This book contains stories about people and houses of Moscow. Stories about those whom we do not know at all or know very little. In urban legends about Moscow, the author, journalist and Moscow expert Oleg Fochkin, through personal perception, spoke about unusual places in the capital that we pass by every day and even if we notice them, we very rarely know their real fate. For several years, the stories collected by the author were published in the newspaper “Evening Moscow” and caused a great response from readers. In fact, this book was the result of a conversation with readers who added to it and offered their travel routes around their hometown. German Settlement and Petrovsky Park, Zamoskvorechye and Tverskaya, Maroseyka and Kolomenskoye... And these are just a few names that we have to walk through together and rediscover them.
From the series: Moscow (Ripol)
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The given introductory fragment of the book Urban legends (O. V. Fochkin, 2015) provided by our book partner - the company liters.
The fate of the tobacco kings
(Staraya Basmannaya, 20, p. 15)
Manufactory hut
If you turn from Staraya Basmannaya Street behind the massive constructivist building No. 20 of the 1930s - which we will definitely return to next time - then suddenly you will see a small two-story estate. It is also listed at number 20, only with the addition - building 8. Remember, last time, when we walked along Lukyanov Street and remembered that it used to be Babushkin Lane, they said that on the opposite side of Staraya Basmannaya there was a silk weaving factory of merchants Babushkin, which existed since 1757. This is where she was located quite long time(the house was built a year before the opening of the factory). And then, of course, there could not be any eight-story building here.
The manor building that we will talk about today is quite classical in nature. But it stands above the more ancient chambers. The most ancient is the left side of the house. A few years ago it was renovated and the plaster was knocked down. Traces of Baroque platbands and decorations from the time of its construction were clearly visible on the façade.
Let us remember that it was with their money that Prince Ukhtomsky erected the Church of St. Nikita the Martyr on Staraya Basmannaya. By the way, Andrei Ivanovich Babushkin not only sold textiles, but also had factories producing goods: in Ilyinka and in Syromyatniki. He did not disdain the drinking contract, and in addition, he produced silk - and one enterprise, where already in the 1770s there were over 100 mills, was located near the house, opposite the alley. Now this house (building 11) no longer exists. Previously, it was called “manufactured stone hut”. After the Babushkins, this estate was owned by senator, lieutenant general Ivan Lvovich Chernyshev, from 1787.
On November 17, 1786, he was instructed to go to Moscow from the Kostroma governorship to attend a special committee on the case of various unrest in the commissariat, and from that time Chernyshev settled in Moscow. He died in 1791 and was buried in the Donskoy Monastery.
His son, Alexander Ivanovich, made a brilliant career and was the emperor’s representative at Napoleon’s court until the very beginning Patriotic War 1812. Napoleon respected and trusted him. During the reign of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich A.I. Chernyshev received princely dignity.
Tobacco King
In 1859, in house No. 20 on Staraya Basmannaya, a tobacco-case factory of merchant Mikhail Ivanovich Bostanzhoglo was located, for which a production building (building 13) and a factory school (building 9, architect N.N. Külevein) were built.
Partnership of the tobacco factory "Bostanzhoglo M.I." was founded in 1872 with an authorized capital of 650 thousand rubles on a share basis (650 shares of 1000 rubles each). The factory employed 700 workers and had its own sales network. The stores were located in Moscow (on Kuznetsky Most and Nikolskaya Street) and other Russian cities, as well as in Berlin.
It must be said that this was not the only tobacco factory in the city. In 1891, when the new tobacco factory “Dukat” was being built (the name was formed from a combination of two surnames: Duvan and Katyk), in the city, in addition to the enterprise of the Greek Bostanzhoglo, there were two more large tobacco enterprises: merchants A.Yu. Gabay (modern “Java”) and Abram Katyk cigarette-case factory.
The owners of many Russian tobacco factories in those years were engaged in charity, patronage of the arts, and invested a significant part of their capital in culture, education, medicine, and religion.
According to legend, it was Mikhail Bostanzhoglo who first introduced Muscovites to cigarettes and inflicted “a severe defeat on chibouks and pipes, inventing paper cartridges or cartridges to replace them.”
