Profitable house of the insurance company “Russia. Profitable house of the insurance company "Russia Sretensky Boulevard dom 6" 1 building

Total 59 photos

Today we will learn in detail about one of the absolute architectural masterpieces of Old Moscow - the Profitable House of the Rossiya Insurance Company. The complex of buildings in the eclectic style with neo-renaissance and modern elements consists of two tenement houses built in Moscow in 1899-1902 for the Rossiya insurance company according to the project of the company's staff architect N.M. Proskurnin, as well as with the help of A.I. von Gauguin with the participation of V.A. Velichkin and has the status of an object of cultural heritage of federal significance. The houses are located at: Sretensky Boulevard, 6/1, building 1 and 2. This impressive residential complex, even by modern standards, occupies almost an entire block along Sretensky Boulevard. The apartment building has its own glorious history. It is also interesting for us that Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of the immortal novel The Master and Margarita, worked here in the 1920s...

At first, I planned to make one article about the profitable house of the Rossiya insurance company. But, in the process of photographing, it turned out that this is a whole architectural oasis and the universe - the house simply “swallowed” me. I walked around it for a long time and, with obvious pleasure and "immersion", examined, filmed its amazing facades and numerous intricate architectural details. There was enough material. Having tried to reduce the amount of visual information, I realized that there were only two ways out - to give a highly abridged version of this house in one post (and as a result, a lot of interesting things would be lost), - or to prepare a detailed report on this urban masterpiece in two parts. . There are a lot of materials on the net about this house, but I have not come across a detailed photo report. Therefore, the second option was adopted, which provides for two parts of the story about the appearance and image of this house. In addition, there is quite a lot of interesting information about him, and I wanted to make some meaningful text digest. Thus, this material is not for tedious scrolling on duty, but for those who really want details “and more”!)

In the first half of the day there was a bright sun - I hurried to shoot this house, but soon clouds came up and I had to be content with the presence of a gloomy whitish sky. But, on the other hand, when there is no bright sun, then there are no sharp shadows, so let's not be upset and try to consider this, in modern words, an elite residential complex of the early 20th century in all details.

Turgenevskaya Square. January 2017
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At the beginning of the 18th century, there were chambers on this site at 6/1 Sretensky Boulevard that belonged to Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich.
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Since 1742, the building was occupied by the post office, which was located here until the first half of the 19th century. In 1872, a building for the Tsar-Grad panorama was built here, designed by architect V.N. Karneev. In 1886 it was rebuilt according to the project of the architect D.N. Chichagov for the folk theater "Skomorokh", created by the famous entrepreneur M.V. Lentovsky. In 1895, the premiere of the play by L.N. Tolstoy "The Power of Darkness", which was attended by the writer himself.
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The building was equipped with the most modern systems of that time for heating, water supply, sewerage and ventilation, as well as electric elevators. The air supplied to the premises by the ventilation system was filtered, humidified and heated. Water came to the house from an artesian well. Electricity was generated by its own power plant. Laundries were located in the basement and attic. According to rumors, from the basement of the building there were exits to the system of Moscow underground passages.

On the left (pictured below) - Frolov Lane, which leads to Bobrov Lane. The building, with its front facade, overlooks Turgenevskaya Square and is its exquisite architectural dominant, despite being located on the square.« ostentatious» the ugly building of the former Lukoil opposite and the imposing building of the bank VTB-24.

