The mansion of Arseny Morozov. Morozov mansion in Podsosensky Lane Mansion in Moorish style on Vozdvizhenka

It is simply impossible to pass by this wonderful mansion without being surprised and admiring it. And here we go again - the mansion of Arseny Morozov on Vozdvizhenka, but now let’s pay attention to the details. And there are a great many of them here. In the title photo there is an elegant stone vine, repeating the wall of a Portuguese castle entwined with grapes. I didn’t want to write any words about this wonderful building, everything has already been said about it, but I learned something that I didn’t know about before.

It turns out that this intricate mansion had a very specific model. This is the Pena Palace (Palácio Nacional da Pena) in Portugal, on a high cliff above the city of Sintra, in a fantastic pseudo-medieval style. The construction was organized by Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, husband of Queen Mary II of Portugal. He invested enormous amounts of money in this project, and work continued until his death in 1885. A building built in mid-19th century, combined elements of Moorish medieval architecture and Manueline - the Portuguese national style, popular in XV-XVI centuries. This same Pena Palace in the early 1890s inspired Russian millionaire Arseny Abramovich Morozov and architect Viktor Aleksandrovich Mazyrin to build a mansion on Vozdvizhenka. It all started with the fact that Arseny Morozov received a plot of land in the center of Moscow as a gift.

Pena Palace in Sintra

Arseny's mother, Varvara Alekseevna, came from the Khludov merchant family, which owned one of the first Russian paper mills equipped with steam engines. His father, Abram Abramovich ( cousin famous philanthropist Savva Morozov), was the owner of the Tver manufactory. After his death, management of the enterprise passed into the hands of his wife - an intelligent, acumen and beautiful woman. It was she who decided to give her unlucky son, the reveler and reveler Arseny, a plot of land on Vozdvizhenka for his 25th birthday.

Konstantin Makovsky. Portrait of V. A. Morozova, 1874

Arseny turned to his friend the architect and great original Viktor Mazyrin, whom he met at the world exhibition in Antwerp. And he invited Morozov to travel around Europe together in search of a prototype of the house. Upon returning to Moscow, Arseny Morozov got the idea to build himself a castle house, repeating the general outline Pena Palace style.

Architect Viktor Mazyrin (pictured left) and millionaire Arseny Morozov

The mansion was built quickly, in four years, a period unprecedented for that time.

1. Now the trees have grown, and the cast-iron fence has been duplicated with opaque shields, which, of course, makes it difficult to view the mansion. But still, some design details can be captured.

2. In the Morozov mansion, the Moorish style is most clearly manifested in the design of the front entrance, as well as the two towers located on both sides of the main entrance. The doorway is decorated with ship's ropes tied in nautical knots - a symbol of good luck in Portugal, the main entrance is in the form of a horseshoe - a symbol of good luck in Russia, and above it is a chained dragon, an eastern symbol of good luck.

4. Two romantic towers with lacy attics and balcony railings are located on both sides of the main entrance.

7. Picturesque decorative details are used in the design of the walls - shells, ship ropes, horseshoe-shaped and lancet window openings.

17. In the remaining parts of this building, the architecture is eclectic. For example, some window openings are decorated with classical columns,

18. The general asymmetrical structure of the mansion is more characteristic of Art Nouveau.

19. The mansion did not bring good luck to Morozov himself. He managed to live there for only nine years. In 1908, at one of the drinking parties, Arseny shot himself in the leg with a pistol as a bet. I wanted to prove that a person can withstand any pain. They bet on cognac. Morozov did not scream after the shot and won the argument, but even after that he did not go to the doctor, but continued drinking. Three days later, millionaire Arseny Morozov, at the age of 35, died of blood poisoning. The scandalous glory of the mansion did not end with his death. Morozov left the house not to his wife and children, but to his mistress, Nina Aleksandrovna Konshina.

