The main house of the city estate N.V. Igumnova. Tower on Yakimanka (Excursion to the residence of the French Ambassador) Bolshaya Yakimanka 43 French Embassy

Many people are familiar with 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. Still on the satellite map of Abkhazia
in the village of Alakhadzy you can distinguish his initials: “INV” - these are cypress alleys,
figuratively planted a hundred years ago. Nikolai Vasilievich was a co-owner of Yaroslavskaya
Large manufactory, had gold mines in Siberia.
In 1888, he decided to arrange his Moscow residence,
which today houses the French Embassy.

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

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

The 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 directly to the construction site
from Holland, tiles and tiles were ordered from porcelain factories
Kuznetsov, interior decoration was entrusted to one of the most popular
then architects Peter Boitsov. We managed to combine into a single whole
the most diverse and complex components: turrets, tents, vaults
arches, columns. Stylistic similarities between the mansion are revealed
with a masterpiece of Moscow architecture of the same years - the State
Historical Museum. Today the building is a cultural object
heritage of federal significance, but originally Moscow
The “world” reacted more than coolly to the palace.

According to legend, the upset Igumnov refused to pay for everything,
which was not prepaid, after which the architect Pozdeev
committed suicide. According to another version, the architect died from a severe
illness at 38 years of age. This project became his last work.

The capital did not want to accept a rich and successful provincial.
Soon rumors spread around the city that in Nikolai Vasilyevich’s mansion
there lived a young lover-dancer. One day, without suffering betrayal,
the merchant walled her up alive in the wall.
It is unknown who spread the rumors, but Igumnov has ill-wishers
were very influential.
When in 1901 a merchant decided to throw a ball in a house on Yakimanka,
out of his habit, he wanted to amaze the guests with his scale.
For this purpose, the floor of the dance hall was completely covered with new
gold ducats.
And the very next day in St. Petersburg, Nicholas II was informed that
how the Moscow merchants danced on the 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 authorities chose a place of exile that was not a resort: the Abkhaz coast
The Sukhumi region was then swampy and infested with malaria mosquitoes
and poisonous snakes. After looking around, the disgraced merchant bought it for next to 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 dormitory 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 trees and swamp cypresses here, which quickly drew out excess moisture
from local soils. Chernozem was brought from Kuban, breeding stock was brought from Yaroslavl, and the merchant became interested in gardening. Through his efforts, plantations of tangerines, kiwi, mango, tobacco,
The Abkhazian Bamboo enterprise started operating, and 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 the name of his former estate.
Nikolai Vasilyevich died in 1924, he was buried modestly, planting his beloved cypress trees on his grave.

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

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

About the ghost of Igumnov's house.
Rumor has it that there is still a so-called “white woman” in the French embassy building.
According to legend, this small mansion was given as a gift by the merchant Igumnov to his kept woman.
He himself lived in Yaroslavl, and visited the capital on visits. He usually warned the lady of his 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 out, but after that the girl disappeared without a trace.
There were rumors that the merchant killed her in his heart, and walled up her corpse 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 forever excommunicated from the rich house.
True, this did not end the matter. Rumor claims that before leaving, the offended stoker secretly filled the chimneys with clay shards.
As a result, when the stoves in the mansion-palace were flooded, the pipes and even the walls began to make terrible sounds (for some reason, especially at night), from which the owner suffered unbearably.

But let's return to the house. A pseudo-Russian style was chosen for construction,
very fashionable in those days (Historical Museum, GUM store building, etc.).
This style of architecture took 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, in which it is beautiful
Brick, stone and multi-colored tiles were combined.

On the high roof of the mansion there is pressed metal under the tiles,
ceramic inserts. Above the "red porch" (front entrance
elegant antique double arch.
The walls are made of imported Dutch bricks. White window trim
Moscow region stone. Picturesque bells, onion-topped tents,
blown columns. Multi-colored mosaic of the rarest tiles, specially
painted according to drawings by the Russian painter S. Maslennikov
and manufactured at the famous Kuznetsov plant.