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The house on Sretensky Boulevard was one of the most technically advanced and comfortable buildings in Moscow in the early 20th century. It had 148 comfortable apartments ranging from 200 to 400 square meters. The ceiling height in different apartments varied from 3.8 m to 4.2 m. Eight heating boilers, pumps, and ventilation units were located in the basement of the house. The ventilation system not only supplied fresh air to the premises, but also filtered and humidified, and, if necessary, warmed it up! The power supply and lighting of the house was provided by its own oil-fired power plant. Drinking water was extracted from an artesian well having a depth of 50 meters. The house had electric elevators. All apartments had kitchens with cooking stoves and sinks, separate bathrooms and a water closet. Laundries were located in the basement and attic of the house. The House never had a garbage chute, and there is none today, according to sources. In the polyclinic of the Academy of Sciences, which occupies a separate front door from Frolov Lane, wonderful fireplaces have been preserved, and there is an atrium under the roof, but there is no free access to it.
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On April 1, 1910, in the building of the Rossiya insurance company, an observation deck was opened on the corner tower, on which there was a cafe and an insurance center for "small subscribers".
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Apartments in tenement houses were very expensive and only wealthy people could rent them. In 1909, I.E. visited one of the apartments. Repin, where he painted a portrait of Dr. P.A. Lezin. Apartment number 85 housed the board of the Football League before the revolution.
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A bell with the inscription “The House of the Insurance Company of Russia on Srtensky Boulevard 1899-1902, Moscow, P.N. Finlyandsky Plant” is fixed under the “teremk” of the tower. The bell originally had no "tongue". If he had one that struck the hours or quarters, then the language of the bell is now lost. According to sources, there are no visual signs of fastening. In 2007, the Svetoservice company installed a new electronic clock on the tower.
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Fireplaces in the House are not decorative, as was often the case in buildings of the early 20th century (for example, the mansion of Pyotr Smirnov, architect F.O. Shekhtel), but active ones. Fireplaces and chimneys are still in working order, but for fire safety reasons, the HOA board advises residents not to use them. The apartments also have ovens; they are located not only in living rooms, but also in kitchens (used for cooking).
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After the revolution, the following were located here: the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, the Commissariat of Education (where N.K. Krupskaya worked), Lenin visited ... Scientists M.I. lived in the House at different times. Averbakh, B.D. Grekov, N.S. Kurnakov, N.N. Luzin, I.E. Tamm, A.E. Fersman, R.F. Gekker, famous mathematician, author of the popular collection of tasks for university applicants M.I.Skanavi, artist N.P. Khmelev, ballerina Natalya Bessmertnova. Of our contemporaries - an outstanding choreographer Yu.N. Grigorovich and the family of famous musicians Skanavi, a world-famous microbiologist S.S. Abyzov, professor of the Higher Theater School. B.V. Schukina Galina Viktorovna Morozova.
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Usually we pass by such houses, out of habit we glimpse the facades with an absent glance and do not notice anything, immersed in our inner and not always calm world. But this house gently and unobtrusively makes the mind start up and turn its attention to the exquisite and intricate decor of its facades.
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On the facade there are many openwork balconies ...
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Scary, amazing, and at the same time cute chimeras...
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Many decorative arches, porticos and friezes.

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And here are bats, and maybe flying dogs... - at the base of the decorative support of the bay window of the main facade of the building.
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Le Corbusier, who offered Stalin a radical demolition of the buildings of Old Moscow, considered this house the most beautiful in the capital and did not plan to destroy it.
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Now we will look into the courtyard of the house number 6/1. This is the view from Sretensky Boulevard.
A decorative turret with two rows of machicolations in its upper part fills you with romantic feelings...
In this tower in Soviet times there was a workshop of the artist Kabakov...
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In 1920, the Literary Department became part of the Main Political Education Department of the People's Commissariat of Education and moved to Sretensky Boulevard, 6 (then house number 4), to this grandiose building of the former Rossiya insurance company.