After the revolution, Arseny Morozov's mansion changed owners more than once. From 1918 to 1928 it housed Proletkult and its theater, from 1928 to 1940 - the residence of the Japanese Ambassador, from 1941 to 1945 - the editorial office of the English newspaper "British Ally", from 1952 to 1954 - the embassy of the Indian Republic. For almost half a century, the Morozov mansion housed the “House of Friendship with Peoples” foreign countries", opened on March 31, 1959. At that time, there were demonstrations of foreign films, meetings and press conferences with foreign artists, photo exhibitions and even concerts. Last time I was in the House of Friendship at the very end of the last century. The Russian Government Reception House was opened on January 16, 2006, and now the mansion is closed to Muscovites and guests of the capital.
More about Morozov's mansion in the report

One of the most unusual houses in Moscow stands on Vozdvizhenka - an intricate mansion of a noble Moscow merchant Arseny Morozov. Now the house is considered an architectural monument of federal significance, but few people know that Muscovites were able to appreciate it only in the early 2000s. Contemporaries unanimously dubbed the mansion “the house of the fool.”

The ornate “house with shells” is the only thing that Arseny Morozov became famous for. The representative of a noble family and a millionaire did not take part in the family textile production, did not share the brothers’ interest in art, was neither noted in the service, nor was noticed in charity. Morozov's only passion was travel. In one of them, in 1894, World's Fair, which at that time took place in Antwerp, the merchant became friends with the architect Viktor Mazyrin, openly interested in esotericism. Mazyrin attended the event as an architect and designer of the Russian pavilion. Mazyrin immediately accepted Morozov’s order for the construction of the mansion, but the future customer had no specific wishes.

To find inspiration, Morozov and Mazyrin went to traveling together across Europe, choosing the southern coast. A suitable house was found in the Portuguese city of Sintra: the young industrialist liked Pena Palace most of all, which was built in the second half of XIX century designed by the German architect Ludwig von Eschwege for the local prince - Fernando II.

The construction of the original castle, much larger in size than the Moscow prototype, lasted for several decades, until the death of the prince in 1885. Ironically, in the same year, the land on Vozdvizhenka, which previously belonged to the Dolgoruky princes, became the property of the Morozov family. Arseny's mother buys the property Varvara Morozova to build a house for herself. The design of the first mansion for a merchant's wife with an outbuilding and a gatehouse was implemented by the architect Roman Klein. The main two-story building had 23 rooms, a further 19 were located in the basement, and the reception hall could accommodate up to 300 people. The classic estate has still been preserved - we are talking about the fourteenth house on Vozdvizhenka, which noticeably contrasts with the sixteenth.

Ten years later, in 1895, Morozova bought the land from her neighbor, the Bavarian entrepreneur Karl Marcus Ginne. Since 1868, his equestrian circus was located here, which burned down in 1892 under unclear circumstances. Two years after the deal, in 1897, the land was transferred to Arseny Morozov himself - the plot became a gift for his next birthday. Construction begins. It is generally accepted that the first stone in the house was laid Lidiya Mazyrina- ballerina and eldest daughter architect. The construction was completed in record time - by the end of 1899 the building was ready.

During the construction of the castle of the Sintra Palace, the German Eschwege did not limit himself to a single style - the building shows features of Manueline, Gothic, Renaissance, Moorish and Oriental styles. Mazyrin followed the same path. Architects call the style of the house on Vozdvizhenka pseudo-Moorish. The house is decorated with characteristic columns and towers, but the exterior and interior decoration is borrowed from other directions. Mazyrin apparently borrowed the shells on the facade from the main attraction of the Spanish city of Salamanca - famous house with shells from Casa de las Conchas, dating back to gothic style. And the mosaic of the courtyard looks quite antique. All the facades of the house are woven with realistic ropes, sometimes tied into knots.

The symbols were supposed to bring happiness to the owner of the house, but they never worked.

