories in her memory that Masha Gavrilina once became Maria Arbatova, taking such a pseudonym for herself, and eventually making it her official surname.

12) Arbat street, house 29 - Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy.

The profitable house of Yakov Mikhailovich Tolstoy was built in 1904-1906 according to the project of architect Nikita Gerasimovich Lazarev.

Yakov Mikhailovich Tolstoy belonged to the old noble family of Tolstoy, lived in his rich estate not far from Moscow. Having married, he decided with his wife to move to the capital, sold the estate and acquired a large mansion on the Arbat. Tolstoy's wife - Maria Alexandrovna, an active and businesslike person - when the children grew up and the family began to grow, she encouraged her husband to build a new house on the site of their old mansion, profitable, which could be used both for their own living and for renting . To implement this idea, the architect N.G. Lazarev, who built a hotel for A.K. Echkin in the then fashionable Art Nouveau style. He completed the project of an apartment building for the Tolstoy family in a similar style.

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Central attic.

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Fragment of the central part of the facade.

The building has a symmetrical façade with projections in the center and sides. The central risalit is crowned with a figured attic with a dormer window. On the sides of the attic there are elevations decorated with interesting sculptural antefixes of a contrasting shade. If you look closely, behind the attic you can see a metal quadrangular dome on the roof of the building, tapering towards the crown.

The façade decoration is made using the traditional modern boar tile. It is matte and has a nice beige tint. It is a pity that some of the tiles during the operation of the house were painted with paint of a lighter tone for some reason.

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Relief frieze with chestnut leaves.

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Women's mascaron.

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Elements of stucco decoration: a female mascaron over one of the central windows (above) and window decoration of the side risalits (below).

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Elements of stucco decoration: a cartouche under the window of the third floor and decorative brackets and a keystone of the window casing of the second floor (above) and a cartouche in the tympanum of the window casing of the third floor (below).

A distinctive feature of the decorative decoration of the building is stucco molding made in plant motifs. A relief frieze with an ornament of small chestnut leaves stretched along the fourth floor. There are a whole bunch of them there. The roof window of the attic is framed by a beautiful garland of scrolls of ribbons and flowers. In the tympanums of the architraves of the windows of the third floor there are cartouches with chestnut branches, under the same windows there are also cartouches, but of a different type. In the keystones of the architraves of the second floor, in the consoles supporting the ledges of the architraves, there are plant motifs everywhere. Above one of the central windows is a female mascaron. The rusticated pilasters of the central risalit are decorated with stucco compositions that look like gonfalon flags hanging from the crossbeams. They also have flowers, leaves and curls, as well as thin cords and rings twisted from them.

Hotel Ya.M. Tolstoy. Balconies of the upper floors of the side risalit.

Partially preserved are the unique cast lattices of balconies. Their pattern depicts woven thin branches and is similar to the grating patterns of the first metro stations in Paris.

There were 14 apartments in the house, 6 of which were occupied by the Tolstoys themselves, the rest were rented to the tenants. The lower floor was reserved for shops. The house had a back entrance leading to the back garden, well planned and landscaped. It even had a fountain with a pool, into which goldfish were let in for the summer, which the mistress of the house loved very much.

In 1912-1913, the house was built on one floor, which slightly distorted its appearance. The beautiful attics above the side risalits were lost, which gave the façade an accentuated symmetry and harmonized with the central attic. The Soviet period, which was merciless for the “excesses of imperialism”, was not without losses: shop windows on the ground floor with unusual modern curvilinear bindings, a glazed canopy over the main entrance, cornice brackets, a decorative grille on the roof, railings of some balconies and others have sunk into oblivion. architectural elements. Unfortunately, the innovations did not give the house originality. On the other hand, thank you for this, because Moscow knows examples of much more vandalism.

In the apartment building Ya.M. Tolstoy at different times lived many famous personalities. For example, an outstanding opera singer, soloist and director Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Apollonovich Lossky. He began as a soloist in Savva Mamontov's private opera, where he was an understudy for F.I. Chaliapin, who performed the part of Mephistopheles in Hun's Faust, subsequently performed and taught a lot in Kyiv, Odessa and Nizhny Novgorod. In the 1920s he became the chief director of the Bolshoi Theater and directed the artistic part of the opera troupe.

