Pashkov House

Pashkov House on Vagankovsky Hill is one of Moscow's most recognizable Classicist buildings, now part of the Russian State Library complex. Its design is attributed to Vasily Bazhenov, though no written confirmation survives — the only evidence is oral tradition and the building's recognizably Bazhenov style. From the moment of its construction, the mansion drew admiration from contemporaries and was considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the old capital.

The mansion was built for Pyotr Pashkov, a guards captain-lieutenant and wealthy tax farmer, the son of a batman to Peter the Great himself; the work took place from 1784 to 1786. According to one legend, Bazhenov had by then fallen out of favor and lost the right to build in Moscow, so he supposedly built the mansion in secret. Pashkov's heirs soon came to prefer another estate, and by the start of the nineteenth century the once-luxurious mansion had grown noticeably dilapidated and stood empty. In 1839 it was bought by the treasury for Moscow University, and from 1843 it housed the Institute for the Nobility.

The building stands atop the hill opposite the Kremlin and was the first secular house in Moscow from which the Kremlin towers could be viewed not from below but at eye level. Three compact volumes — the central block and two side wings — form a U-shaped plan around a formal courtyard, and the carriage entrance is set not on the main façade but to the side, from Staravagankovsky Lane. Three equally sized porticoes on the street-facing façade are decorated with different orders — an elaborate Corinthian in the center and Ionic on the wings, a combination architects consider rare in world practice. The central volume is crowned by a round belvedere, and the roof balustrade is adorned with urns on pedestals.

During Napoleon's invasion in 1812 the building suffered heavy damage: the wooden belvedere with its colonnade burned down, along with the sculptural group bearing the Pashkov coat of arms above the portico. Restoration in 1815–1818, presumably led by Osip Bove, altered the proportions — the belvedere's columns were replaced with heavier ones. In 1861 the mansion was handed over to the library of the Rumyantsev Museum, and in 1914 architect Nikolai Shevyakov added the Ivanovsky Hall to house Alexander Ivanov's enormous painting “The Appearance of Christ Before the People.”

In the 1930s, Moscow's general reconstruction plan absorbed part of the garden and demolished the house's historic fence, and the family coat of arms was replaced by the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem. In 1934 architect Vasily Dolganov built a monumental white-stone staircase down the hillside to Mokhovaya Street. The interior layout changed almost entirely, and almost nothing of Bazhenov's original interiors survives. From 1988 to 2007 the building underwent restoration, and today it houses library departments holding rare manuscripts, maps, and old sheet music.

Pashkov House remains a symbol of Moscow Classicism and an urban legend: beneath the hill, searches continue for Ivan the Terrible's mysterious library, and in the novel “The Master and Margarita” the building is described as the site of Woland's meeting with Levi Matvei. Today it is one of the most photographed spots on the Kremlin skyline.