Many people know the history of this house, but repetition is mother teachings, for those who did not know or forgot.
The merchant Igumnov was a very rich man. So far on satellite map Abkhazia
in the village of Alakhadzi, one can distinguish his initials: "INV" - these are cypress alleys,
figuratively planted a hundred years ago. Nikolai Vasilyevich was a co-owner of the Yaroslavl
Large manufactory, had gold mines in Siberia.
In 1888 he decided to equip his Moscow residence,
which today houses the French embassy.

The place on Yakimanka was in no way considered prestigious at that time.
Dilapidated houses, far from the center.
Igumnov justified his choice by the fact that his childhood passed somewhere here (history did not preserve early biographical data, even the year of his birth is unknown). According to other legends, the remoteness from the center was required for privacy from prying eyes, because the house was not conceived for ordinary life.

Be that as it may, Igumnov bought back from a certain merchant Nikolai Lukyanov wooden house ik,
demolished it and attracted a young talented city architect of Yaroslavl Nikolai Pozdeev for a new construction.
The architect at that time had just turned 33, but in Yaroslavl he had already received recognition thanks to a number of solid buildings. By the way, it cannot be ruled out that it was the architect, whose childhood was spent near Maloyaroslavets, who advised the customer to the place near the Kaluga outpost, and acquaintance with Moscow came from here.

A house was built in the form of a fairy-tale palace in the pseudo-Russian style.
Igumnov wanted to conquer the Mother See and did not skimp.
Bricks for construction were transported to the construction site directly
from Holland, tiles and tiles were ordered at porcelain factories
Kuznetsov, interior decoration was entrusted to one of the most popular
then architects Petr Boitsov. It was possible to unite into a single whole
the most diverse and complex components: turrets, tents,
arches, columns. The stylistic similarity of the mansion is found
with the masterpiece of Moscow architecture of the same years - the State
Historical Museum. Today the building is an object of cultural
heritage of federal significance, but originally Moscow
"light" reacted to the palace more than cool.

According to legend, the frustrated Igumnov refused to pay for everything,
which was not paid in advance, after which the architect Pozdeev
committed suicide. According to another version, the architect died from severe
disease at the age of 38. This project was his last work.

The capital did not want to accept a rich and successful provincial.
Soon rumors spread around the city that in the mansion of Nikolai Vasilyevich
lived a young mistress-dancer. Once, without suffering treason,
the merchant walled her up alive in the wall.
Who spread the rumors is unknown, but Igumnov has ill-wishers
were very influential.
When in 1901 the merchant decided to have a ball in the house on Yakimanka,
he, according to his habit, wanted to impress the guests with his scope.
For this floor dance hall was full of brand new
golden chervonets.
And the very next day in St. Petersburg, Nicholas II was informed
How Moscow merchants danced on imperial profiles,
minted on coins.
The reaction followed immediately: by the highest order
Nikolai Igumnov was expelled from the Mother See, without the right to return to it.

The place of exile chosen by the authorities was by no means a resort: the Abkhazian coast
Sukhum region was then swampy, teeming with malarial mosquitoes
and poisonous snakes. Looking around, the disgraced merchant bought for nothing
6 thousand acres of local swamps and began new life.
First successful business was created with the help of fishermen discharged from the Don.
Igumnov mastered the trade and opened the first cannery on the Black Sea coast.

Comfortable living conditions were created for the workers: seasonal workers were provided with a hostel with rooms for two people and large smoking rooms, permanent workers received separate houses, which after a few years became their property.
Igumnov brought eucalyptus and swamp cypress trees here, which quickly pulled out excess moisture
from local soils. Chernozem was delivered from the Kuban, pedigree cattle from Yaroslavl, the merchant became interested in gardening. Through his efforts, mandarin, kiwi, mango, tobacco plantations appeared in these lands,
the enterprise "Abkhazian Bamboo" began to work, cypress alleys that have survived to this day appeared.

After the revolution, Nikolai Vasilyevich refused to emigrate to France.
He voluntarily transferred his property to the state and got a job as an agronomist at the citrus state farm named after the Third International, which became known as his former estate.
Nikolai Vasilyevich died in 1924, they buried him modestly, planting cypresses he loved on the grave.