In the 1920s, the Bostanzhoglo estate housed the Bauman district committee, where the then little-known Nikita Khrushchev, the future leader of the party and government, worked. Then the district committee was demolished and a new one was built. The building of the Baumansky Builder cooperative now stands on the site of the demolished building.
The current tenant of the building - the former estate of Chernyshev-Babushkin-Bostanzhoglo - is GasEconomika.
Bostanzhoglo family
The tobacco manufacturers Bostanzhoglo (although another spelling of their surname is often found - Bostan Joglo) came from Nizhyn Greeks.
The founder of the dynasty was Mikhail Ivanovich Bostanzhoglo (1789–1863). In his famous memoirs “My Life in Art,” Stanislavsky mentions Mikhail Ivanovich as “old man B.” He kidnapped his wife, Elena (Yorganda) Yakovlevna Milioti (1802–1885), from the harem of the Turkish Sultan. “And he and the “sultana” had six children, Greeks and Greek women on their father’s side and Turks and Turkish women on their mother’s side, two sons and four daughters.” Both sons, Vasily Mikhailovich and Nikolai Mikhailovich, co-founded with their father the tobacco factory “M.I. Bostanzhoglo and sons." And two of the four daughters - Alexandra Mikhailovna and Elizaveta Mikhailovna - successfully married, connecting through their husbands the Bostanzhoglo and Alekseev families, merchants of the first guild.
The son of the founder of the dynasty, Vasily Mikhailovich (1826–1876), became most famous in Moscow. As contemporaries wrote, he was an extremely vain person, and for this he was disliked among the merchants.
The famous businessman Naydenov wrote about Vasily Mikhailovich that “he will not take care of his own father because of some order.” One could regularly meet him in the reception room of the Moscow Governor-General, Prince V.A. Dolgorukova.
In 1875, Vasily Bostanzhoglo organized a celebration of the eighth anniversary of his service as a merchant foreman. On this occasion, a brochure “Russian thanks to Vasily Mikhailovich Bostanzhoglo from the Moscow Merchant Society on January 1, 1875” was even published.
In the same year, Vasily Mikhailovich became seriously ill and went abroad for treatment. At this time, Emperor Alexander II visited Moscow and, as usual, awarded orders to Moscow leaders. The absent Bostanzhoglo was decorated with an order. His grief was boundless. Through Prince Dolgoruky, he nevertheless procured another star for himself, which was brought to him abroad. Despite feeling unwell, he immediately took a photo in his uniform with the new order.
Vasily Bostanzhoglo was married to his cousin Lyubov Sergeevna Alekseeva (sister of Konstantin Stanislavsky).
Alekseevs - “textile manufacturers, natives of Yaroslavl serfs, worked with cotton, wool, gold and silver thread.”
Children of the founder of the tobacco dynasty
Alexandra Mikhailovna Bostanzhoglo married Vasily Abramovich Yakovlev, who owned quarries in Finland and supplied marble and granite to St. Petersburg. The Alexander Column on Palace Square (cut out of two solid blocks) is his (and the architect Montferrand's) brainchild, as is St. Isaac's Cathedral, built from granite supplied by him.
By the time of his marriage to Alexandra Mikhailovna, Yakovlev already had two daughters from his first marriage to actress Marie Varle. After baptism, the girls from Marie and Adele Yakovlev turned into Mary and Elizabeth.
Elizaveta Vasilievna subsequently married Sergei Vladimirovich Alekseev, and they had a son, Kostya, who became the great Stanislavsky. Elizaveta Vasilievna gave birth to nine children and raised four more - her sister Maria Bostanzhoglo, who died early.
Alexandra's younger brother Nikolai Mikhailovich Bostanzhoglo (1826–1891) married Maria Vasilyevna Yakovleva (1838–1864). In other words, Maria Vasilievna’s stepmother and husband were brother and sister.
Butterfly Bostanzhoglo
The son of Nikolai and Maria Vasily Nikolaevich Bostanzhoglo was born in 1860. In the information about the Alekseev merchant family it is written about him: “He was a charming, sincere, intelligent person, always cheerful, witty, invitingly cozy and carefree. He graduated from Moscow University with a degree in law, a natural scientist who spent his entire life studying butterflies and discovered the butterfly named after him. After the nationalization of the factory, he worked as a clerk in the Chaliapin studio. He was shot on July 9, 1920 “for speculation in Nikolaev rubles.”