In the chaos and confusion of the revolution of 1917, the trainer and artist Vladimir Leonidovich Durov found himself in house 29 on the Arbat. He, identified as a “bourgeois”, was evicted from the Corner he created on Staraya Bozhedomka, and he rented apartment No. 1 and a basement in the Arbat house. He settled in the apartment with his whole family, and placed animals in the basement - dogs, foxes, wolves, snakes and even bears. So the house turned into a real Noah's Ark for a while. Rats and dogs ran freely around the house, and children walked bears in the garden. In 1919, the ark was able to “moor to the shores of the promised land”: by order of V.I. Lenin Durov was allowed to return to the expropriated theater building, the Corner was taken under the care of the authorities, and from a private theater it turned into a state one. The vacated basements of the Arbat house were cleared and turned into rooms where people settled: there was nothing surprising in this, because the house, like many others, was “compacted” to the limit.

You can learn more about other tenants of the house in the post-revolutionary period and the fate of the owners from the memoirs of Ksenia Alexandrovna Nemtsevich, nee Ungerman, the granddaughter of Y.M. Tolstoy, who lived for many years in his house on the Arbat.

13) Maly Nikolopeskovsky lane, building 5 - UrbanmanorH.P.Mikhailova - V.E.Talgren

City estate of N.P. Mikhailova - V.E. Thalgren.

An unusual one-story mansion with a turret is a rebuilt main house of the city estate. There is practically no information about its first owners. It is only known that in the 19th century the estate was owned by a certain N.P. Mikhailov. The manor house - the progenitor of the current mansion, which makes up its left, most part - was built by 1819 and had Empire features. It is known that in the 1880s the Decembrist Alexander Frolov lived in the old mansion, the author of "Notes" - memoirs about the life of the Decembrists in Siberian exile, published in the journal "Russian Antiquity" in 1882. AT late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century, the estate was acquired by baron and businessman Vladimir Eduardovich Talgren, who was engaged in paper spinning and stationery. AT manor house his trading house "Talgren V.E and K" was located.

By order of Talgren in 1901-1902, the mansion was rebuilt by the architect Pavel Alexandrovich Zarutsky in the Art Nouveau style. An additional volume was attached to the house on the right side, the corner of which was stylized as a small turret. The dome above the turret is ribbed, scaly, helmet-like, with a needle-thin spire and cartouches on each of the faces. Zarutsky retained the chamber scale of a small manor house and the basis of its composition. At the same time, an extension he made with a romantic tower completely transformed the building, turning it into a nice and original mansion, which became a remarkable architectural accent in the labyrinth of Arbat lanes.

City estate of N.P. Mikhailova - V.E. Thalgren. Helm-shaped dome of the turret.

Thanks to the efforts of the architect, known for his work in the Art Nouveau style, the facade of the mansion has changed significantly. He received decor generously using rocaille floral motifs, borrowed from the French Art Nouveau, but interpreted in his own way by Zarutsky, in a manner characteristic of Moscow Art Nouveau. The lush window trims are especially noteworthy. Their undulating curves create real crowns above the windows, decorated with flowers and small female mascarons. The relief panels under the eaves of the building have a floral ornament, in the center of the composition of which are sunflowers - symbols of sunlight, fertility and prosperity. Sculptural brackets holding a protruding cornice are decorated with cartouches, medallions, graceful curls, flowers and buds. Along the perimeter of the roof, above the cornice, low pylons are placed, between which figured lattices are fixed. Corner pylons have cone-shaped finials.

In the 1970s, the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization was located in the former mansion of V.E. Talgren. A few years ago, the building was restored by the Main Directorate for the Service of the Diplomatic Corps under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Today it still belongs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

14) Maly Nikolopeskovsky lane, house 9/1, building 1 - Profitable house M.A. Simonova

Profitable house M.A. Simonova.

Profitable building built in 1908-1910. Built by architect D.V. Sterligov, designed by the architect, engineer and architectural theorist Vladimir Petrovich Apyshkov and commissioned by M.A. Simonova.