History sometimes likes to grimace. If the emperor took away a house from a merchant for a ball on coins with his image, then after the revolution and nationalization, the building became for several years ... a club of the Goznak factory.
The next owner of the house on Yakimanka corresponded to the gloomy legends that surrounded the mansion: in 1925, a brain laboratory settled here for 13 years
(since 1928 - the Brain Institute).
During this time, the brain of Lenin, Clara Zetkin, Tsyurupa, Lunacharsky, Andrei Bely, Mayakovsky, Gorky, Pavlov, Michurin, Tsiolkovsky, Kalinin, Kirov, Kuibyshev, Krupskaya…

In 1938, the mansion was handed over to the French Embassy. In 1944, President Charles de Gaulle presented awards to the pilots of the Normandie-Niemen squadron here.
The Dutch brick building is still kept in perfect condition by the staff of the French diplomatic mission.

About the ghost of Igumnov's house.
Rumor has it that it is still in the building French embassy the so-called "white woman".
According to legend, this small mansion was presented by the merchant Igumnov to his kept woman.
He himself lived in Yaroslavl, and visited the capital on short trips. He usually warned his lady of the heart about his arrivals through a sent servant.
But one day he arrived without warning and found his beloved with a young cornet...
The owner kicked Cornet in the neck, but the girl then disappeared without a trace.
There were rumors that the merchant in his hearts killed her, and the corpse was immured in the wall of the mansion.

According to another legend, his young stoker is to blame for everything. The guy allegedly began to flirt with the pretty daughter of a merchant, for which he was soon excommunicated forever from a rich house.
True, this was not the end of the matter. Rumor claims that before leaving, the offended stoker secretly filled the chimneys with clay shards.
As a result, when furnaces were heated in the palace-terem, the pipes and even the walls began to make terrible sounds (for some reason, especially at night), from which the owner suffered unbearably.

But back to the house. Pseudo-Russian style was chosen for the construction,
very fashionable at the time Historical Museum, GUM store building, etc.).
This style of architecture drew inspiration from the image of Russian wooden towers,
the most famous of which is the palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye -
burned down in the 18th century.

Other decorative elements were taken from church architecture.
(St. Basil's Cathedral) or the churches of Yaroslavl, which are beautiful
combined brick, stone and multi-colored tiles.

On the high roof of the mansion, crushed metal under the tiles,
ceramic inserts. Above the "red porch" (the main entrance
elegant antique double arch.
Walls made of imported Dutch bricks. White window trim
suburban stone. Picturesque bell towers, bulbous domes of tents,
inflated columns. Multi-color mosaic of the rarest tiles, specially
painted according to the drawings of the Russian painter S. Maslennikov
and manufactured at the famous Kuznetsov factory.

Pozdeev's talent managed to combine various volumes into a single whole,
crowned with picturesque tents, and numerous decorative
details of different genres (bells, vaulted arches, exaggerated columns, etc.).
The result is harmonious, although a little massive.

On the day of the museums, I was lucky enough to get inside! There will be a lot of photos so that you can say that you saw how it was inside. I apologize for the quality of some of the photos and people in the frame. It's hard to take perfect pictures on a tour.

The interior is also replete with decorations. The hall and the main staircase are a masterpiece of multi-colour, perfectly combined with the exterior decoration of the building.
"Old Russian" hall with a front staircase.

Extraordinarily beautiful doors
There are four of them in the hall and none of them are the same.

The fragment shows what the painting was originally. There is an idea to refresh the walls, which I don’t like at all.

We rise to the second floor.

We open a massive door and ... we get from the Middle Ages into the interiors of Louis XV

We make the transition from one century to another through the gallery in the Empire style. The reception of the exterior in the interior.
A finish commonly used for façade work. A mirror at the end of a hallway elongates the room endlessly.

From the side of the corridor, the door is the simplest, without finishing.

Unfortunately, I did not find anything about the interiors of the house. Therefore, I propose to look photos and information
try to find it yourself, you might have better luck.

Round, mirrored room. Very bright, flirty.

Hospitable hosts prepared tea and coffee for us.

View from the window to the balcony.