He collected a collection of 1184 birds. The collection of the State Darwin Museum still contains 17 carcasses and 12 stuffed animals from its collection. A tragic fate befell his son Vasily Vasilyevich. He, too, was convicted of possessing German magazines and was also accused of helping to sell the tobacco business to foreigners for next to nothing. Then he was exiled, where he received new charges and “capital punishment.”
Chess patron
His younger brother Mikhail Nikolaevich was born two years later. He was brought up together with Konstantin Stanislavsky.
He was a “bon vivant, balletomane and gambler.” Mikhail Bostanzhoglo holds a kind of Russian record: in one evening at the English Club he won more than a million rubles from the merchant Mikhail Morozov! On the basis of cards and the general theatrical circle, he became friends with Prince Sumbatov-Yuzhin, a famous actor and playwright, with whom he developed a casino gaming system and even planned to play with him in Monaco.
After the death of his father, from 1891 to 1918 he headed the M.I. Partnership. Bostanzhoglo and Sons”, holding the position of managing director, owned 40 percent of the share capital (the same amount was held by brother Vasily Nikolaevich). At the same time, Mikhail Nikolaevich was a trustee of the Alexander-Mariinsky orphanage for defenseless children, a member of the Moscow provincial presence on housing tax, a foreman of the Russian Hunting Club, the headman of the Church of St. Nikita the Great Martyr, and was elected as a member of the Moscow City Duma...
In 1918, the factory was nationalized, and Mikhail Nikolaevich was hired to work at the Red Star factory, which changed its name, as a cashier. Now the workers received their wages from the hands of the former owner.
After the execution of his brother (the closest relatives were also involved in the “case”), Bostanzhoglo was kicked out of this place of work. A cousin helped: Mikhail Nikolaevich was given a job as a cashier at the First Studio of the Art Theater. By that time, Bostanzhonglo “had changed beyond recognition, became resigned, painfully quiet.”
In 1929, “the former hereditary honorary citizen of Moscow was first arrested and then punished – in the complete absence of evidence, for his “rich surname” – with deprivation of residence rights in Moscow, Leningrad and the regions of these cities, Kyiv, Kharkov and Odessa. The OGPU demanded that the deprived person be assigned to a specific place of residence outside the designated points.”
Mikhail Nikolaevich chose Voronezh, where his niece and her husband were at that time (Bostanzhoglo did not have his own family or children). On December 2, 1929, he arrived at his place of exile. Very soon the relatives moved to Sverdlovsk, and Mikhail Nikolaevich remained alone in Voronezh, where on August 17, 1931 he died in a psychiatric city hospital. There was no one to bury him.
We must pay tribute to Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky: as documents show, in different years he repeatedly sent letters to Yagoda, Enukidze, Vyshinsky with requests to mitigate the fate of his relatives. Sometimes this yielded results: sending two family members together to the same camp could be considered lucky.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Bostanzhoglo is also well known as a chess philanthropist.
He was an honorary member of the Moscow Chess Club and the St. Petersburg Chess Meeting, as well as the main sponsor of the largest chess competitions held in Russia for twenty years.
"The Cherry Orchard"
Chekhov spent the summer of 1902 at the dacha of Konstantin Stanislavsky near Moscow in the village of Lyubimovka on Yaroslavskaya railway on the banks of the picturesque Klyazma river.
Among the prototypes of the heroes of “The Cherry Orchard,” which was written there, were members of Stanislavsky’s family. For example, Charlotte Ivanovna is Lily Glassby, the governess of the children of Elena Nikolaevna Smirnova-Bostanzhoglo. She was in love with Chekhov and jokingly called him brother. He was also flirting. But after leaving, he no longer wrote to her.
After the death of the mistress in 1912, Lily took over the care of the children. And soon she became Elena Romanovna Smirnova, the stepmother of the “Smirnov girls”, her pupils.
In 1920, the already mentioned Vasily Nikolaevich Bostanzhoglo, the brother of the late Elena Nikolaevna, was shot. And that same year, Lily-Elena became a widow. The Russified Englishwoman, compacted by settlers in the former luxurious Bostanzhoglo mansion on Staraya Basmannaya into two rooms fenced off from the main hall, was left alone in Soviet Russia. After several long years spent obtaining a visa, she managed to return to England, where she died under the name Smirnov in the early 1950s.