“... It was a rather impressive hall, a vast, but deserted room, in the depths of which, at the only office table covered with newsprint, sat an elderly man in a gray hat and in a warm coat thrown over his shoulders,” writes A. Erlich, one of the first employees of LITO. It was then, on October 1, 1921, having torn off the door handle, and appeared on the threshold of the Literary Department Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. This was his first place of work after moving to Moscow. Almost no money was paid. Shortly after entering Lito, Bulgakov was fired from there. "Behind the Disbandment"...
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«... LITO? In Moscow? Yes, Maxim Gorky. At the bottom. Mother. Who else? Doo-doo-doo... They are talking... What if it's Bryusov and Bely?.." - Bulgakov writes in Notes on the Cuffs. "Yes, I didn't get there! LITO? Wicker garden chair. Empty wooden table. Opened wardrobe. Small table upside down in the corner. And two people. One is tall, very young, wearing pince-nez. His windings caught my eye. They were white, in his hands he held a cracked briefcase and a bag. Another, a grey-haired old man with lively, slightly laughing eyes, was wearing a hat, a soldier's overcoat. There was no place on it without a hole, and the pockets hung in tatters. Windings gray and lacquered, ball shoes with bows... "...
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“... Do not forget the historian of literature: at the end of the 21st year, 3 people were engaged in literature in the Republic: an old man (dramas; he, of course, turned out to be not Emile Zola, but a stranger to me), a young one (an old man’s assistant, also a stranger - poetry) and I (didn't write anything). As for the historian: there were no chairs, no tables, no ink, no light bulbs, no books, no writers, no readers in LITO. In short: there was nothing ”(“ Notes on the Cuffs ”).
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“... On December 1, 1921, LITO passed away. And was he? Yes, there was something in the former house of the Rossiya insurance company on Sretensky Boulevard, in house number 4, entrance 6, 3rd floor, apartment 50, room 7 ... ".

The forged fence between the two buildings of the apartment building was made according to the drawing by O.V. Dessina...
It makes a very strong impression.
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We enter the courtyard of the former tenement house of the Rossiya insurance company. Obviously, LITO was located in this courtyard, or rather its entrance.

The master described the process of receiving a salary in Leto as a model of young Soviet bureaucracy:
“...Today I received the money. Money! Ten minutes before going to the ticket office, the woman on the first floor, who was supposed to put the last seal, said: “Wrong in form. We need to hold up the notice." I don't remember exactly what happened. Fog. It seems that I shouted out something in pain. Like, "Are you kidding me?" The woman opened her mouth: "Ah, you are so..." Then I resigned myself. I reconciled. Said I was excited. I apologized. He took back his words. Agreed to correct in red ink. They scribbled: "Issue". Squiggle. To the checkout. Magic word: cashier. I couldn't believe it even when the cashier took out the papers. Then he came to his senses: money! Twenty-two days and three hours passed from the moment the statement was started to the moment it was received from the cash register. Houses are clean. No jacket. No sheets. No books...
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It is possible that here, on the side of Sretensky Boulevard, in the courtyard of the building, the editorial office of the railwaymen's newspaper Gudok was located.
In 1923 M.A. worked here. Bulgakov.
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During the Soviet period, 80% of the large apartments in the House were divided, many residents had access to the street only through the "back stairs". Moreover, some lordly apartments managed to be divided into three separate apartments. They did it completely stupid. Until now, in such “new” apartments, all communications have been carried out chaotically, which creates inconvenience during household repairs. Only recently, in the process of resettling communal apartments, some residents have the opportunity to return their apartments to their original layout. But this is not possible for everyone and not always.
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Despite numerous redevelopments in some places, today you can find stucco molding on the ceiling, centuries-old fireplaces with tiles. The house is currently occupied. Soviet offices and institutions have been replaced by modern commercial organizations, restaurants and shops.

I asked around - the local janitors know nothing about the editorial office of Gudok, or about Bulgakov, who often visited here ...
So, the exact location of the "Beep" - the number of the entrance of the editorial office and the corresponding apartment, is unknown.
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Decorative base of the bay window of the "romantic tower" of the tenement house.
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This article will focus on one of my favorite Moscow addresses - Sretensky Boulevard, 6/1. This is a profitable house of the Rossiya insurance company. This building is also connected with the history of my family, but more on that below. The profitable house of the Rossiya insurance company occupies a whole block and has several addresses: Sretensky Boulevard, 6/1, Frolov Lane, 6/1, Bobrov Lane, 1 and Milyutinsky Lane, 22. It consists of two buildings built architects N.M. Proskurin and A.I. von Gauguin with the participation of V.A. Velichkin in 1899–1902. The two buildings are connected by an elegant wrought-iron fence with gates designed by architect O.V. Dessina.