The mansion decorated with mosaics at Bolshaya Yakimanka, 43, which today houses the French Embassy in Moscow, like a fabulous Russian tower, attracts the attention of everyone who finds themselves in this area. They took him to XIX century not far from the Kaluga outpost at the expense of the entrepreneur Nikolai Igumnov, who was the owner of most of the share contribution of the very successful Yaroslavl linen manufactory.

It is worth noting that the choice of a place for the construction of such a luxurious house caused high society bewilderment. And there were reasons for this, because the district itself was not prestigious, and the surrounding architecture was disheartening with its gray and unpretentious facades.

The owner of the mansion, Nikolai Igumnov, explained to everyone that he grew up in this area, and therefore decided to settle here. But, it seems, not the last argument was his desire to live apart, away from the then vain Moscow (we must not forget that in the 19th century it was the far outskirts of the Mother See).

Before the construction of the Igumnov mansion on Bolshaya Yakimanka, there was a very modest wooden house of the merchant Nikolai Lukyanov, built on the site of buildings that burned down in 1812. Under the next owners - the Krasheninnikovs - in its place was already a stone main house surrounded by various buildings. In 1851, the property passed to the family of Vera Yakovlevna Igumnova, who paid huge sums of money for it at that time - 17,140 silver rubles.

In 1888, Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov, who by that time had become the sovereign owner of the site, filed a petition for the construction of a new house here, which would emphasize high status and wealth of the owner. To solve this problem, they hired a talented architect Nikolai Ivanovich Pozdeev, who practiced more in the city of Yaroslavl and at that time held the position of city architect. It is worth noting that this was his last work.

To create the pompous Igumnov mansion at Bolshaya Yakimanka, 43, a pseudo-Russian style was chosen, which at that time was the most in demand in Moscow architecture (for example, the buildings of the Historical Museum and GUM). In addition, some of the elements were borrowed from the architecture of religious buildings - temples and churches in Moscow and Yaroslavl, the facades of which were skillfully decorated with red brick, natural stone and bright tiles.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov spared no expense to build this masterpiece. So, he bought a brick in Holland itself, and ordered multi-colored tiles at the porcelain factories of the merchant Kuznetsov.

Construction was completed in 1893. The architect Pozdeev was able to skillfully combine various decorative details and forms into a single whole: pointed tents, vaulted arches, various columns and even bell towers.

Igumnov's mansion looks very harmonious, despite some massiveness of the structure. Him main facade, overlooking Bolshaya Yakimanka Street, clearly displayed the main artistic intent, which was conceived by the architect and his customer. He emphasized in his forms the abundance and wealth of the owner.

In the middle part of the house, a two-level tower was planned, the completion of which was a high, with an openwork forged grating on top, a four-pitched roof with dormer window openings cut along the surface in a magnificent frame.

Rows of decoratively made cornices are located a little lower and are placed one under the other. Under them there are 5 arched window openings, the middle of which is decorated with hanging weights - one of the architectural elements characteristic of architecture. epoch XVII centuries.

Around the window openings there is a frame made of barrel-shaped columns, standing two by two right next to each other. On both sides of the mansion-terem there are passages that lead to the depths of the courtyard to improvised towers.

But what today is admirable, at the time of completion was subjected to derogatory criticism. Such a response, especially from the architectural community, plunged Igumnov into despondency and made him disappointed in the talents of the architect. This is what led to the tragedy - the merchant refused to pay for the expenses incurred in excess of the estimate, which led to the ruin of the architect, and then to the suicide of the latter.

The history of the Igumnov mansion on Bolshaya Yakimanka

The history of Igumnov's mansion at 43, Bolshaya Yakimanka Street, where the French embassy is located today, is shrouded in sad legends. The most impressionable associate this with the tragic death of the architect Pozdeev.

So, they said that Igumnov once settled his next mistress in these walls, and when he convicted her of infidelity, he ordered her to be immured in one of the walls of his rich house. The ghost of the dancer, it seems, still wanders around the rooms and strikes fear into the local residents.

Another legend says that, supposedly, the host once decided to impress his distinguished guests and came up with the idea of ​​covering the parquet of one of the main halls with gold coins, on which, of course, the image of the emperor was minted. Those who arrived at the party were advancing on him. So it was or not, but they say that this caused displeasure among the reigning persons, in connection with which Igumnov departed for his southern fiefdom. And soon the October Revolution happened ...

