By Yulia Savelyeva

        Of Moscow's Prechistenka district, located just southwest of the Kremlin, the 19th-century historian Nikolai Skavronsky wrote: "Prechistenka and other [streets] live a life apart, the life of lords and landowners. The houses here boast perrons, famous names and even lions at the gates."

Before the October Revolution Moscow’s House of Scientists

At 16 Prechistenka was home to a distinguished series of aristocrats, industrialists and financiers.

Skavronsky's lions were a reference to a specific house, once a noble estate, now Moscow's famous House of Scientists, or Dom uchyonykh, at 16 Prechistenka.
    Estate-building began in the Prechistenka district in the late 17th century. In the early 18th century, a short-lived palace was built on the site of the future House of Scientists on land once used for stabling horses. This palace was destroyed, and in 1796, the land was presented to Moscow's military governor, Ivan Arkharov. An unknown architect then built the present estate.

    Arkharov received his exalted position thanks to his brother Nikolai Arkharov, an insider at the Romanov court who helped Emperor Paul I ascend to the throne in 1796. Paul bestowed noble status on Nikolai Arkharov and named him governor of St. Petersburg. Ivan Arkharov received his post in Moscow and the Prechistenka estate, which soon became known for its Sunday balls attended by the cream of high society, including Emperor Alexander I.

    By 1815, however, Ivan Arkharov and his wife, Yekaterina Rimskaya-Korsakova — a forebear of the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov — were dead. Three years later Ivan Naryshkin, a senator, purchased the estate. In Naryshkin's veins ran the bluest of blood: He was a direct descendent of Natalya Naryshkina, the mother of Peter the Great. Social events at Naryshkin's house proved even more splendid than before.

    Naryshkin, as it happened, was also the uncle of Natalya Goncharova. When his niece married Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, on Feb. 18, 1831, Naryshkin served as an honorary parent, or posazhyony otets. Historians feel certain that Pushkin and his wife were frequent guests at the Naryshkin home, although documentary evidence is lacking.

    Ivan Naryshkin's nephew, Mikhail, took part in the Decembrist revolt of 1825, for which he received eight years of hard labor in Siberia. Mikhail Naryshkin was then allowed to choose the place of his internal exile from Moscow and St. Petersburg, and he chose to live in a village in the Tula region, south of Moscow. In the early 1850s, Mikhail Naryshkin traveled illegally to his uncle's Moscow estate and received a visit from his friend Nikolai Gogol, then at work on the second part — later burned — of his novel "Dead Souls."

    In 1856 the estate once more changed hands. It was bought by Ivan Konshin, a wealthy industrialist from Serpukhov, near Moscow. The new owner substantially renovated the estate in 1867. After his death his widow renovated it again in 1910. The last changes to the estate's decor were made by architect Anatoly Gunst, who employed expensive Italian marble and French bronze while respecting the building's existing style.

    By April 1910, the mansion as we know it today was complete. The semi-circular niches in its light-blue painted stone fence are decorated with white vase-shaped reliefs. Sculpted vases sit atop the broad fence. The bronze gates are flanked by two white lions. The exterior of the two-story light-blue house is richly decorated with typical neoclassical details: pylons, volutes, consoles and bas-reliefs, though the overgrown garden today somewhat obscures the building's facade.

    Alexei Putilov, an industrialist and financier, became the estate's last private owner in 1916. One year later, following the October Revolution, the house was nationalized, and in 1922 the House of Scientists was opened as "a place where Soviet scientists could gather and relax." This spot was chosen for its proximity to many scientific institutes and academies.

    In 1931 a late-constructivist gray stone building, housing the main entrance, cloakroom and large hall, was added to the estate's right wing directly in front of the gates. For this reason, visitors today see only this three-story addition from the street. To see the older estate, one must enter the inner courtyard.

    Maria Andreyeva, the actress, Bolshevik activist and wife of the writer Maxim Gorky, served as the first director of the House of Scientists. Some 30 scientific organizations are now quartered in the estate. Concerts and other events are held at the House of Scientists as well.

    Despite a restoration effort in 1991, the House of Scientists needs a lot of work — a luxury its current management cannot afford. Viktor Shkarovsky, director of the complex, has, therefore, begun to replace its interior stucco molding himself with a team of workers, using extant molding as his guide. Shkarovsky hopes to complete restoration of the interior by Sept. 29, when the fall season of events opens.