Even before the completion of the work, ridicule rained down on the mansion and its owner. Arseny himself told his friends about his mother’s violent reaction, citing her words: “Before, I was the only one who knew that you were a fool, but now all of Moscow will know about it.” The Morozov brothers, well-known city philanthropists, also responded negatively. Arseny himself joked: “My house will stand forever, but no one knows what else will happen to your paintings.” There were plenty of critics outside the family as well. Famous Moscow explorer Vladimir Gilyarovsky recalled the epigram that, after the appearance of the castle, was composed by the young actor Mikhail Sadovsky: “This castle brings a lot of thoughts to me, / And I felt terribly sorry for the past. / Where the free Russian mind once reigned, / There now factory ingenuity reigns.” In the novel “Resurrection” by Leo Tolstoy, one of Nekhlyudov’s dialogues with a cab driver is dedicated to the Morozov mansion, where the enormous size and incongruity of the building under construction is emphasized.

The house on Vozdvizhenka became famous for its luxurious banquets. It was possible to assemble the Moscow elite without difficulty - the cousin of the owner of the house, an avid theatergoer Savva Morozov, brought many of his own friends to his nephew, in particular - Maxim Gorky. Arseny Morozov lived in his house until his death in 1908. The merchant died after a ridiculous accident in Tver, the city where one of the family factories was located: he shot himself in the leg, telling his friends that he would not feel pain thanks to the fortitude that was developed thanks to Mazyrin’s esoteric techniques. Having received a wound, Morozov really did not wince. But the non-removal of the boot and severe bleeding provoked gangrene and blood poisoning. After his death, it turned out that, according to the terms of the will he left, his legal wife Varvara and daughter Irina did not receive any of the acquired property. The manager of 4 million rubles of capital and a mansion on Vozdvizhenka worth another 3 million rubles became Nina Konshina- a lady of the demimonde with whom Morozov lived for the last few years. The heiress was sued: the relatives managed to win part of the money and assets, but the industrialist’s mistress lived in the house itself until the 1917 revolution.

During the revolution, the building housed the headquarters of the anarchist party. From 1918 to 1928 the house was at the disposal of the first workers' theater of Proletkult. During this period there are always Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Yesenin. The latter even lived here for several months, settling in the attic of an employee of the office - the poet Sergei Klychkov, who adapted the former bathroom for housing. But the situation turned out to be difficult: contemporaries recalled that the plays were staged right in the reception hall, where the space was equipped with an amphitheater. After the theatergoers, the house on Vozdvizhenka was given to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The embassies of Japan, India and the editorial office of the English newspaper "British Ally" were located here alternately. Since the 1950s, the premises have been occupied by the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and cultural relations with the peoples of foreign countries." In the early 2000s, the building came into the possession of the federal authorities and underwent restoration; in 2006, a reception house for the Russian government was opened here.

Other materials about the history of capital's architecture >>

The founder of the famous Morozov merchant dynasty, Savva Vasiliev, a former serf, comes to Moscow in the 1820s and here takes the surname Morozov. His five sons form an extensive Morozov family, splitting into several branches: Vikulovichi, Zakharovichi, Abramovichi, Ivanovichi, Timofeevich. Representatives of the Morozov dynasty played a significant role in the commercial and industrial affairs of Russia, were engaged in charity work, contributed to the development of art and built for themselves luxury mansions in the capital.

House of Maria Fedorovna Morozova. View from the garden.

Morozov's Moscow exists as a "city within a city" in the form of charitable institutions, luxurious commercial buildings and mansions that the Morozovs built for themselves. The architecture associated with the name of the merchants is, first of all, bright stylizations of some historical or fantasy styles. This is the “Moorish mansion” on Vozdvizhenka, and, of course, Shekhtel’s masterpiece on Spiridonovka.

Let's take a closer look at several of the most striking objects of Morozov's Moscow.

Mansion of Savva Timofeevich Morozov (Spiridonka, 17), one of the most famous representatives of the merchant family, was built by the architect Fedor Shekhtel. Savva built a luxurious estate for his wife Zinaida, whom he stole from his nephew Sergei Vikulovich Morozov. In the Old Believer merchant environment, where the lovers came from, divorce and new marriage was considered a disgrace. But this did not stop the young people from getting married.