The Bolsheviks nationalized the Igumnov mansion on Yakimanka in 1917, and the club of the Moscow factory Goznak moved into its premises. He did not stay here for long - until 1925, after which medical scientists appeared here, who, in particular, studied the brain of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who had already died at that time. This institution was led by a German neuroscientist Oskar Vogt.

By 1928, the labs had been upgraded to the Institute of the Brain, where they were trying to decipher some code of genius that would make it possible to form a superman. So, here they studied the brain of Clara Zetkin, Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky, Maxim Gorky, scientists Pavlov and Tsialkovsky, as well as Kalinin and Krupskaya.

Until 1938, when the property was finally transferred to the French Embassy, ​​a workers' club also managed to work within these walls.

It is worth noting that when the French diplomats, followed by the restorers and architects who came from Paris, saw interior decoration they were simply amazed by the local beauty. Subtle restoration work was carried out to preserve the former decor, but a certain “Parisian chic” was added to the general surroundings - carefully selected upholstery materials and curtains, furniture and chandeliers.

Igumnov's mansion on Bolshaya Yakimanka, house 43 is recognized as one of the best examples of the "Russian style" late XIX century. None of the works on the architecture of Moscow ignores this unique and beautiful building.

Covered in legends, this architectural masterpiece of federal importance - the most recognizable Moscow house built in the Russian style.

The stone mansion of the Igumnov House is located on Bolshaya Yakimanka Street and is the most striking architectural example of the style, reminiscent of ancient Russian chambers.

Many mysterious legends and conjectures are connected with the mansion: about Igumnov's mistress, immured in the wall; about the floors in the front door lined with gold coins...

But back to reality. On the site of the wooden construction of the house of the merchant Lukyanov in 1895, a young Yaroslavl city planner Nikolai Pozdeev built a mansion in an eclectic pseudo-Russian style. The customer is a merchant and co-owner of the Yaroslavl Big Manufactory Nikolai Igumnov. The interiors of the fashionable house were designed by the architect, designer of the manor construction Peter Boitsov and the brother of the author of the project, Ivan Pozdeev.

The masonry of the walls of the house is made of Dutch bricks. Especially for decoration finishing works at the famous Kuznetsov factory, multicolored mosaic tiles and tiles are made according to the sketches and drawings of the Russian ceramist S. Maslennikov.

The high roof of the mansion is embossed metal resembling tiles with ceramic inserts. The main entrance is the “Red Porch”, above which an elegant double arch flaunts. The edging of the window openings is made of white stone.

In a single whole harmonious architecture combines volumetric elements, picturesque bulbous domes of tents, decorative vaulted arches, bell towers, puffed columns. The main staircase and the hall are classics of multicolor.

The living room is the splendor of a rich interior, massive doors, stylized baroque and rococo furniture, tapestries of the 17th century. They especially emphasize the "French atmosphere" in the interior. The small salon and dining room adjoining the living room are furnished in the Empire style.

After the revolution of 1917 there were both a workers' club and a house of pioneers. AT Soviet time the mansion was handed over to the doctor and natural scientist Alexander Bogdanov, who promotes the theory of rejuvenation of the human body through blood transfusion. Bogdanov's theory was supported by the country's top leadership, and on Stalin's orders, the world's first Blood Institute was created in the Igumnov House on Yakimanka. Subsequently, the Institute of the Brain settled in the building.

In 1938, the building was handed over to the French Embassy, ​​and in 1944, in the Igumnov House, the pilots of the Normandie-Niemen squadron received their high awards. This is evidenced by a commemorative bas-relief on the wall of the building.

In 1979, the Igumnov House was officially transferred to the residence of French high-ranking persons and the diplomatic corps.

The house of the merchant Igumnov is a historical mansion in Moscow, located in the Yakimanka district on Bolshaya Yakimanka Street. The mansion building is an object cultural heritage federal significance

Many people know the history of this house, but repetition is the mother of learning, for those who did not know or forgot.
The merchant Igumnov was a very rich man. So far on the satellite map of Abkhazia
in the village of Alakhadzi, one can distinguish his initials: "INV" - these are cypress alleys,
figuratively planted a hundred years ago.

