Street as an exhibition. Let's take a walk around the most beautiful buildings of the former Vshivaya Gorka

In ancient times, the hill where Goncharnaya, Yauzskaya, Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Streets, and Bolshoi Vatin Pereulok are today, was called Vshivaya Gorka. There were several versions of its name: Shvivaya, Ushivaya, Shveyshaya and Shivaya Gorka. The origin of this name is unknown. This issue was outstanding in the past centuries as well. “We cannot explain the origin of these strange names and invite our readers to guess on their own,” as was stated in a guide to Moscow compiled by historian and local history expert Ivan Guryanov in 1831. The author also tells about the special beauty of this location.

Stone houses appeared in the area in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Vshivaya Gorka was covered by estates, some of which have survived until present. In the 20th century, one of the high-rise buildings was constructed on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment to become its centerpiece. It is not Gorka (hill) any more, as the slopes are not visible behind high-rise buildings.

The Goncharovs — Filippovs city estate

1/15 Yauzskaya Street, buildings 2, 3, 4, 5

The first of the two last names featured in the mansion's name belongs to the great-great-grandfather of Natalia Goncharova, Alexander Pushkin's wife. Afanasy Goncharov, who owned a linen manufactory located near Kaluga, bought the estate behind Yauzskiye Vorota in the early 18th century. In the late 1790s, his namesake grandson, Afanasy, who had recently been granted the title of nobility, commissioned the architect Ivan Yegotov to redesign the estate.

Yegotov built the estate in the classicism style. Wooden galleries connected the two-storey main building with two stone side wings. The second floor of the main building was also made of wood. The estate, which had already changed owners twice by the time, was severely damaged in the fire of 1812. It was rebuilt after the war, with the lost wooden parts never restored back. In 1818, a tea merchant Filippov bought the estate. Until 1917, it housed the Filippovs tea-packing factory. In Soviet times, the estate was rearranged into communal flats.

Today, the estate looks the same as at the time of Afanasy Goncharov. The building's appearance has been restored thanks to the fact that it was included in “Architectural Albums” by Matvey Kazakov as early as the 18th century.

To reach the next point of our route, we are to go first along Yauzskaya Street towards the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Near the high-rise building, we are to turn to Bolshoi Vatin Pereulok, as it runs to the very beginning of Goncharnaya Street.

B.K. Milhausen’s Mansion

2 Goncharnaya Street

Milhausen's Mansion was built at the late 18th – early 19th centuries, with the chambers of the 17th century as its basis. The main highlight of this austere classicism-style mansion is a rotunda topped with a dome, decorated with pilasters (flat decorative elements shaped as a rectangular projection). The rotunda is higher than the main part of the building, since due to the specific topography its basement floor is constructed to be higher, and it even has windows.

In the early 19th century, the mansion was the property of Bogdan Milhausen (1781 or 1782 — 1854), MD, professor emeritus of the Medical and Surgical Academy and an active state councilor. Milhausens had five children — two sons and three daughters. Remarkably, the professor's sons, Fyodor and Alexander, studied at Leonty Chermak's Boarding School together with the would-be writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Boarding School was located nearby, on Novaya Basmannaya Street. The building of the educational institution has not survived. Instead, a revenue house was constructed on its place in the early 20th century.

Merchant P.F. Dranishchev's Mansion

1/2 Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Street

You can get to this building walking from the previous one along Goncharnaya Street to the intersection with Ryumin Pereulok, and along Ryumin Pereulok to Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Street. You will see Belyaev’s Mansion on the way, and it is worth stopping for a while to admire the luxurious décor of its façade. Read more about Belyaev’s Mansion and other prominent Moscow buildings with outstanding patterns on their façades  here. 

So, we have reached the corner of Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Street and Teterinsky Pereulok. Now you see Merchant Dranishchev's Mansion, another residential building constructed in the Classicism style, typical of the 18h-century Moscow. The two-storey building is decorated with some modest plaster mouldings and hood moulds — shelf-like architectural elements — above the three central windows of the second floor facing Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Street. Hood moulds are intended both as a decoration (underlining the horizontal lines of the façade), and, in practical terms, to prevent rainwater from pouring down the window.

The façade facing Teterinsky Pereulok has similar windows with round medallions decorated with rosettes. The other façade features the same elements — medallions above the side walls of the second floor.

Since the building was constructed on uneven terrain, the first floor's façades are of variable heights, but the sloping corner of the building with a window on each floor makes up for it. The upper window has a hood mould.

Main building of M.P. Klapovskaya's Estate

16/1 Goncharnaya Street

Majestic appearance, balanced proportions and luxurious decorative elements catch the eye and make the main building of Klapovskaya's Estate one of the brightest highlights of Goncharnaya Street.

The building was reconstructed from the previously built one in 1823 for its owner, merchant Rakhmanov. Made in Empire style, popular in Moscow after the fire of 1812, it featured a six-column Ionic-order portico, an open wide stairway, and plaster mouldings with floral elements. The unique pattern of the portico's moulded frieze also decorates the monumental pylons of the entrance gate.

As you pass by the building, take a look at the moulded monogram on the pediment in the upper triangular part of the portico.  The letters P and M, framed with flowers and multiple ribbons, refer to merchant Peter Moloshnikov, who bought the estate in the 1830s. Merchant Klapovsky's wife, its last owner, had lived in the estate until 1918. In Soviet times, the main building of the estate housed the Scientific Atheism Center.

Main building of Andre Family's Estate

23/1 Goncharnaya Street

This two-storey building is one of the most outstanding works by architect Sergei Voskresensky, the Moscow Art Nouveau and neoclassicism expert. Andre Family's Estate is an excellent piece of neoclassical noble architecture of the early-20th-century Moscow. The architect highlighted the sides rather than the central part, with the entrance located on the right side, and an arched niche covering both floors on the left side of the building. A niche framed by columns of the Corinthian order (with capitals shaped as baskets full of acanthus leaves) has a large three-part window on the lower floor and a small semicircular window on the upper floor. Niche's scaled-down outlines are also featured in the entrance's design, with its small Corinthian columns on the sides of the door, and a semicircular blind window on top.

The lower floor is finished with rustication (rough stones or their imitation used in the design of buildings). There is a line of medallions with acanthus rosettes between the rows of windows on the lower and upper floors. Two bas-reliefs with antique elements, placed in the prominent side parts of the building — above the entrance and the three-part window — are also remarkable.

Voskresensky built Andre Family's Estate (apart from the main building, it includes an outbuilding located in the courtyard) in 1915. Nevertheless, the owners could not enjoy living in the estate for long, as in 1918 the building was nationalized. In Soviet times, it housed a hospital. Today, Andre's former estate is related to healthcare too, as it houses one of the branches of the Moscow Loginov Clinical Scientific Centre.