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

On museum day I was lucky enough to get inside! There will be a lot of photographs so that you can say that you saw what it was like inside. I apologize for the quality of some of the photographs and the people in the frame. It's difficult to take perfect pictures during a tour.

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

Extraordinarily beautiful doors
There are four of them in the hall and not one is the same

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

We go up to the second floor.

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

We make the transition from one century to another through a gallery in the Empire style. Reception of the exterior into the interior.
The finishing is usually used for facade work. The mirror at the end of the corridor endlessly stretches the room.

On the corridor side, the door is very simple, without decoration.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything about the interiors of the house. Therefore, I suggest you look at the photographs and information
try to find it yourself, maybe you'll have better luck.

Round, mirrored room. Very bright, flirty.

The hospitable hosts prepared us tea and coffee.

View from the window onto the balcony.

The Igumnov House is the most famous Russian-style house in Moscow. Together with the fence of the Church of St. John the Warrior, it forms an architectural ensemble, supported by the new building of the French Embassy, ​​built in 1979.

On March 30, 1851, the wife of a St. Petersburg merchant, Vera Yakovlevna Igumnova, bought it for 17,140 rubles. silver plot with a house from merchant V.D. Krasheninnikova. The history of the Igumnovs' ownership on Yakimanka begins. But the Igumnovs’ main business interests were in Yaroslavl. Back in 1857, the Great Yaroslavl Manufactory (a textile factory of the early 18th century) was purchased by the merchants Karzinkins and G.M. Igumnov. In 1888, Igumnov died. His heir, Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov, in the same year decides to build himself a house in Moscow and commissions the project from Yaroslavl architect N.I. Pozdeev (1885–1893). The first version of the project involved using the walls of an old two-story house that stood on this site. Then this option was abandoned, which allowed the architect to freely place the building on the site, achieving maximum expressiveness of the image. At the same time, the building did not stand out from the row of Empire mansions along Yakimanka, only slightly exceeding them in size, but contrasting with the richness of its decoration.

The complex silhouette formed by the roofs of different volumes of the house is reminiscent of ancient Russian chambers. The facades combine high-quality brickwork, finishing with natural light stone and colored tiles from the Kuznetsov factory. Relief tiles were a feature of Yaroslavl architecture in the 17th century. The tile drawings were made by ceramic artist S.I. Maslennikov. Before the fire of 1884, he was the owner of his own ceramic factory in Vyshnevolotsk district. After the construction of Igumnov's house, Maslennikov began working at the art and industrial school named after. Gogol in Mirgorod.

The interiors of the house are decorated in Russian style and with elements of classicism. Such diversity was fashionable at the end of the 19th century. The decoration was completed in 1895, two years after the death of the architect Nikolai Pozdeev. His brother, also an architect, Ivan Pozdeev, completed the house and supervised the finishing work.

In 1901, the owner of the house was deported to Abkhazia. He never returned to Moscow.

After 1917, the house was occupied by various organizations. There was a workers' club, a Brain Institute, a Blood Transfusion Institute, and a House of Pioneers.

Since 1938, the French Embassy operated in Igumnov’s house, and since 1979 it has been the residence of the Ambassador of the French Republic. Diplomatic receptions and holidays are held here.

Several legends are associated with the house. One of them says that Igumnov built a house to live here with his mistress, a dancer, and left his wife in Yaroslavl, and supposedly his mistress, caught in treason, was immured within the walls of the house. According to the second legend, Igumnov threw a ball in the house, and for greater luxury he ordered the floor to be strewn with golden imperials. Guests walked along them. Well-wishers reported on Igumnov’s act; the authorities regarded such a ball as an insult to the sovereign, because it was his portrait that was placed on the coins. For this, the owner was deported to Abkhazia.

In 2010, restoration work began to restore the building to its former appearance.