Nikolai Vasilyevich was a co-owner of the Yaroslavl
Large manufactory, had gold mines in Siberia.
In 1888 he decided to equip his Moscow residence,
which today houses the French embassy.

All sorts of things were said about Igumnov's house, built by Pozdeev on Yakimanka ...

The place on Yakimanka was in no way considered prestigious at that time.
Dilapidated houses, far from the center.
Igumnov justified his choice by the fact that his childhood passed somewhere here (history did not preserve early biographical data, even the year of his birth is unknown). According to other legends, the remoteness from the center was required for privacy from prying eyes, because the house was not conceived for ordinary life.

Be that as it may, Igumnov bought a wooden house from a certain merchant Nikolai Lukyanov,
demolished it and attracted a young talented city architect of Yaroslavl Nikolai Pozdeev for a new construction.
The architect at that time had just turned 33, but in Yaroslavl he had already received recognition thanks to a number of solid buildings. By the way, it cannot be ruled out that it was the architect, whose childhood was spent near Maloyaroslavets, who advised the customer to the place near the Kaluga outpost, and acquaintance with Moscow came from here.

A house was built in the form of a fairy-tale palace in the pseudo-Russian style.
Igumnov wanted to conquer the Mother See and did not skimp.
Bricks for construction were transported to the construction site directly
from Holland, tiles and tiles were ordered at porcelain factories
Kuznetsov, interior decoration was entrusted to one of the most popular
then architects Petr Boitsov.

It was possible to unite into a single whole
the most diverse and complex components: turrets, tents,
arches, columns.

The stylistic similarity of the mansion is found
with the masterpiece of Moscow architecture of the same years - the State
Historical Museum. Today the building is an object of cultural
heritage of federal significance, but originally Moscow
"light" reacted to the palace more than cool.

In addition, representatives of Moscow architecture criticized the completed building. Unable to bear such persecution, Pozdeev committed suicide. It is believed that he cursed his creation, predicting emptiness and the eternal absence of comfort in the house. This is exactly what happened - the palace that cost the life of its author, long years empty. Later, the merchant Igumnov presented the house to his young mistress.

The place of exile chosen by the authorities was by no means a resort: the Abkhazian coast
Sukhum region was then swampy, teeming with malarial mosquitoes
and poisonous snakes. Looking around, the disgraced merchant bought for nothing
6 thousand acres of local swamps and began a new life.
The first successful business was created with the help of fishermen discharged from the Don.
Igumnov mastered the trade and opened the first cannery on the Black Sea coast.

Comfortable living conditions were created for the workers: seasonal workers were provided with a hostel with rooms for two people and large smoking rooms, permanent workers received separate houses, which after a few years became their property.
Igumnov brought eucalyptus and swamp cypress trees here, which quickly pulled out excess moisture
from local soils. Chernozem was delivered from the Kuban, pedigree cattle from Yaroslavl, the merchant became interested in gardening. Through his efforts, mandarin, kiwi, mango, tobacco plantations appeared in these lands,
the enterprise "Abkhazian Bamboo" began to work, cypress alleys that have survived to this day appeared.

After the revolution, Nikolai Vasilyevich refused to emigrate to France.
He voluntarily transferred his property to the state and got a job as an agronomist at the citrus state farm named after the Third International, which became known as his former estate.
Nikolai Vasilyevich died in 1924, they buried him modestly, planting cypresses he loved on the grave.

History sometimes likes to grimace. If the emperor took away a house from a merchant for a ball on coins with his image, then after the revolution and nationalization, the building became for several years ... a club of the Goznak factory.
The next owner of the house on Yakimanka corresponded to the gloomy legends that surrounded the mansion: in 1925, a brain laboratory settled here for 13 years
(since 1928 - the Brain Institute).
During this time, the brain of Lenin, Clara Zetkin, Tsyurupa, Lunacharsky, Andrei Bely, Mayakovsky, Gorky, Pavlov, Michurin, Tsiolkovsky, Kalinin, Kirov, Kuibyshev, Krupskaya…

In 1938, the mansion was handed over to the French Embassy. In 1944, President Charles de Gaulle presented awards to the pilots of the Normandie-Niemen squadron here.
The Dutch brick building is still kept in perfect condition by the staff of the French diplomatic mission.

