Lenkom Theatre

On Malaya Dmitrovka stands the Lenkom Mark Zakharov Moscow State Theatre, one of the country’s most famous dramatic stages, renowned for productions such as the rock opera “Juno and Avos.” The history of the building and the company itself spans more than a hundred years: a pre-revolutionary mansion went through several changes of purpose before becoming home to a theater that shaped the face of Soviet and Russian directing in the second half of the 20th century.

The building on the street’s red line was erected in 1909 for the Moscow Merchants’ Club — the design was the work of architect Illarion Ivanov-Shits together with his assistant Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky; the façade is decorated with an Ionic colonnade and stucco ornament in the Art Nouveau spirit with elements of early Neoclassicism. Before the revolution the club belonged to the aristocratic intelligentsia — the Volkonsky, Dolgorukov, and Obolensky families were among its guests. During the First World War its halls housed a hospital with three hundred beds, and after 1917 the premises were occupied at various times by an anarchists’ political club, the Sverdlov Party School — where Vladimir Lenin spoke in 1920 — and a cinema.

The company itself traces its history to 1927, when the Theatre of Working Youth was formed under the Komsomol; the former merchants’ club building was handed over to it in 1932. In 1937 the company merged with Ruben Simonov’s studio, and a year later it was given a new official name linked to the Leninist Komsomol. For its contribution to the development of Soviet art it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1948 and the Order of the October Revolution in 1977.

After the death of chief director Ivan Bersenev in 1951, the theater went more than ten years without a permanent artistic director, until Mark Zakharov took the post in 1973. Around him gathered a constellation of actors — Yevgeny Leonov, Oleg Yankovsky, Alexander Abdulov, Inna Churikova, and Nikolai Karachentsov — and productions such as “Till Eulenspiegel,” “Juno and Avos,” and “Memorial Prayer” became the stage’s hallmark for decades to come. In 1990 the theater received its present short name, Lenkom.

Mark Zakharov led the theater for forty-six years, until his death in 2019, after which the stage was named in his honor. The company remains faithful to its established repertoire while also staging new productions under longtime director Mark Varshaver, and the building on Malaya Dmitrovka remains one of the most recognizable theatrical addresses in Moscow.

Having passed from a merchants’ club and a makeshift hospital to one of the country’s leading theatrical venues, the building on Malaya Dmitrovka bears the marks of nearly every major turn in 20th-century Russian history. Today the Lenkom Mark Zakharov Theatre is not only an Art Nouveau architectural landmark but also a living institution whose reputation rests on an acting school shaped by several generations of directors.