The author of the project is V.P. Apyshkov - built mainly in St. Petersburg, and M.A. Simonova, perhaps his only pre-revolutionary work in Moscow. Probably due to the architect's commitment to architectural forms, common in St. Petersburg, Simonova's house was made by him in the style of the so-called. "northern modern", quite rare among Moscow buildings. The tenement house is akin to buildings in the spirit of national romanticism in Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

The design of the building is entirely based on the principles and techniques of the northern direction of modernity. The main and side facades of the house are decorated with bay windows of various shapes. The silhouette of the building is emphasized by high gables, the central entrance group is accentuated by a semicircular attic with a dormer window. All used architectural elements are strictly geometrized, they are based on simple and understandable forms. Especially noteworthy are the trapezoidal windows, unmistakably testifying to the stylistic belonging to the northern Art Nouveau. Them top corners as if cut off, and the formed elongated hexagons of the window openings echo the shape of the gables on the roof.

Profitable house M.A. Simonova. The central part of the main facade with a semicircular attic and bay windows.

Profitable house M.A. Simonova. Lateral risalit of the main facade with a gable.

Part of the walls of the house is smoothly plastered, part is lined with beige “boar”, part is lined with glazed Abramtsevo tiles painted in blue and dark blue. Abramtsevo ceramics is perhaps the only decorative element from the arsenal of Moscow Art Nouveau used in the design of the building; it was practically not used in St. Petersburg. The areas of the façade under the gables at the level of the third-fifth floors are underlined by recessed fields, shaped like the silhouettes of the trapezoid windows and the gables themselves.

Profitable house M.A. Simonova. Facade plan, arch. V.P. Apyshkov.

On the author's plan of the house, preserved in the Central Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of Moscow, in the corner of the building above the roof there is an unusual tower with a row of frequent dormer windows encircling it. It is not precisely established whether it was realized during the construction of the tenement house, since today it is absent, and no photographs or other evidence of its existence have been found. Perhaps the tower had a place to be, but it was dismantled during a major overhaul in the Soviet period. Or maybe she didn't exist at all. It remains only to speculate.

The repair work carried out over the past decades has not added stylistic harmony and originality to the building. Air conditioners “flaunt” on the facade, part of the ceramics is painted over regular paint, balconies and windows are glazed to the extent of the possibilities and ideas about the taste of each of the apartment owners.

15) Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky lane, building 4 - Clinic of I. K. Yurasovsky (N.V. Yurasovskaya)

Hospital I.K. Yurasovsky.

The house was built in 1910 by the architect Semyon Fedorovich Kulagin for Ivan Konstantinovich Yurasovsky.

I.K Yurasovsky is a well-known Moscow obstetrician. He belonged to an old Russian noble family, descended from a major Polish magnate Martin Yurasovsky, whose widow, Russian by birth, after the death of her husband in 1641 returned with her sons to Russia. Since then, the descendants of the ancestor of the dynasty were listed in the genealogical books of the Tula, Oryol and Moscow provinces.

I.K. Yurasovsky bought a plot of land near the Arbat to build an apartment building on it. Together with the architect Kulagin, he developed a project for a building that simultaneously performs the functions of a medical institution and an apartment building. On the first and second floors of the building, a women's hospital and obstetric courses were located, the remaining floors were used for living by the family of Yurasovsky himself and the tenants who rented apartments.

The building is a wonderful symbiosis of two styles: Moscow Art Nouveau and Neoclassicism. This combination of S.F. Kulagin also used S.E. Tryndina and A.S. Shchepoteva, whom we have already met during our walk.

Hospital I.K. Yurasovsky. Central attic with dormer window and bay window.

Hospital I.K. Yurasovsky. Sculpture at the entrance.

The first thing that attracts the attention of the building of the former Yurasov hospital is the “boar” ceramic tile, traditional for Moscow Art Nouveau. Three of its shades are used in the facade cladding: dark ocher, yellow-beige and blue-green. Such a color palette successfully emphasizes the structure of the symmetrical facade. The central risalit and side bay windows are lined with blue-green tiles, the main area of ​​the walls is covered with yellow-beige tiles, and a thin strip of dark ocher is used to decorate the upper floor, to visually unify its windows.

The second element characteristic of Art Nouveau is the expressively curved cornice-visor. It visually highlights the protruding columns of faceted bay windows of the house.

No less interesting are the upper windows: a dormer window above the central bay window, which has a complex shape, and semicircular tripartite windows above the side bay windows.

Hospital I.K. Yurasovsky. Elements of stucco decoration.

Profitable house and hospital of Dr. I.K. Yurasovsky were known throughout Moscow. Living quarters favorably differed in increased comfort and convenience. And the course passed in the "Exemplary obstetric educational institution» Yurasovsky, was the best recommendation for midwives and midwives. Members of the City Duma and the Governor-General of Moscow himself came to each solemn graduation of the courses. The Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna did not deprive them of attention either, whose nurseries and shelters Yurasovsky consulted for free.