Shekhtel built the mansion on Spiridonovka when he did not yet have the title of architect. The house is stylized as a fabulous English Gothic style. In the construction of the “castle” Shekhtel uses architectural innovations. The enfilade layout of previous eras is replaced by a new volumetric planning principle. It forms the space of the mansion around a central object, in this case, the entrance hall with a staircase.

Externally, the building looks quite ascetic, and the interior is lush and recreates the romantic atmosphere of the knightly Middle Ages. Vrubel himself worked on the interior decoration. Many people consider the mansion on Spiridonovka the best example neo-Gothics in Moscow.

Family peace reigned in the luxurious new house for only a year. In 1898, Savva Morozov meets his new fatal love, actress Maria Andreeva.

In May 1905, Morozov was found dead in his hotel room in Cannes. The official version is suicide, but most likely, the philanthropist was killed by the Bolsheviks, to whom he promised part of his fortune.

After the death of her husband, Zinaida sells the mansion Mikhail Ryabushinsky, which changed its interiors quite a bit. After the revolution the house will be nationalized.

The mansion of Savva Morozov on Spiridonovka.

Olga Vaganova/AiF

Another famous representative merchant family Mikhail Abramovich Morozov, owner of a large art collection, subsequently transferred to Tretyakov Gallery, lived in a mansion on Smolensky Boulevard ( Smolensky Boulevard, 26/9).

The first owner of the 18th-century house was General Glazova. In 1894, the mansion was rebuilt according to the design of the architect Viktor Mazyrin for Mikhail Morozov and his wife Margarita Kirillovna.

At first glance, the building was built in classical traditions, But interior design so diverse that the house cannot be classified as a classic of Russian architecture. A diversity of styles reigns in the interiors: there is an Egyptian hallway, a Moorish smoking room, and decoration in the style of ancient Greece.

The Morozov couple were known throughout Moscow. A large circle of artists gathered in a mansion on Smolensky Boulevard, whose permanent members were Mikhail Vrubel, Valentin Serov, and Konstantin Korovin.

Mikhail Morozov collected paintings, including impressionists, was involved in charity work, and helped artists.

Morozov died when he was only 33 years old. In 1910, his wife donated the art collection to the Tretyakov Gallery. Margarita Kirillovna sold the house and abandoned her husband’s inheritance in favor of charity.

Morozov mansion on Smolensky Boulevard

Speaking about Morozov's Moscow, one cannot fail to mention the very human history, which is associated with the name of the artist Levitan. The mother of Savva Timofeevich Morozov, Maria Fedorovna, a respected Moscow philanthropist, in 1889, at her own expense, reconstructed the classic outbuilding of the estate into Bolshoi Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane (building 1/2) for drawing lessons of his son Sergei. In the same year, he gives up the house to his friend Isaac Levitan.

In the book “Moscow and Muscovites” Vladimir Gilyarovsky describes these events:

“...through acquaintances, the rich old woman Morozova, who had not even seen him in person, supported the talented young man (artist Levitan). She gave him a cozy, beautifully furnished house, where he wrote his best works...”

The facades of the mansion were decorated with platbands, the central part was raised and decorated with kokoshniks. The house had an overhead light necessary for painting.

Here, in the Morozov estate, almost all of Levitan’s masterpieces were written: “Over Eternal Peace”, “ Golden autumn", "March", "Lake. Rus".

Window of the house-workshop of Isaac Levitan in Bolshoi Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane

But not all representatives of the glorious merchant family were active and intelligent people. Arseny Morozov, son of Abram and Varvara Morozov, was known as a spendthrift and a reveler, was not busy entrepreneurial activity, had no inclination towards art, his passion was idle travel.

On one of his trips with his fellow architect Viktor Mazyrin to Spain and Portugal, Arseny was impressed by Sinatra's Portuguese Pena Palace, built in the mid-19th century in the style of Moorish medieval architecture.

