Russian Institute for Strategic Studies

History of appearance

At the beginning of the 19th century, here, at the corner of Smolensky Boulevard and Glazovsky Lane, there was the estate of the general's wife Glazova. But already in 1879, on the foundation of the former building, a new mansion was built according to the project of Alexander Ivanovich Rezanov, academician of architecture, rector for architecture of the Academy of Arts. In St. Petersburg, he built the palace of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich on the Palace Embankment. In Moscow, he supervised the interior decoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The mansion on Smolensky Boulevard was erected for the owner of a large passage on Kuznetsky Most, the tea merchant K.S. Popov, who was the first to establish tea plantations in the Caucasus. The appearance of the mansion and its interiors were designed in the neo-Greek style: a Pompeian living room, a Russian dining room, an Empire style hall.

However, in 1894 the mansion was rebuilt again, now by the architect Viktor Aleksandrovich Mazyrin, for the new owner, the manufacturer Mikhail Abramovich Morozov, who was also no stranger to romance. The main house is located in the back of the courtyard and is connected with small two-story outbuildings by semicircular wings. The order decor of the veranda stylizes the motifs of the Greek classics. The interiors of the building are an extraordinary fusion of different styles and cultures. The Egyptian front door with mysterious signs on the walls is guarded by sphinxes, and before that there was a real sarcophagus with a mummy. And in the story of K.A. Korovin "The funeral of a mummy" a case is described when a company led by Morozov decided to open the sarcophagus. "Why do you have a dead person in your house" - he (Professor G.A. Zakharyin) asked the owner of the house. "What dead man?" Morozov got scared. "And the mummy?" - Zakharyin did not calm down, and he ordered the mummy to be removed. "According to the plot, the mummy was buried, but in fact the sarcophagus, along with the contents, was donated to the Rumyantsev Museum in 1896. Oriental patterns in the living room are indistinguishable from the best examples of Arab decorative art. The premises of the former winter The garden was adapted to accommodate Morozov's vast pictorial collection.

In 2019, the restoration of the facades of the mansion was completed. Specialists cleared the facades and stucco from paint layers and old plaster. Sculptures were installed on consoles on the eastern façade. The workers restored the landings and staircases of the porches, returned the balcony door of the risalit (central ledge) of the western facade to its historical place and opened the bricked doorways leading to the side porches. Window and balcony frames were also recreated - specialists preserved the original pattern of their deglazing.

The lost stucco decoration of the mezzanine in the form of lions' heads, made according to archival drawings, was installed on the western facade.

In addition, the funnels of the drainpipes were returned to their historical appearance, as well as the coverings of the cornices, extensions and the roof of the building were restored. At the final stage of the restoration, the facade was painted turquoise in accordance with the agreed color scheme.

The object became the winner of the competition of the Moscow Government for the best project in the field of preservation and promotion of cultural heritage "Moscow Restoration-2020" in the nominations "for the best organization of repair and restoration work", "for the high quality of interior restoration", "for the best project of restoration and adaptation to modern use."