A masterpiece misunderstood by contemporaries, the place of the ruined soul, the mint, the institute of the brain and, finally, the ambassadorial residence. Sharp turns of the fate of the owner, architect and the fate of the house itself.
The guests come to Bolshaya Yakimanka, the whole world of Moscow is invited. Still, the oligarch is walking. Guests emerge from the carriages, look around a building unprecedented for the capital - a painted fairytale tower. What's inside? Through the "red porch" they enter the hall with the main staircase. Decorated with floral ornaments, high vaulted ceilings catch enthusiastic whispers and envious grins.
The servants are invited into the living room. And here again the surprise: classic European design, furniture in the style of Louis XV, tapestries of the 17th century on the walls. The excursion in time and styles continues: a small dining room in the Empire style, a ceremonial dining room - the European Middle Ages, already restrained in style. Well, as an exclamation mark for those who have not yet understood the "coolness" of the owner of the house - the floor in the main hall is lined with gold coins.
Nikolai Vasilievich Igumnov.
Not all the guests responded with gratitude for such a luxurious reception, there were "well-wishers". It was reported to the tsar that the imperial face was thrown at his feet. But it is true that the profile of Nicholas II was indeed minted on the gold coins, which those present at the reception walked all evening. The tsar could not bear such disrespect and expelled the owner of the house from Moscow.
This is the final of the master's ownership of the house on Yakimanka by Nikolai Vasilievich Igumnov, the owner of Siberian gold mines and the Yaroslavl manufactory. However, it happened as the architect of the house wished for his creation - "no owner will live here."
What is the house cursed for?
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At the end of the 19th century, Nikolai Igumnov decided to build a house on the site of his childhood estate that would amaze all Moscow nobility. I ordered the architect Nikolai Pozdeev to work from Yaroslavl. The price was negotiated in a very Igumnov way: not LESS THAN a million. The architect did not disappoint, the capital has not yet seen such a project. A luxurious mansion in the old Russian style, turrets and twisted columns, colorful tiles and stone lace, vaulted arches and bell towers, porches and high hipped roofs. The merchant did not spare money for the implementation, he ordered only the best: Italian stone, Dutch bricks, crystal chandeliers from Bohemia, tiles from the Kuznetsovsky porcelain factory. It turned out not just a palace - a fabulous box.
However, the Moscow nobility did not accept (or did not understand) this architectural masterpiece. They called him the bad taste and vulgarity of a bast shoe merchant. Yes, big is seen at a distance. A few years later, Shchusev and Pomerantsev, Sherwood and many other great architects will admire this unrecognized creation of Nikolai Pozdeev and consider Igumnov's house an example of pseudo-Russian style.
Igumnov, when he heard nasty things about his house, in his hearts accused the architect of bad taste and refused to pay him the excess of the budget. And we remember that the upper bar did not exist, so Pozdeev invested in the decoration with his own funds. And it burned out as much as 250 thousand rubles. This is all that he had from his own and borrowed funds. Realizing that he was ruined by the "gray-footed merchant" who did not understand the best creation of the architect, he shouted to the merchant:
A week later, returning to Yaroslavl, Pozdeyev committed suicide.
But his prophecies began to come true
The house did not give the sweet life to Igumnov's lover, the dancer Lyubonka. The merchant settled her in a house on Yakimanka, while he himself traveled around on business. One day he returned unexpectedly without warning, and his Lyuba was having fun with some kind of cornet. Opponent - out, and wrong … walled up in the wall. In any case, the girl was never seen again. But, they say, they heard. The merchant himself did not live in the house after this incident, and the servants did not stay for a long time, ran away, the night voices and the girl's shadow terrified them.
Later, in order to restore the good name of the house, Nikolai Vasilyevich gave that ill-fated reception. And he was forced to leave Moscow forever for his estate in Abkhazia.
New home and new business
And from that moment on, the fate of the merchant Igumnov spins the following plot, no less interesting. His exile, almost like Filatov's, "preferably in July and preferably in Crimea", was the beginning of a new business. In Abkhazia, an enterprising merchant did not lose his head, but bought 600 acres of land, drained the swamps, planting eucalyptus and cypress trees. And on the site of the former swamps, a garden blossomed. What was missing here: tangerines, kiwi, mango, tunga, tobacco, medicinal trees.
But that's not all. He began to breed domestic animals, built a fish cannery on the coast. Having built a small palace for himself, he took care of the life of his workers: a dormitory with double rooms appeared. And for the family he built small houses, which became the property of the worker's family together with the land.
Soviet power did not touch Igumnov: he voluntarily transferred everything to the new government, and he himself remained working as an ordinary agronomist at the state farm.
And what about his "gingerbread house"?
First, a mint was set up in the house, and after Lenin's death - a classified project "Institute of the Brain". Literally. The brains of Lenin, Mayakovsky, Bagritsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky, Kirov, Kuibyshev, Tsiolkovsky, Michurin, Pavlov, Plekhanov and many other politicians and figures of science and culture were studied here. The goal is to search for the secret of genius and create a special Pantheon. For comparison, the brains of "ordinary" people of different nationalities were also brought here. By the way, Ilyich's brain turned out to be much smaller than the "usual" ones.
Later the institute moved, and the building was transferred to the French Embassy in the USSR. Now this is the personal residence of the French Ambassador to Russia.