Upon returning to Moscow, Arseny Morozov got the idea to build himself a castle house, repeating the style of the Pena Palace. On the plot donated by mother Varvara Alekseevna for her son’s 25th birthday, instead of a small classicist mansion, an unusual one is being built “Moorish castle” (Vozdvizhenka, 16, bldg. 1), even at the construction stage, called by Muscovites “the house of the fool.”

Why did the Morozov Palace not please its contemporaries? Today we look at architecture and perceive even exotic buildings quite calmly, tying them to prototypes and historical styles. And at the beginning of the 20th century, architecture was strictly determined by fashion. For example, when Art Nouveau came, everyone began to build modern houses, even those who could not stand this style. When Morozov built a copy of an exotic Moorish house, eclecticism with its fairly uniform buildings dominated. Therefore, the eccentric trick was received with ridicule and even rage.

Arseny Morozov died stupidly, shooting himself in the leg on a dare. After the revolution, the First Workers' Theater of Proletkult was settled in Morozov's mansion, where Eisenstein and Meyerhold staged their performances.

"Moorish castle" by Arseny Morozov.

Morozov Moscow also includes luxurious shopping buildings, among which we can mention Boyarsky Dvor (Staraya pl., 8). This office building of that time emphasizes the connection between the Morozovs' architecture and Art Nouveau. The Boyarsky Courtyard was built by Fyodor Shekhtel by order of Sergei Morozov, the son of Ivan Savvich. Part of the building housed a representative office of the Bogorodsko-Glukhovskaya manufactory, which belonged to the Morozov-Zakharovichs.

This is the brightest example of modernism using motifs of national Russian architecture. There were Morozovskys on the first floors office premises, the fourth and fifth are occupied by the Boyarsky Dvor hotel.

The building of the Court looked out from behind the massive Kitai-Gorod wall, so Shekhtel decorated only the attic and upper floors of the building, bay windows ending with turrets that looked like the towers of an ancient castle.

In 1914-1915, Maxim Gorky stayed in one of the hotel rooms; Fyodor Chaliapin and Ivan Bunin visited him here.

Now the building is occupied by the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

Boyar ranks.

We will finish the tour of Morozov’s places near the building Handicraft Museum (Leontyevsky Lane, 7/1)- a sample of the so-called Russian architectural style. The house can be attributed to the experience of historical retrospective architecture, trying to recreate national images. It was built to order Sergei Timofeevich Morozov, brother of Savva Timofeevich, at the beginning of the 20th century.

In its style, the building is quite mediocre and cannot be compared with such great masterpieces as the Pertseva house, for example, or the Yaroslavl station. But myself Handicraft Museum was a brilliant phenomenon. Morozov was a great connoisseur of folk crafts. The handicraft museum, founded by him back in 1885, was first located on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, and then moved to Leontyevsky Lane. There is a large collection of carved items on display here. Currently this is Museum of Folk Crafts.

Museum of Folk Crafts

Olga Vaganova/AiF

Total 16 photos

This amazing Morozov palace is located in Bolshoy Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane (1-3, building 1). Just like that, idly, you won’t stumble upon him in countless streets White City Old Moscow. This mansion is essentially an integral part of the famous (and not so famous) on Ivanovskaya Gorka. Perhaps it would be correct to combine the history of the mansion with the history of the Morozovsky Garden in one publication, but after reflection, I came to the conclusion that it would still be better to highlight the mansion in a separate material, so as not to overload the history of the Morozovsky Garden as a place of public use, with in fact, private property on this land plot, which allowed the current owner to dispose of our history for some time at his own discretion. Thus, we will get the history of the mansion with all the detailed historical calculations, passions and showdowns of the current owner with the public and the Moscow Government. And Morozovsky Garden will become for us just that place, a miraculously surviving pearl, where you can rest and relax, which is located among the dense (two-story and higher buildings) stone jungle of Old Moscow, which we will do in the next post.