The maternity ward of the hospital I.K. Yurasovsky had an excellent reputation. The writer Anastasia Ivanovna Tsvetaeva, the sister of Marina Tsvetaeva, gave birth here. Here the future writer, art critic and historian Nina Mikhailovna Moleva was born, whose parents lived in an apartment in the same building. The birth was taken by Ivan Konstantinovich himself. He also found a nanny for the newborn.

The building in Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky sometimes appears in documents as an apartment building and a hospital for N.V. Yurasovskaya. This is due to the traditions of registering real estate for wives. Nadezhda Vasilievna Yurasovskaya - wife of Ivan Konstantinovich, famous Opera singer, soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre. As a girl, she bore the surname Salina, which she continued to use in her creative work after marriage.

Historically, it so happened that the building of the Yurasovsky women's hospital was subsequently always used in one way or another for healthcare needs. During the Great Patriotic War, a hospital was located here, after the end of the war - a maternity hospital. In the 1960s, the building housed a department of the 15th city hospital. In 1976, the polyclinic department was transformed into the city polyclinic No. 92. It is still located here, as evidenced by a sign hanging at the entrance.

16) Trubnikovsky lane, house 4, building 1 - Profitable house I.S. Baskakova

Profitable house I.S. Baskakova.

The profitable house was erected by the order of the wealthy Moscow homeowner Ivan Stepanovich Baskakov by the architect Olgerd Gustavovich Piotrovich in 1908-1909.

O.G. Piotrovich belonged to the famous Piotrovich dynasty of architects. His older brothers were also architects and were engaged in design and construction in Moscow. However, he outdid both of them, taken together, in the number of buildings erected. O.G. Piotrovich became the most sought-after and prolific architect who worked on middle-class tenement houses. According to his designs, more than 100 residential buildings were built in Moscow, most of which, although they are not monuments, have serious historical and architectural significance. We can say that the houses built by O.G. Piotrovich, largely determined the appearance of the capital of the late XIX - early XX century.

Relief stucco elements convey originality to the building. First of all, the luxurious cartouche above the entrance to the building, framed by branches of flowering plants, attracts attention. On both sides, he is held by half-naked fat women with lush curly hair. On the pilasters on the sides of the entrance there are smaller cartouches, also with flowers, foliage and flower garlands hanging from them. But these are far from the only impressive decor details. The most interesting thing is revealed to the eye if you raise your head up. Under the cornice above the fourth floor, you can see sculptural herm brackets depicting men in unusual headdresses. And in the same place, under the eaves, owls lurked, "sitting" on the window frames.

Profitable house I.S. Baskakova. Elements of sculptural decoration: a bracket-herm and an owl in the keystone of the window casing.

Profitable house I.S. Baskakova. Elements of sculptural decoration: a mascaron in the keystone of the window casing (left) and a herm bracket (right).

Profitable house I.S. Baskakova. Stucco decoration of window casings.

Profitable house I.S. Baskakova. Decorative metal elements: a canopy over the entrance (left) and a gate in the arch (right).

On each of the floors, the windows have their own type of frames, decorated with stucco. On the fourth floor, these are relief-shaped lintels with eagle owls sitting on keystones. On the third - rectangular pediments, in the tympanums of which are compositions with smiling mascarons and flowering branches. Mascarons either look out of some bizarre frames, or are wrapped in hoods. On the second floor, the windows are crowned with sandriks with palmettes and curls of leaves. And the architraves of the windows of the first floor are decorated with capstones with images of miniature mascarons in fantastic crowns with spreading leaves on tops.

Present in the design of the building and metal decorative elements. This is an openwork canopy over the entrance and a gate that closes the arch.

A small memorial plaque is placed on the wall of the house at the entrance, indicating that the writer Ivan Bunin lived here in 1906. This, of course, is about the old house, the predecessor of I.S. Baskakova. In the built by O.G. Piotrovich house from 1910 to 1930 lived the artist Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon. Many of his works are dedicated to Moscow: "View of Moscow from the Sparrow Hills", "Lubyanskaya Square in winter", "Festivities on the Maiden's Field", "Feeding pigeons on Red Square", etc. K.F. It was not by chance that Yuon rented an apartment in one of the Arbat lanes, because on the Arbat itself, in house number 25, there was a studio school organized by him, where he taught from 1900 to 1917.

