51, Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street Pozdnyakov’s – Volkova’s – Gribov’s City Mansion

Location: 51 Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street
Pozdnyakov’s – Volkova’s – Gribov’s City Mansion

Regional cultural heritage site

Architects: P. A. Ushakov, E. I. Zelensky

Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street is located in the Presnensky District of Moscow, renowned for its unique architectural landmarks: the Ryabushinskys’ Mansion, the Grand Ascension Church linked to Alexander Pushkin. A. V. Suvorov’s house and the famous Dolgorukys’ Mansion that inspired the Rostovs’ House in War and Peace, are all close by.

The two-story white and pink house, modern number 51, is another example of the surviving 19th century architecture. In the late 18th century, the plot was a part of a large mansion on Povarskaya Street owned by State Councilor’s wife, E. G. Boltina. Several decades later, it passed to Princess A. N. Volkonskaya.

After the 1812 fire, the mansion was built anew: a wooden house with wings and one- or two-story service buildings in the courtyard. By the mid-19th century, the property was divided into 2 plots on Povarskaya and Bolshaya Nikitskaya Streets. The latter was owned by Chamber Junker Ilya Nikolaevich Pozdnyakov.

In 1860, the new owner started building a two-story residential house with a service foundation. Three years later, the project was complete. Both residential levels were occupied by the owner and his mother; the stone building housed a kitchen with tiled oven.

Thirty years later, the mansion was bought by V. S. Volkova, widow of a hereditary honorary citizen. In the next few years, under architect P. Ushakov’s oversight, its stone fence and gates were restored.

By 1907, the property’s owner came to first guild merchant Vladimir Nazarovich Gribov (heir to the N. F. Gribov & Sons Trade House, textile trade). Soon, the new owner started to refurbish the roof adding a dome and a zinc banister. Probably in his time, the main building’s interior was decorated in the fashionable eclectic style. The interior furnishings demonstrated certain trends popular in the best Moscow mansions of the late 19th – early 20th century: the entrance in the Classical Greek and Egyptian style led to the French Classicist grand hall, the Italian Renaissance dining room, and an enfilade of sitting rooms styled in the Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo aesthetics. Just 4 years later, however, disenchanted with the latest trends, Gribov decided to remake the house “in the old style” following the architectural legacy of the Moscow nobility. That was how the famous mansion “with lions” appeared in Khlebny Lane (number 15), while the Bolshaya Nikitskaya property was sold.

After the Revolution, the mansion grounds were handed over to the Lenin International School, while the main building, as All Moscow address calendars tell us, was in 1925 – 1936 used as the Young Pioneers House of the Workers and Peasants’ Inspection Central Committee. Starting with the 1960s, the property has been accommodating foreign diplomatic missions.