According to the original plans, there should not have been any passage between Sretensky Boulevard and Bobrov Lane, they planned to build one long building along the boulevard. However, when the project was approved, at the behest of the Moscow firefighters, changes had to be made: it was considered that in the event of a fire inside the quarter, firefighters would have to lose precious minutes bypassing such a long building. So two buildings appeared, a passage between them and a gate, which became one of the decorations of the house. The monogram of the owner - "COR" - is woven into the cast-iron ligature of the fence. The facade of the building, like the paintings in the museum, I want to examine closely, in all details ...

On the walls of buildings you can find a huge number of amazing characters: there is a lion with a shield, a salamander, crocodiles, two flocks of bats. Cupids play on the pediment around the Greek goddess, and next to it, a teacher with the face of Socrates is talking to a student. In the alcove between the windows there is a craftsman in Italian medieval clothes, high window openings are crowned with female heads with curly hair typical of the Art Nouveau style (a tribute to the fashion of the early twentieth century by architects). And even the flag holders are made in the form of winged female figures, reminiscent of a rostra on the bow of a sailing ship. But the house became famous not only for its unique facades at the beginning of the 20th century.

Profitable house of the insurance company "Russia" has become the most technically advanced residential building in Moscow. The house had one hundred and forty-eight comfortable apartments ranging from two hundred to four hundred square meters. The height of the ceilings in the apartments is about four meters. In the basement of the house there were eight heating boilers, pumps, ventilation units. The ventilation system not only supplied fresh air to the premises, but also filtered and humidified it. And if necessary, warmed up! Lighting was provided by its own oil-fired power plant. Drinking water was extracted from two artesian wells fifty meters deep.

In the apartment building of the Rossiya insurance company, there were electric elevators - a novelty for Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century. All apartments had kitchens with cooking stoves and sinks, separate bathrooms and latrines. Laundries were located in the basement and attic of the building. It must be said that this apartment building did not have a garbage chute (however, it does not exist even today). Apartments in the house were very expensive and only wealthy people could rent them. In 1909, the famous artist I.E. Repin. Here he painted a portrait of Dr. P.A., who lived in this apartment. Lezin. Before the October Revolution, Apartment No. 85 housed the board of the Football League.

After 1917 the house was nationalized. Communal apartments were arranged in luxurious apartments. And here they not only carried out compaction, but also divided the large halls with plywood partition walls into cubicles-rooms. In one of these rooms my grandfather was born in 1921, and my father in 1947. By this time, six people lived on eight square meters. Father recalled that in their room there was not a window, but half a window. The plywood wall came exactly in the middle of the window opening, looking into Bobrov Lane. The room was so tiny that the grandfather, stretching his arms to the sides, could touch two walls. The ceilings were almost four meters high.

But let us return to the first post-revolutionary decade. Along with the residents of communal apartments, other guests also appeared here. Memories of them can be found in our literary classics. “Directly on Sretensky Boulevard, the huge orange-brick buildings of the former Rossiya insurance company went out, where all sorts of litho-, theo-, music-, film organizations of that time were located, depicted by Mayakovsky in the poem “The Sitting Ones”, which Lenin liked so much. Krupskaya worked in the same house in combination with work in the People's Commissariat of Education in a mansion on Chistye Prudy, under the supervision of Lunacharsky ”(V.P. Kataev.“ My Diamond Crown ”).

In addition, the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA), the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, and the People's Commissariat of Education were located in the former apartment building of the Rossiya insurance company. The house housed the literary department (Lito) and the editorial office of the railroad newspaper Gudok. In 1923, the famous writer M.A. worked here. Bulgakov. In Notes on the Cuffs, the master described the process of receiving a salary in Lito as an example of young Soviet bureaucracy: “Today I received the money. Money! Ten minutes before going to the ticket office, the woman on the first floor, who was supposed to put the last seal, said:

“Wrong form. We need to hold up the notice." I don't remember exactly what happened. Fog. It seems that I shouted out something in pain. Like, "Are you kidding me?" The woman opened her mouth: "Ah, you are so..." Then I resigned myself. I reconciled. Said I was excited. I apologized. He took back his words. Agreed to correct in red ink. They scribbled: "Issue". Squiggle. To the checkout. Magic word: cashier. I couldn't believe it even when the cashier took out the papers. Then he came to his senses: money! Twenty-two days and three hours passed from the moment the statement was started to the moment it was received from the cash register. Homes are clean. No jacket. No sheets. No books."