In 2006, the building of the former apartment building of I.S. Baskakov was reconstructed with the preservation of the historical facade and the addition of one more floor.

17) Krivoarbatsky lane, building 9 - Profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky

Profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky.

In the 18th-19th centuries, on the site of the current buildings No. 9 and 11 in Krivoarbatsky lane, there was an extensive estate of the Velyaminovs with a large wooden house that stood along the red line of the lane. In the metric books of the church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki there is a record that in 1807 retired major S.L. lived in this house with his family. Pushkin, father A.S. Pushkin. Perhaps it was here that the first poems of the future great poet were born.

Almost a hundred years later, in 1906, on the site of the old manor house, fanned by the spirit of the Pushkin family, a new one is being built - profitable. Modern, solid and respectable. The customer of its construction was an honorary hereditary nobleman, leader of the district nobility of the Kaluga province Alexander Mikhailovich Zhelyabuzhsky.

The author of the building project was Nikolai Grigorievich Faleev. A.M. It was not by chance that Zhelyabuzhsky invited N.G. Faleeva: they were countrymen, both were born and lived for some time in Kaluga, kept in touch. Interestingly, later the son of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky - Alexander - lived in a house built by his father in Krivoarbatsky Lane. In 1910, Alexander graduated from the Institute of Civil Engineers in St. Petersburg, after graduation he was enrolled as a supernumerary technician in the Construction Department of the Moscow Provincial Board and often acted as an assistant to N.G. Faleev.

Profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky. One of the entrances to the building, first floor windows, bay window.

Profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky. Bay window decor.

The building of the profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky is made in a manner characteristic of the modern era. Its style is close to ordinary French Art Nouveau buildings.

The façade is lined with two sorts of ceramic tiles "boar": brown-beige with light reddish and dark green. The walls of the first floor are covered with dark green textured plaster “under a fur coat”, the last one is light and smooth. Such polychrome allows you to visually divide the facade into several zones. The division is additionally emphasized by cornices above the first, fourth and fifth floors. The stucco decorative elements are painted white, which stands out well against the background of the reddish and green shades of the walls.

Profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky. Relief panel with mascaron, flowers and leaves.

Profitable house of A.M. Zhelyabuzhsky. Window frames.

The facade of the building is symmetrical. Two rounded bay windows protrude from the common plane of the facade. In the center of the roof rises an attic with a large three-part oval dormer window. On the sides of it, above the bay windows, there are small pylons with decorative metal bars fixed between them.

The facade composition of the house contains all the most recognizable details of the Art Nouveau style - arched window and doorways with beautiful figured sashes, openwork lattices of balconies, stucco rods and panels with floral ornaments and female mascarons, window frames that unite them into single sculptural groups. Particularly noteworthy are the balconies, made in the manner characteristic of the French Art Nouveau. Their rounded railings are cast in mortar and adorned with metal bars.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Corner part of the building overlooking Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Corner part of the house overlooking the intersection of 2nd Smolensky Lane and Garden Ring.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Balcony.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. A canopy over one of the entrances, it is also a bay window console.

The volumetric composition of the building is due to its angular location. The building of considerable size is sandwiched between 2nd Smolensky Lane and Smolenskaya Street. The most elongated facade is located along the alley, the next in length along Sadovoye, and the shortest one is smoothly turned towards Borodinsky Bridge along Smolenskaya Street. All three facades are decorated in the same style, both corners of the house are visually highlighted, however, the center of the whole composition of the house is its rounded corner part, looking at Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square. Its silhouette is complicated by a monumental curvilinear attic with a semicircular three-part window. The contours of the facades also have pronounced accents in the form of strongly protruding rectangular attics. The rhythm of the facades is set by the verticals of the bay windows built into the risalits protruding from the common plane, and the clearly marked horizontal, made up of balcony galleries, sculptural friezes and panels, and encircling the entire house at the level of the fifth floor of the house. This is a very complex, carefully thought out and traced composition. However, it would not be so remarkable if it were not for the unique sculptural design of the building.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Stucco composition of vines.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Elements of stucco decoration: a pair of peacocks among the vines and small panels with branches of grapes.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Elements of stucco decoration: a frieze with peacocks and a window frame.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Stucco panel with a peacock sitting on the branches of grapes.