IN mid-18th century centuries, the city estate belonged to Lieutenant Narbekov. In 1772, the property where the Morozov Garden is located belonged to Prince Sergei (Serban) Cantemir, the son of the Moldavian ruler Dmitry Cantemir. In 1775, it was he who sold his estate Black Dirt to Catherine II, which was renamed Tsaritsyno. One of the subsequent owners of the estate, foreman D.N. Lopukhina set up a private school in the manor house that has survived to this day. Andrei Delvig, brother of the poets Alexander and Anton Delvig, a military engineer, future builder of the Moscow water supply system, minister and senator, studied there.

In 1855, the house was bought by Vasily Aleksandrovich Kokorev, the “farmer king”, who became rich from drinking farms. One of the founders of the Russian oil industry, the creator of several large insurance and trading companies. Kokorev was one of the most prominent representatives economic Slavophilism, and called for “stopping the search for economic foundations outside the fatherland” (isn’t it relevant today!?). From these ideas organically grew the Slavophile ideas of the revival of Russian national culture which he embodied in collecting paintings by Russian masters, objects folk art and everyday life. Kokorev acted as a philanthropist, supporting talented Russian artists and performers.
02.

V.A. Kokorev “magnificently” rebuilt the manor house in the 1860s according to the design of the architect I.D. Blueberry. On January 22, 1862, Kokorevskaya was opened in the house art gallery. In the central room of the ground floor there was the then famous Tivoli restaurant, with a winter and summer gardens, and in the summer there was a “belvedere from which a beautiful view of Moscow opens.”

View of the Kremlin from the observation deckMorozovskymansion. 1850s.
03.

The garden in front of the house, which was then called Kokorevsky, was publicly accessible. The gallery existed for only three years, Kokorev’s financial affairs were shaken, and the house and land ownership were sold in 1889 - the mansion passed to Timofey Savvich and Maria Fedorovna Morozov, the parents of the famous philanthropist Savva Morozov. Here Savva Morozov spent his childhood years.

The mansion was immediately rebuilt in 1898 by architect P.A. Drittenpreis in Russian style.
04.

Sergei Timofeevich Morozov also took part in the external design and interiors of the palace, who even had his own art workshop, converted from a greenhouse. S.T. Morozov provided Levitan with this workshop for use in the fall of 1889, where he worked and personally lived. It has been preserved in the depths of the mansion’s courtyard and is marked with a memorial plaque. Here Levitan wrote almost all of his best paintings, it was in this small house that he became famous - the same Levitan whose landscapes continue to be admired to this day.
05.

In one of the rooms on the top floor of the mansion they set up an Old Believer house church. Frequent guests of the Morozov house were Tretyakov, Chaliapin, Chekhov, Timiryazev, Valentin Serov, Korovin, Ostroukhov, and Vasnetsov. In 1889 Maria Fedorovna, who far outlived her husband and was the owner of a 30 million dollar fortune, remained the mistress of the house until 1911. In 1911 M.F. Morozova died, after which the value of home ownership was assessed at Bolshoy Trekhsvyatitelsky, 1. It reached 234.7 thousand rubles - it was one of the most expensive home ownership in Moscow. For comparison, the three houses of P.M. Ryabushinsky (including the one where the Gorky Museum is now - on Malaya Nikitskaya) cost only 167 thousand rubles.
06.

In the summer of 1918, the headquarters of the left socialist revolutionaries (left socialist revolutionaries) moved to the former Morozov estate. On July 7, 1918, the German ambassador to Moscow, Count W. Mirbach, was killed by a bomb thrown by the left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin. The murder signaled the beginning of the uprising of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries against the Bolsheviks. In the house there was a detachment under the command of the Socialist Revolutionary Popov. The detachment consisted of 800 people, 8 guns, 2 armored cars and a dozen machine guns. They occupied Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane, a telephone exchange (the one located on the outer side of Pokrovsky Boulevard) and a telegraph office, fired guns at the Kremlin and sent out telegrams calling for an uprising. It was here that the killer of the German ambassador Mirbach, Yakov Blumkin, hid. When Felix Dzerzhinsky came here to arrest him, but he himself was taken under arrest on the orders of Popov.