The Kuznetsov tiles that decorate the façade of the building required a large amount of restoration work. Slightly damaged ones were restored to their original form on site, those that were lost and could not be restored were replaced with new ones made from analogues. the entire façade tiled decor was cleared and strengthened using special compounds.

The roof, covered with spiater, also suffered significant losses. The entire roof covering was removed in stages, and at the same time an inspection of the surviving elements was carried out. Since it was not possible to recreate the spiater roofing, the technology of which is practically lost, within the established timeframe, it was decided to cover the roof with a modern material of similar quality and color - zinc-titanium. At the same time, part of the preserved spiater was used in the new coating. Separately, there was a reconstruction from old photographs of the decorative finials of the roof tents, also made of zinc-titanium.

In 2014, the object became a laureate of the Moscow Government competition for the best project in the field of preservation and popularization of cultural heritage objects "Moscow Restoration" in the category: "For the best restoration project."

Twice a year, on April 18 and May 18, days of historical and cultural heritage are held. On these days, the doors of embassy buildings located in historical mansions, closed for excursion visits on other days, are opened.

In 1893, a house appeared on Bolshaya Yakimanka, which glorified its owner, Yaroslavl manufacturer Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov. Mansions of red figured brick, topped with various roofs, were decorated with bright tiles. Kokoshniki over the windows and the royal porch created the illusion of the sovereign's mansion

Excursions to other embassies:

02 The picturesque mansion, fenced with a unique wrought iron grille, was placed at the disposal of the French government in 1938, and forty-one years later it became the official residence of the French Ambassador.

03 An architectural masterpiece that combined “Russian style” and French taste, and to this day is the center of interaction between the cultures of the two countries

04 1880s Bolshaya Yakimanka was considered an unpresentable street. Carts and carriages rumbled along the pavement, along which stretched the blank fences of Zamoskvorechye, hiding gardens, barns and unsightly mansions.

05 When the head of the Yaroslavl Large Manufactory Partnership, Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov, submitted a petition to the city government to build a new house in this part of the city, everyone was perplexed.

06 In response, the imperturbable rich man explained that with this building he would like to perpetuate the place where he was born and raised.

07 Construction was entrusted to the Yaroslavl city architect Nikolai Ivanovich Pozdeev, who by that time had already erected a number of churches and merchant houses, while worshiping the “Russian style”.

08 In 1893, opposite the Church of St. John the Warrior, a marvelous two-story red brick tower appeared. Arched windows with “weights”, decorated with “barrel” columns, along with various patterns laid out on the facade, tiles with strange plants and birds - everything was reminiscent of the palace chambers of Moscow Rus'.

09 From the front porch, guests entered the hallway. The low vaults of the entrance hall are painted with floral patterns.

10 ...and then climbed the carved oak staircase to the living quarters. From the antechamber, copper-clad doors led to the state rooms or to the children's quarters. The enfilade connected the living rooms, dining rooms, office, boudoir and bedrooms.

15 Magnificent oak door with large carvings

16 Each step of the ladder lifted a person from twilight to the world of light

24 The geometric pattern of the tiles forms a kind of picturesque carpet on the floor of the second floor hallway.

27 A door opens and from a Russian fairy tale you find yourself in Versailles during the time of Louis XV...

28 The house had more than forty rooms intended for family life, business meetings, recreation, leisure, education and solitude. Since 1938, the French Embassy has been located in Igumnov’s house, and since 1979 it has been the residence of the ambassador. In the ceremonial interiors, which are now at the disposal of the head of the French embassy, ​​diplomatic receptions, cocktails, dinners, concerts and even Russian and French fashion shows are held.

34 The dining room has vaulted ceilings in the style of ancient Russian chambers. The ceilings are white, hence the rumors about the unfinished decoration of the dining room.