All the stucco relief elements decorating the house were made to order at the Georg Pol firm and have no analogues in Moscow. Painted in dark color relief compositions depict tangles of vine branches bending under the weight of ripe fruits, and peacocks sitting on the branches and walking in their shade. Unfortunately, some of the decor has been lost. The stucco panels on the balconies, the sculptures that towered on the ledges of the attics, and other details have not been preserved. But even what has survived to our time allows us to appreciate the originality and artistic expressiveness decorative decoration of the building, the appearance of which evokes memories of the lush and plentiful decoration of southern European - Spanish and Portuguese - buildings.

Profitable house of the heirs of E.E. Orlov. Photograph 1907-1916. The now lost decorative details of the facades are visible.

V.V. Sherwood, who built this apartment building already at the stage of decline in the popularity of Art Nouveau, was able to demonstrate its completely new artistic and plastic possibilities. He skillfully combined the heaviness of forms and monumentality of volumes with an extraordinary, impressionistic decor.

This unusual old house in Moscow attracts attention at first sight, standing out from a series of buildings on Moscow's historic Ostozhenka Street. Mainly - because it is crowned with a turret, clearly resembling an inverted glass. What is this building and why does it have such an unusual appearance?

In the pre-revolutionary years, everyone knew it as the profitable house of the merchant Yakov Mikhailovich Filatov. The building consists of two parts. That part of it, which caused so much gossip, was built in 1907-1909 according to the project of the architect V.E. Dubovsky with the participation of N.A. Arkhipova. By the way, this was not the only profitable house of a wealthy merchant. But it is his building on Ostozhenka that has such a strange appearance and it was he who was dubbed by the people as the "House under the glass." So why? Accurate information about the merchant's lifestyle has not been preserved, so several versions have survived to this day.

Version one

According to this legend, the customer for the construction of the house was none other than the father of a young merchant. Like, his son was addicted to drinking wine, and in order to shame and reason with his offspring, Filatov Sr. showed him his new house and promised: “If you stop drinking, I will give it to you.” Seeing such a prospect, the son decided to give up the addiction.

Version two

The merchant Yakov Filatov was very successful in business and rich. Hence the assumption that a prosperous life became the reason for his free behavior: like many merchants of that time, the young man liked to walk in a big way in drinking establishments, thanks to which he almost went bankrupt. However, he, they say, changed his mind in time, stopped drinking and even increased his fortune, as a sign of which he built this tenement house, crowned with an overturned cup. With this symbolic “glass”, according to this hypothesis, the merchant marked his return to a sober and prudent life.

Version three

According to this urban legend, the customer of the house was not the merchant's father, but his mother. Like, the woman was very worried about her son's addiction to alcohol and decided to consult with the priest what to do. He recommended building this profitable house with cheap apartments for his son. Oddly enough, the advice helped, and the son stopped drinking. The woman ordered to crown the new house with an inverted glass - as a warning to posterity.

Version four

Despite the rumors about the drunkenness of the merchant Filatov, the "alcoholic" version has a lot of opponents. They reasonably notice that an honorary citizen, a successful merchant of the third guild, Yakov Mikhailovich Filatov, was an Old Believer. Moreover, he is a founding member and trustee of the Moscow Old Believer community of the Rogozhsky cemetery. In this regard, talk about alcohol addiction of such an ardent adherent of the faith looks implausible. How could a drunkard be a man who enjoyed such great respect among the Old Believers?

According to this hypothesis, the famous architect of tenement houses V.E. Dubovskoy liked to bring something new to each of his brainchildren, and such a characteristic element of the building on Ostozhenka was not an upturned glass at all, but simply the fruit of the artistic imagination of an architect who loved to experiment with forms. Moreover, it was fashionable to make turrets on the corners of buildings at that time in Moscow.

sea ​​monsters

However, it would be unfair to believe that this building is unique and famous only thanks to an upside down glass. All of its architecture is very interesting and, by the way, has no analogues in Moscow. The tenement house is somewhat reminiscent of a castle. The courtyard façade has a very unusual plasticity of volumes and protrusions of the walls, and the main façades fascinate with mysterious stucco decoration. Shells, seaweed, fish heads, mollusks and fabulous underwater monsters are guessed in the mysterious figures. By the way, it is precisely because of the abundance of images of marine life on the facade of the building that the fifth version: they say that the whole structure, according to the architect, represents the kingdom of the sea, and the inverted bowl, symbolically crowning the tenement house, seems to overthrow streams of water from above.