Settlement of communal apartments began in the second half of the twentieth century. Despite numerous redevelopments in some places, today you can find stucco molding on the ceiling, centuries-old fireplaces with tiles. The house is currently occupied. Soviet offices and institutions have been replaced by modern commercial organizations, restaurants and shops. Unfortunately, today the building looks different than a hundred years ago. On the main building from the side of Sretensky Boulevard, there used to be large domes, which are now gone. The spire-shaped completions on the towers have also been lost... But even despite these losses, the house remains one of the most remarkable residential buildings in Moscow!

Tatiana Vorontsova

Profitable house of the insurance company "Russia

Sretensky Boulevard 6/1

The house of the insurance company "Russia" - a huge building, occupying an entire block, was built in 1899-1902 according to the project of architects by architects A.I. von Gauguin and N.M. Proskurin for the insurance company "Russia". The forged fence with the company's emblem was designed by Oleg Dessin.

At the beginning of the last century, the concepts of "business class" and "elite" did not yet exist in relation to residential real estate. But, needless to say, their own mansions were considered truly fashionable. Apartments, even the most luxurious ones, were ranked lower. But since the beginning of the century, when the rapid construction of tenement houses began, the most expensive ones stood out among them, which can be conditionally considered business class. The most prestigious was, undoubtedly, the house of the Rossiya insurance company on Sretensky Boulevard.

It was one of the most technically advanced and comfortable buildings in Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century. Here are just some of the facts that prove it. In the basement of the house there were eight heating boilers, pumps, ventilation units. The ventilation system not only supplied fresh air to the premises, but also filtered and humidified, and, if necessary, warmed it up! The power supply and lighting of the house was provided by its own oil-fired power plant. Drinking water was extracted from an artesian well having a depth of 50 meters. The house had electric elevators. All apartments had kitchens with cooking stoves and sinks, separate bathrooms and a water closet. There was a laundry room in the basement and attic of the house.

This House-Palace, House-Fortress (the width of the walls is about a meter) occupies a whole block and has several addresses: Sretensky Boulevard, house 6/1, Milyutinsky lane, house 22, Bobrov lane, house 1 and, finally, Frolov lane 6 / 1C2. The two buildings are connected by an elegant forged fence (the owner's monogram - "SOR" - is woven into the cast-iron ligature of the gate lattice.

I would define the general style of the building as eclectic with neo-Renaissance and Art Nouveau elements. There are quite a few eclectic houses in Moscow, but the facade of this House, like paintings in an art gallery, I want to look closely, in all details ... The walls of the House are full of unique dramaturgy: a salamander lurks under one bay window, and under another a whole flock of bats ready take off, cupids are playing on the pediment around the Greek goddess, and next to it is a teacher with the face of Socrates talking to a student, in the alcove between the windows there is a workman in Italian medieval clothes, high window openings are crowned with curly female heads typical of the Art Nouveau style (a tribute to fashion!) hair. And even the banal brackets for state flags (according to another version, the figure was holding a lantern on a chain) are made in the form of winged female figures resembling a rostra on the bow of a sailing ship - all these and numerous other characters look down at passers-by ... You will involuntarily turn around and look at this House ! Even the French architect Le Corbusier (an apologist for constructivism), who proposed to demolish the entire historical center and build a "new Moscow", considered it the most beautiful building in the city of the early 20th century.