The suppression of the rebellion was led personally by V.I. Lenin. Members of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the 5th All-Russian Congress The Soviets were arrested, and a Latvian army was thrown against the headquarters of the Social Revolutionaries in the area of ​​Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane. rifle division under the command of I.I. Vatsetis. By two o'clock in the afternoon on July 7, the rebellion was suppressed.

07.

From the 1920s until 2001, the former palace housed kindergarten sanatorium type. The garden was open 24 hours a day, reasonably well maintained and enjoyed great love local residents. In winter it was the most popular place for sledding down the mountains.
08.

Everything changed when in 2001 the Morozov mansion was transferred to an investor - construction company PS Interstroy LLC, which received the right to reconstruct it and improve the garden. In addition to the investor company, another, more famous one was registered in the Morozov mansion commercial organization- South Ural Industrial Company LLC. With the appearance of a private owner at the house, the Morozovsky Garden, without any legal basis, was actually privatized and closed under the pretext of carrying out landscaping work.
09.

In the spring of 2002, when restorers came here to fix the remaining valuable elements of the building, memorial interiors were already completely destroyed, part of the internal walls was demolished, cast-iron galleries and a luxurious cast-iron staircase (1861) were dismantled, the white stone portal of the lobby was destroyed, and an underground parking lot for 38 cars was built under the garden. Now inside the house all that remains from the antiquity are the vaults of the lower floor and the remains of Baroque platbands, hidden under a layer of plaster. The park was planned to remain an accessible city square, but it turned out to be closed and half cut down.

The “improvement” promised by the investor resulted in a complete reconstruction of the Morozovsky Garden in the “New Russian” style. The fence line has been significantly roughened. The fence itself has been raised. Both of the previously existing corner entrances to the garden with stairs were blocked; instead of them, a small gate with a grille, locked with a lock, was made in the rebuilt fence. The white stone staircase connecting the garden terraces was destroyed. The terraces themselves were supported by rough walls made of black concrete blocks. The wide alleys on the sides of the garden were narrowed and paved. The garden was especially disfigured by the black-painted ventilation hoods that appeared above the underground parking lot.
10.

A dull impression is made by the “cemetery design” of the lower part of the garden, covered with a tight labyrinth of polished granite borders, flower beds and flower beds, “gracefully” framed in the same black blocks. There is no room left here for benches, or even for full-fledged walks. The garden is oversaturated with plants that are completely unusual for the Russian garden tradition, such as thuja.
11.

In general, the Morozov Garden has acquired an overall dark, gloomy coloring; it is heavily shaded, and the sun has gone out of it. Thus, the object cultural heritage of regional importance, the monument of landscape architecture suffered serious damage.
12.

Residents of the area have repeatedly appealed to the authorities with a request to return Morozovsky Garden to public use. In December 2010, the Morozov Garden initiative group was created, which managed to achieve the restoration of open access to the garden. In March 2011, a corresponding order was issued by the prefect of the Central Administrative District on the opening of the Morozov Garden for citizens.
13.

Currently, the gate, despite the dissatisfaction of the owner of the mansion, is unlocked during the day, but remains closed, so that a casual passer-by is unlikely to guess that there is an entrance at all. The upper terrace of the garden, adjacent to the mansion, is still inaccessible - the guards drive the few who wander into the garden from there, citing instructions from the owner...
14.Services the building of the substation "Interstroy" under the management of Sardarov's brother-in-law.

I wouldn’t like to end the story of “Morozov’s Mansion” with information about our billionaires, so I propose to move on to less informational, but more colorful, from my point of view, material, where the main thing is beauty and tranquility - to a post about the Morozov Garden (currently the material is in development) ...