37 The small dining room is a mixture of design approaches. Antique cornice and pilasters of the Ionic order are adjacent to full-height mirrors of the walls, added to the interior by a modern French architect

41 Rococo ceiling (sink)

46 Large living room. The luxurious ceiling cornice serves as the basis for sculptural forms.

The mansion decorated with mosaics on Bolshaya Yakimanka, 43, where today the French Embassy in Moscow is located, like a fairy-tale Russian tower, attracts the attention of everyone who finds themselves in this area. It was erected in the 19th century not far from the Kaluga outpost at the expense of the entrepreneur Nikolai Igumnov, who was the owner of most of the shares of the very successful Yaroslavl linen manufactory.

It is worth noting that the choice of location for the construction of such a luxurious house caused bewilderment in high society. And there were reasons for this, because the area itself was not prestigious, and the surrounding architecture was depressing 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 separately, away from the then bustling Moscow (we must not forget that in the 19th century it was the far outskirts of the Mother See).

Photo 1. Igumnov’s mansion on Yakimanka in an old photograph of Moscow

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 - a stone main house stood in its place, surrounded by various buildings. In 1851, ownership passed to the family of Vera Yakovlevna Igumnova, who paid a huge amount of money for it at that time - 17,140 silver rubles.

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

To create the pompous Igumnov mansion on Bolshaya Yakimanka, 43, the pseudo-Russian style was chosen, which at that time was the most popular in Moscow architecture (for example, the buildings of the Historical Museum and GUM). In addition, some 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 in the construction of this masterpiece. Thus, he purchased bricks from Holland itself, and ordered multi-colored tiles from the porcelain factories of the merchant Kuznetsov.

Construction was completed in 1893. Architect Pozdeev managed to skillfully assemble various decorative details and forms into a single whole: pointed tents, arches in the form of vaults, various columns and even bells.

Igumnov’s mansion looks very harmonious, despite the somewhat massive structure. Its main façade, facing Bolshaya Yakimanka Street, clearly reflected the main artistic concept 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 there is a two-level tower, the completion of which is a high, openwork wrought-iron lattice on top, a hipped roof with dormer window openings cut along the surface in a lush frame.

The rows of decoratively made cornices are located slightly lower and are placed one below the other. Below them there are 5 arched window openings, the middle of which is decorated with hanging weights - one of the architectural elements characteristic of the architecture of the 17th century.

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

But what is admired today, at the time of completion of construction was subjected to derogatory criticism. Such a review, especially from the architectural community, plunged Igumnov into despondency and made him disillusioned with the talents of the architect. This is what led to the tragedy - the merchant refused to pay expenses that arose above 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 the Igumnov mansion on Bolshaya Yakimanka Street, building 43, where the French Embassy is located today, is shrouded in sad legends. The most impressionable people associate this with the tragic death of the architect Pozdeev.

So, they said that Igumnov at one time settled his next mistress within these walls, and when he convicted her of infidelity, he ordered her to be walled up 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, allegedly, the owner once decided to impress his distinguished guests and came up with the idea of ​​covering the parquet floor of one of the state rooms with gold coins, on which, naturally, the image of the emperor was minted. It was on him that those who arrived at the party stepped on. Whether this was true or not, they say that this caused displeasure among the reigning persons, and therefore Igumnov left for his southern fiefdom. And soon the October Revolution happened...

The Bolsheviks nationalized Igumnov's mansion on Yakimanka in 1917, and the club of the Moscow Goznak factory moved into its premises. He did not stay here for long - until 1925, after which medical scientists appeared here, engaged, in particular, in studying the brain of the already deceased Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. This institution was led by a neuroscientist from Germany, Oskar Vogt.

By 1928, the laboratories upgraded their status to the Brain Institute, where they tried to decipher a certain code of genius, which would make it possible to create a superman. Thus, the brains of Clara Zetkin, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky, Maxim Gorky, scientists Pavlov and Tsialkovsky, as well as Kalinin and Krupskaya were studied here.

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