A unique architectural monument or a ridiculous building?

Modern art historians believe that the most striking trends in Moscow architecture were reflected in the house on Ostozhenka Silver Age.

By the way, in pre-revolutionary Moscow, not everyone appreciated such a bold decision of the architect. Here is what the Moscow Weekly newspaper wrote at the beginning of the last century: “Each new year brings Moscow several dozen new, monstrously ridiculous buildings that crash into city streets with some kind of special, only Moscow characteristic, prowess. Well, where else can you find something like a new house at the beginning of Ostozhenka!..”

As for the future fate of the apartment building, after the revolution, communal apartments for the townspeople were equipped in it, and at the end of the last century, communal apartments gradually began to be transformed into multi-room apartments of new owners. To this day, the building has retained the status of a residential building.

By the way, at the beginning of the 21st century, the famous “glass” was restored. Alas, after the renovation, it became more modern and somewhat lost its original appearance, so familiar to old-time Muscovites. Now only retro photographs keep her memory.

In the center of Moscow, several more houses with bizarre decor have been preserved. For example, amazing beautiful building on Chistye Prudy, which is popularly called.

The profitable house of the merchant Yakov Filatov is one of the largest residential complexes of the early 20th century. This building, reminiscent of a medieval castle, reflected the most striking trends in the architecture of Moscow of the Silver Age: the ever-growing population of the city required the creation of new housing - entire houses of rented apartments, and the high aesthetic demands of future tenants forced the developer and architect to build real works of art. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, Moscow was a kind of seething cultural cauldron, into which new citizens flocked from all over the vast Russian Empire.

Truly talented, purposeful people - artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, doctors, scientists, actors, writers and poets - often went not to St. Petersburg, but to the ancient capital. In Moscow, they received their education and then began their often dizzying careers. This was facilitated in every possible way by the new Moscow "aristocrats" - industrialists, among whom were many generous patrons, patrons of science and art with an excellent sense of talent. Not all the newly minted Moscow intellectuals and creators could afford to buy an apartment and, moreover, a private mansion.

The difficult situation was saved by the opportunity to rent a separate apartment, but there were only a limited number of those in the city. Thus, there is a shortage of diverse rental housing that could suit new citizens in terms of price, and be, moreover, worthy of living: comfortable, located in a good Moscow area, equipped with all modern amenities. A real construction boom unfolded in the city: houses for rent apartments or, as they were more commonly called, tenement houses, were built by everyone who could afford it - from private individuals to charitable organizations.

In order to attract future tenants with exquisite facades and originality of the interior layout of the tenement house, the customers hired highly sought-after and talented architects. The tenement house, built by the architect Valentin Evgenyevich Dubovsky on the order of the merchant Yakov Filatov, fully embodied the needs of his era. This huge residential complex, built from 1907 to 1909 in the Art Nouveau style, became a landmark building of the entire area and immediately became overgrown with legends. The most interesting of them concerns the corner tower of the building and its unusual pommel resembling an overturned glass.

For over a hundred years now urban legend says that the merchant Filatov did not know the limits in the use of alcohol and almost went bankrupt. Deciding to give up this addiction, he invested the saved funds in the construction of profitable housing and asked the architect Dubovsky to install a symbol of the refusal of alcohol - an inverted glass - above the corner turret. However, this version looks rather doubtful, given that the merchant Filatov was a trustee of one of the most important Old Believer communities in the Russian Empire. A man who was respected by conservative Old Believers could hardly afford alcohol abuse.

More justified is the version that the “glass” above the tower is part of the overall architectural design created by the Art Nouveau master, a lover of medieval romance, Valentin Dubovsky. In Moscow, this architect built exclusively profitable houses. A Petersburger by origin, throughout his professional career he carried a love for the theme of medieval castles. In fact, in the profitable house of Yakov Filatov, he embodied the idea of ​​a city fortress protected from the bustle. The “glass” above the corner tower is probably an allusion to the pointed ends above the turrets of typical castles of European feudal lords.