And in the 18th century, this place was the so-called old post office, or "the yard where postmen live." But over time, those postmen were transferred to a much more convenient building on Myasnitskaya Street, house 40. A panorama called "Tsar-grad" settled here, and then the Theater of Public and Folk Performances "Skomorokh". It was so popular that it was necessary to fix explanatory inscriptions on the walls: "Do not move from place to place: you can see well from everywhere." Or "Bis means repeat".

But in 1899 the theater was also closed: the Rossiya insurance company, one of the richest in the state, decided to build an apartment building here. Yes, not simple, but luxurious, for the most luxurious residents. Here, for example, one of the first power plants in the city was equipped in the basement.

The construction was in a hurry, so there were no casualties. In 1901, the Moskovsky Listok newspaper reported: “In the house under construction of the Rossiya insurance company, on the passage of Sretensky Boulevard, workers from the third floor lowered a wooden tank along a rope. crushed a worker, a peasant Pyotr Bezin, who received bruises of the whole body and a fracture of his right arm. The victim was taken to the Staro-Ekaterininsky hospital. "

However, this circumstance did not make sense to customers. The pace of construction has not slowed down. And as a result, a year later, the building began to be occupied.

This house simply cannot fail to attract attention. Every pedestrian, with a rare, completely incomprehensible exception, passing by, daydreams: they say, but I wish I lived in this house. I would receive guests here, and then escort them to the Turgenevskaya metro station, in the warm summer we walked to the stations further away, and by midnight I returned home, turned on the light in this window, put the kettle on, went out to the balcony, to my balcony, stood and looked on rare late pedestrians hurrying somewhere along Bobrovy Lane. And when they got home, some of them would open an old Moscow guidebook and read: “The next block is occupied by two huge residential buildings built in 1899-1902 for the Rossiya society, one of the largest insurance companies, which invested part of its millions of income in construction and operation of multi-apartment, well-equipped houses. Apartments in these houses were extremely expensive - only very wealthy people rented them. The author of the project, architect N. M. Proskurnin, gave the building features of the late Italian Renaissance. The famous French architect Le Corbusier considered this house the most beautiful in Moscow. The beautiful lattice between the buildings was made according to the drawing of O. Dessin. "

However, the history of this house is not limited to the information presented. The artist Repin was visiting here (he painted a portrait of Dr. Lyzin, some happy local tenant). Apartment number 85 was the board of the Football League. And after the revolution, the People's Commissariat for Education was located in the house of "Russia", which was run by Krupskaya herself, and the capital's intellectuals bowed to her. By the way, one of the divisions of the People's Commissariat of Education (under the name Leto) is described by Bulgakov in "Notes on Cuffs". There was absolutely nothing to do there, no money was paid there at all, and it did not at all resemble a state institution: "A wicker country chair. An empty wooden table. An open wardrobe. A small table with legs up in the corner. And two people." Shortly after entering Lito, Bulgakov was fired from there. "Behind disbandment".

The Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army was also located here, where Lenin himself once looked. This happened in 1920. Lenin came here with Maxim Gorky to inspect a new device for correcting shooting at enemy aircraft. Gorky then recalled: “In a gloomy room around the table on which the apparatus stood, seven gloomy generals gathered, all gray-haired, mustachioed old men, learned people. Among them, the modest civilian figure of Lenin somehow got lost, became invisible. The inventor began to explain the design of the apparatus Lenin listened to him for two or three minutes, and said approvingly: "Hm-hm! - He began to question the inventor as freely as if he were examining him on questions of politics."

However, the house still remained a residential building. For the most part, privileged intellectuals lived here - academician Fersman, chemist Kurnakov, actor Khmelev, ophthalmologist researcher Averbakh and many other officially recognized geniuses of the Soviet Union.

And in the late 40s, the first Moscow rental point was opened in the house. In a word, this house was the first-born not only in relation to electricity.

It is clear that over time, most of the apartments turned into communal apartments. And not only because of the "sealing" policy of the authorities, but also in a natural way: people got divorced, married, several generations lived in apartments with an area of more than 200 m2, and not always relatives. Some even in Soviet times were given separate apartments.