But back to the house. Pseudo-Russian style was chosen for the construction,
very fashionable in those days (Historical Museum, GUM store building, etc.).
This style of architecture drew inspiration from the image of Russian wooden towers,
the most famous of which is the palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye -
burned down in the 18th century.

Other decorative elements were taken from church architecture.
(St. Basil's Cathedral) or the churches of Yaroslavl, which are beautiful
combined brick, stone and multi-colored tiles.

On the high roof of the mansion, crushed metal under the tiles,
ceramic inserts. Above the "red porch" (the main entrance
elegant antique double arch.
Walls made of imported Dutch bricks. White window trim
suburban stone. Picturesque bell towers, bulbous domes of tents,
inflated columns. Multi-color mosaic of the rarest tiles, specially
painted according to the drawings of the Russian painter S. Maslennikov
and manufactured at the famous Kuznetsov factory.

Pozdeev's talent managed to combine various volumes into a single whole,
crowned with picturesque tents, and numerous decorative
details of different genres (bells, vaulted arches, exaggerated columns, etc.).
The result is harmonious, although a little massive.

On the day of the museums, I was lucky enough to get inside! There will be a lot of photos so that you can say that you saw how it was inside. I apologize for the quality of some of the photos and people in the frame. It's hard to take perfect pictures on a tour.

The interior is also replete with decorations. The hall and the main staircase are a masterpiece of multi-colour, perfectly combined with the exterior decoration of the building.
"Old Russian" hall with a front staircase.

Extraordinarily beautiful doors
There are four of them in the hall and none of them are the same.

The fragment shows what the painting was originally. There is an idea to refresh the walls, which I don’t like at all.

We rise to the second floor.

We open a massive door and ... we get from the Middle Ages into the interiors of Louis XV

We make the transition from one century to another through the gallery in the Empire style. The reception of the exterior in the interior.
A finish commonly used for façade work. A mirror at the end of a hallway elongates the room endlessly.

From the side of the corridor, the door is the simplest, without finishing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything about the interiors of the house. Therefore, I suggest looking at the photos and information
try to find it yourself, you might have better luck.

Round, mirrored room. Very bright, flirty.

Hospitable hosts prepared tea and coffee for us.

View from the window to the balcony.

100 great sights of Moscow Myasnikov senior Alexander Leonidovich

Igumnov's house on Yakimanka

Igumnov's house on Yakimanka

Still, it is not in vain that it is said that one cannot see a face face to face, and a large one is seen at a distance. Especially when the distance is measured over many years. And if that most concerns the beauty of man-made. The history of Igumnov's house on Yakimanka is a vivid confirmation of this.

Yakimanka - one of the oldest districts of Moscow - got its name from the main thoroughfare of Zamoskvorechye.

Zamoskvorechye, that is, what is "beyond the Moscow River", was called the floodplain lands occupied by the gardens of the royal court. This southern direction from the Kremlin was not protected and therefore was constantly subjected to raids and devastation.

Permanent settlements, albeit military, beyond the Moscow River appeared under Vasily III. Grand Duke Moscow built the town of Nalivki (Spasonalivkovsky lanes) for his bodyguards.

Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible in the 1550s founded a strip of settlements of archers and pishchalnikov along the current Klimentovsky lane.

Under Fyodor Ivanovich, the fourth defensive ring of Moscow, Skorod, appeared - a 15-kilometer earthen rampart with a wall of vertical pointed logs. Under the protection of Skorodom, permanent houses began to be built in Zamoskvorechye.

To XIX century the quiet Zamoskvorechye turned into a favorite habitat of the patriarchal Moscow merchants. Them special image life was a favorite theme in the works of the playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, who himself was from Zamoskvorechye.

House of merchant Igumnov on Yakimanka

Yakimanka Street, which gave its name to the historical district of Zamoskvorechye, originates from ancient temple Joachim and Anna, destroyed in 1969. The church was first mentioned in chronicles under 1493. The temple arose on the old way to Kaluga. The main throne of the Church of the Annunciation had a chapel of Joachim and Anna. They are honored as the father and mother of Mary, the long-awaited daughter, given to the elderly in old age. And it was their daughter Mary who gave birth to the Savior. In Russian pronunciation, Joachim became Yakim, Akim. Anna is still Anna. Above Yakim and Anna there were seven domes and a bell tower.