The ugly head of the fish, located under the line of the cornice of the corner tower, also reminds of the medieval watchmen of castles and cathedrals - gargoyles. The theme of the stucco decoration of front facades is unique for Moscow. On numerous stucco panels, Dubovskoy presented the inhabitants of the water element: these are undines, thousand-fold enlarged mollusks and crustaceans, squids, fish - the embodiment of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200btrue natural beauty, so revered in the Art Nouveau style. It can be assumed that the numerous inhabitants of the water depths, according to Dubovsky's plan, "settled" on the facade walls, pouring out on them with streams of water from an inverted "glass" above the tower.

Hello again to all my dear readers! I'm almost sure that you love photos from the roofs) And beautiful sunsets - even more so. And if the pictures were also taken very close to the center of the capital, then you will definitely read this photo report. This time we will wait for a beautiful sunset on the roof of the famous architectural monument - Filatov's tenement house, made in the Art Nouveau style. Better known among the people as the "House under the Glass". And you can see photos from the walk, admire the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the sunset rays and find out the history of the name - you can under the cut;)

In fact, I wanted to visit this house for a long time, because in it I was interested not only in the roof, but also in the beautiful front doors, along with interesting architecture and decorative design. And once friends from St. Petersburg came to visit us and offered to go for a short walk along unusual places capital Cities. No sooner said than done, and I decided to take them along the cozy streets of Kitay-gorod, and from there to the area of ​​Red Square and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Along the way, we also visited the rooftop of an abandoned hostel, quite a popular place in our circles. By the way, there will be one photo in the report from there. And then, passing by the House with a Glass, we decided to check it out as well. We were lucky and the roof was open. Since then, we've been there a few more times. This summer, the old way to get to the roof became unavailable, but my friend and I managed to get to the top of the building and find ourselves directly in front of the "glass" turret. And the main part of the photos from the roof was taken already in the spring, when my friends and I went to watch the sunset and have a small photo shoot along the way.

And now a little history of "House under the Glass":

"The profitable house of Y. M. Filatov is an architectural monument located in the city of Moscow. It consists of two parts, the report will focus on the right - high one. The architectural structure was built in 1907-1909 by architects V. A. Dubovsky and N. A. Arkhipov The facades of the building are made in the Art Nouveau style.Of interest from the point of view of architecture are unique relief patterns, a ceramic frieze over the windows of the fifth floor, as well as a bell-shaped tent over the corner turret..."

1. We go into the house, climb the stairs, in front of us is an open attic. We start directly from the highest part of the building. In front of us is the same tower, resembling a glass turned upside down. Therefore, the building was popularly called « house under the glass » . One Moscow legend is also associated with this unofficial name of the mansion, which says that the merchant Yakov Mikhailovich Filatov suffered from alcohol addiction, because of which he almost lost his possessions, but, fortunately, caught himself in time. The upturned glass on the roof of the building serves as a symbol of this event...

"... After the construction of Filatov's tenement house, the architect was accused of all the "modernist" sins, and the house was called "a monstrously ridiculous building."Filatov himself did not live here, since he owned several buildings in Moscow, including the House with the Knights on the Arbat. In the USSR, the building housed communal apartments, one of which was purchased by gallery owner and publicist M. A. Gelman in the early 1990s. To date, the apartment building has almost completely retained its original appearance, it still remains residential. The building is one of the identified objects of cultural heritage of regional significance"

2. And this is a photo from the lower tier. From the roof of the building there are views of Volkhonka, the gallery of Ilya Glazunov, the square in front of the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin and the towers of the Moscow Kremlin.

3. But the most colorful view is on the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Its golden domes look especially advantageous against the backdrop of sunset clouds.
It was at least for the sake of this view that it was worth going here).

4. But all the main beauty is on the other side. Where behind the high-rise of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the business center "Moscow-City" the sun directly set.

5. Pink pastel colors of the sky over the Kremlin towers.

6. Usually I don't post photos of people in my livejournal, but here I decided to make an exception. After all, it was on the roof of the "Ryumka" that we had a small photoset with two Mashas. I decided to include one of the pictures in this report as a bonus.

7. And this photo stands apart from the others, because it was taken from a different location, but essentially on the same topic.
Rooftop on Kitay-gorod and views towards the skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment and the Swissotel Krasnye Holmy hotel.

8. Sunset tones of clouds over the capital. This part of the house has a gable roof.

9. But let's pause and go to study the front door. The main staircase is rather ascetic and classical.