Sources:

“Murdered Moscow”: Morozov Garden. Joint project IA REX and OD Arkhnadzor “Murdered Moscow”. Portal IA Rex.
Morozov mansion.Tatiana Smirnova. Portal "Discover Moscow".

Portal forum mosday.ru
Wikipedia

In Moscow, at Vozdvizhenka, building 16/3, stands one of the most unusual ancient buildings in the capital. The architecture of this building was so amazing for Russia XIX century, that his contemporaries were unable to appreciate him. And in our time, Morozov’s mansion on Vozdvizhenka is perceived as a wonderful palace, similar to those described in fairy tales.

History of the mansion

It all started with the fact that three brothers from the wealthy merchant family of the Morozovs argued about how best to immortalize their name in history, and what works of art should be collected for this. The younger brother, Arseny Morozov (1873-1908), decided for this purpose to build an unusual house that would stand for centuries. U young man there was a suitable plot for construction, given by my mother for her 25th birthday. Together with his friend, architect Viktor Mazyrin, he traveled all over Spain and Portugal in search of a house that could be a prototype for their Moscow construction. The millionaire was most impressed by Pena Castle in Sintra (in Portugal). This masterpiece was erected there in the Middle Ages in the Moorish-Spanish style.

Friends returned to Moscow and work began to boil. Public opinion was shocked even at the construction stage, but Morozov did not pay attention to the ridicule and made sketches of his miracle castle with his own hands. After the construction of the mansion on Vozdvizhenka was completed in 1899, the barrage of criticism only intensified. Morozov’s efforts were not appreciated even by his own mother, not to mention strangers. In the novel “Resurrection” by Leo Tolstoy there are disapproving words about this palace. However, Morozov was delighted with the house and turned out to be right - a hundred years have passed, not a trace remains of many of the “correct” houses of the Moscow nobility, and the non-standard castle delights and surprises guests of the capital to this day.

Castle architecture

The front entrance of the house and the two towers on the sides are made in a distinct neo-Moorish style. The opening itself has the shape of a horseshoe, the stucco molding is made in the form of shells, the columns are twisted, and the cornice is openwork. All this adds up to a unique flavor. It’s hard to say about other parts of the amazing mansion exactly what style they are in. There are elements of classicism here, and the lack of symmetry clearly points to modernist techniques in architecture.

The decoration of the rooms inside expresses the widest range of preferences and interests of the extravagant millionaire. The dining room was called by him the “knight’s hall”, this good example pseudo-gothic. And the living room in which the balls were held is an example of the Empire style. Morozov chose to decorate his wife’s boudoir in the Baroque style, but this did not save the couple from actual divorce. Some rooms have Chinese or Arabic interiors. Outside, a small hanging garden was laid out above the mansion.

The owner did not live long in his exotic nest. The death of Arseny Morozov was in highest degree unusual - he died because of a bet at the age of 35. Knowing that his family did not approve of this house, he bequeathed it to his mistress, as they said in those days, “a lady of the demimonde.” Very soon the mansion was sold to the wealthy oil industrialist Montashev.

Mansion after the revolution

After 1917, anarchists briefly settled in the house, then a troupe mobile theater. In the pre-war years, the Japanese Embassy was located here, during the Second World War - the British Embassy, ​​after the war - the Indian Embassy. Since about 1959, Morozov’s mansion on Vozdvizhenka began to be called the House of Peoples’ Friendship; meetings with foreign representatives and film screenings of foreign films took place there.

In 2003, a major reconstruction and restoration of the building was carried out. By special order, mahogany furniture was made, copied by restorers from available samples of objects. late XIX century. Since 2006 it has been the Reception House of our government. It hosts official events related to the representation of Russia in international organizations.

In a wonderful mansion on Vozdvizhenka they successfully hold important meetings between delegations from different countries, diplomatic negotiations and conferences at the international level. In this bizarre way, Morozov’s prophetic predictions about the great future of the house he built came true.