The Igumnov family purchased a house on Yakimanka in 1851. It was a small wooden house, erected after the great Moscow fire of 1812 by the merchant of the second guild, Nikolai Lukyanov. In the traditions of that time, it was for insurance to record real estate on wives, and the building was sold to the merchant Vera Igumnova. In 1888, Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov inherited the site and immediately applied for the construction of a new stone house.

Nikolai Vasilyevich needed a representative house in Moscow, the industrial and commercial heart of Russia. He was one of the directors and owners of the company founded back in early XVIII century Yaroslavl Big Manufactory. And, of course, he needed a house that corresponded to his position in society.

To develop the project and build the mansion, Igumnov invited a young and talented Yaroslavl architect Nikolai Ivanovich Pozdeev. Nikolai Ivanovich, a graduate of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and Imperial Academy of arts in St. Petersburg, at that time he held the position of the city architect of Yaroslavl. When Nikolai Igumnov proposed to Pozdeev to build a mansion on Yakimanka, the architect was only thirty-three years old.

The architect attracted the attention of the industrialist with his commitment to two styles: “Russian” (one of the trends in the then dominant eclecticism) and a variety of classicism, the so-called style of Louis XV. Both styles impressed Igumnov.

The Russian style of architecture drew inspiration from the image of Russian wooden towers, the most famous of which is the palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye.

The architect developed a project that the “textile king” really liked. A large number of decorative details in the Old Russian style: arches with "weights", "pot-bellied" columns, ceramic inserts, a combination of brick and stone, high roof tents - emphasized the multi-component structure of the building, as if hinting at the versatility of the nature of its owner.

Igumnov wanted the house to reflect his wealth and promised to spare no expense in construction.

In 1893 the mansion was completed. It was not just a mansion, but a real Russian tower. The architect's talent managed to combine various volumes crowned with picturesque tents and numerous decorative details of different genres into a single whole. The result is harmonious, although a little massive.

On the high roof of the mansion there is pressed metal under the tiles, ceramic inserts. Above the "red porch" there is an elegant semi-antique double arch. Walls made of imported Dutch bricks. Window edging from white stone near Moscow. Picturesque bell towers, bulbous domes of tents, inflated columns. A multi-colored mosaic of specially painted rare tiles made at the famous Kuznetsov factory.

In the decorative elements of architecture, the motifs of St. Basil's Cathedral (the Church of the Intercession-on-the-Ditch) and the ancient churches of Yaroslavl were seen.

The talent of the architect made it possible to create an atmosphere of Russian epics and at the same time anticipate the later decisions of Moscow Art Nouveau artists.

The high double doors of the “red porch” opened directly into the hall with the main staircase, striking with its multicolored “fabulous” ornament, continuing the idea of ​​the facade.

But immediately behind the massive doors leading to the living room, the style changes completely. The architect immerses the visitor in an atmosphere of European classics. Louis XV style furniture and magnificent 17th century tapestries emphasize the French spirit of this space.

The small salon adjoining the living room is furnished in the style of Louis XVI, and the small dining room is decorated with Empire style furniture and fabrics.

The low vaulted ceiling of the main dining room enhanced the effect of the ascetic Middle Ages.

However, Moscow architects and critics took up arms against the work of the Yaroslavl architect. The mansion was subjected to fierce, downright devastating criticism from the democratic public. Art critic and the publicist Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov quipped about the hodgepodge of styles and bad taste. Stasov believed that the critic is an interpreter public opinion and must express the tastes and demands of the public. And he expressed.

The customer of the Igumnov mansion, who succumbed to these sentiments, quickly became disillusioned with his Yaroslavl architect and refused to pay all the expenses.

The ruined architect Nikolai Ivanovich Pozdeev saw no other way out than to commit suicide.

After 1917, the house was used for various purposes - it was a medical center, then a workers' club.

In 1938, the building was handed over to the French government to house the embassy. The house caused astonishment among the architects who arrived from Paris. The French carried out the restoration very delicately, carefully selected interior items and furniture, and the result was what the architect dreamed of: a Russian-style house with “French chic”.