One of the residents of the house, when moving, took with her the lining of an old fireplace. And she did it rather as a keepsake and in case she ever had a dacha. Pieces of ceramics lay in the pantry until the years of perestroika. And then suddenly an American friend came to visit her. Accidentally saw the lining of the fireplace and begged to sell. "Only, you're sorry, I can hardly give you the real value. I can only pay $2000." The woman opened her mouth in surprise. In the late 80s, it was a lot of money, and she believed that the cladding was worth nothing at all. So the house of the rich helped financially its former resident.

Since the beginning of the 90s, a completely different life began at the Rossiya house. The resettlement of residents was no longer done by government agencies, but by realtors. The house was so popular with the "new Russians" that in 1994-1995 the price of resettlement reached $2,000 per square meter - twice the usual cost of apartments in the city center. At that time, there was practically no elite housing construction in Moscow, and the resettlement of a communal apartment remained the only way to acquire a large apartment. And in the primary market, even a hundred-meter apartment was not easy to find.

In the house "Russia" then they began to make repairs, which would correctly be called a reconstruction - with a complete replacement of walls, cornices, floors and ceilings. Hundred-meter living rooms and bathrooms with an area of 25 square meters appeared. m. Apartments were sold in pairs, that is, whole floors. In the mid-90s, a 250-square-meter apartment renovated to the highest standard was sold at an unimaginable price of $1 million.

When mass elite construction began, the popularity of the famous, but old house began to wane. Only mixed concrete and wood floors were enough to take it out of the elite category. And now, probably, it is more correct to refer it again to the business class: in the capital there are many new houses of a higher class. That's just to gain a historical halo, they need a good hundred years.

History reference

The most famous insurance company of the Russian Empire - the Rossiya insurance company, was founded in March 1881. The board house was located in St. Petersburg on Morskaya Street. The society made the main bet on life insurance, not real estate, like most other insurance companies. The fixed capital reached 4 million rubles. Thanks to a wide advertising campaign, the Rossiya insurance company immediately gained fame and popularity (see photo 40). Deals were made with the help of numerous agents who traveled around the country (see photo 39). They even insured glass from breaking!

Society "Rossiya" also carried out insurance operations abroad: in Alexandria, Athens, Belgrade, Constantinople, New York, Berlin and other cities. At the end of 1918, the size of the company's capital reached 109.1 million rubles.

In 1919, this company, like all other joint-stock companies, was liquidated by a decree of the Soviet government. Capitals, own funds, securities of the company were nationalized. But "Russia" managed to perpetuate itself in the architecture of Moscow. We talked about the House on Sretensky Boulevard. Another property of the company was the building of the Moscow office of the Rossiya society on Lubyanskaya Square, which became one of the symbols of the Soviet state - this is the main building of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-KGB-FSB on Lubyanskaya Square.

House

Decor elements

Photo 1. Sretensky Boulevard, 6/1 in Moscow

In 1899 - 1902, on a site that already belonged to the Rossiya insurance company, an apartment building was built according to the project of architects N.M. Proskurnina, A.I. von Gauguin and V.A. Velichkin.

Photo 2. The house of the insurance company "Russia" on Sretensky Boulevard

The house at 6/1 Sretensky Boulevard was built in an eclectic style with modern and neo-renaissance elements. It consists of two buildings connected by a wrought-iron fence designed by architect O.V. von Dessin.

Photo 3. Forged fence by architect O.V. von Dessin

The house had 148 apartments ranging from 200 to 400 square meters. The height of the ceilings in them was about 4 meters. The apartments had fireplaces, heating and cooking stoves, bathrooms and water closets.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the board of the Football League was located in the house. It was an organization that united the first football teams in Moscow.

After 1917, the house on Sretensky Boulevard, 6/1 was nationalized. The main part of it continued to be residential, but each large apartment was divided into several with a smaller area.

In addition to apartments, various organizations were located in the house.

Among the residents of the house at different times were many famous scientists and cultural figures. Since the 1960s, artists' studios have been located in the attic rooms of the house.