Mayor
Another representative of the Bostanzhoglo family on the maternal side is the mayor Nikolai Aleksandrovich Alekseev (1852–1893), the son of Elizaveta Bostanzhoglo.
Alekseev made his first large donation in memory of his father Alexander - 71,807 rubles (translated into modern money about 72 million) for the construction of two city primary schools, each for 100 children (1883). In just eight years of Alekseev’s service as mayor, more than 30 schools were opened.
At the age of 27, he became a vowel (deputy) of the Moscow provincial zemstvo from Moscow, and a year later, in 1881, a vowel of the Moscow City Duma.
Within seven days, Alekseev resolved the issue of a hospital for the mentally ill that had been dragging on for years. The magazine “Russian Review” wrote that he told the members of the Moscow provincial zemstvo assembly, who insisted on a preliminary census of the insane: “If you looked at these sufferers, deprived of their minds, many of whom are sitting in chains awaiting our help, you would not argue either way.” about what... censuses and would get right down to business. We need to find a room, heat it today, fill it with beds tomorrow, and fill it with patients the day after tomorrow!” On the same day, Alekseev found a loan of 25 thousand rubles, a suitable house on Vorobyovy Gory, beds, and bed linen. Within ten days, 45 patients were transferred to a new hospital from the gloomy damp rooms of the Sailors' Almshouse, where the most violent of them were actually chained.
During the 1880s, the shortage of hospital beds became chronic. The action of the mayor showed that the problem can be solved.
In 1889, Alekseev addressed the Moscow Duma and the merchants with an appeal to raise money for the expansion of the Preobrazhensk psychiatric hospital. And he was the first to contribute 350 thousand rubles. Over the course of the year, more than 1.5 million rubles were collected. It was decided, simultaneously with the renovation of the Preobrazhenskaya Hospital, to build a new hospital on the “Kanatchikov’s dacha” purchased by the city (the suburban plot of the merchant Kanatchikov). The hospital, called Alekseevskaya, admitted its first patients in 1894.
During Alekseev’s reign, two largest charity homes arose in Moscow. One was created with donations from the Bakhrushin brothers, the other with money from Nikolai Boev.
During the leadership of Alekseev, the municipalization of the healthcare and public charity sectors was carried out. In 1887, the following hospitals, previously subordinate to the Order of Public Charity, were taken under the guardianship of the city: First City, Preobrazhenskaya, Staro-Ekaterininskaya, Yauzskaya, Basmannaya and Myasnitskaya, Imperial Catherine Almshouse, Akhlebaevsky Hospital for Hospice.
A seventh generation Muscovite, Alekseev sought to transform hometown to a civilized European capital. His two terms as mayor (1885–1893) became a turning point for the city budget and utilities. Under him, the Upper Trading Rows on Red Square and the building of the Historical Museum, the 110-kilometer Mytishchi water supply system and slaughterhouses were built, the construction of sewers began, the streets were paved and their cleaning was organized, and squares and boulevards were built at the dump sites. Alekseev paid for the construction of water towers at Krestovskaya Zastava out of his own pocket. And the city mayor’s salary - 12 thousand rubles a year - was given to benefits for low-paid employees of the city government.
The traditions of charity were instilled in him in his family. Mother Elizaveta, nee Bostanzhoglo, the daughter of the largest Moscow tobacco manufacturer, donated over 40 thousand rubles to the creation of the Presnensky almshouse for the care of the poor.
The Alekseevs owned the largest gold-plating factory in Russia (founded in 1785), and rented out the shops they owned in the Old Gostiny Dvor and in the Upper Trading Rows. After the death of his father, the merchant of the first guild and hereditary honorary citizen Nikolai Alekseev became one of the directors of the Vladimir Alekseev partnership and other family enterprises.
In 1892, a new building of the Moscow City Duma was built (in the Soviet period - the Vladimir Lenin Museum, now one of the buildings of the Historical Museum). In this building, while receiving visitors, the mentally ill Novokhopersky tradesman Andrianov shot at Alekseev. The best surgeons, led by Nikolai Sklifosovsky, fought for his life, but the operation did not help due to the severity of the wound. On March 14, 1893, the mayor of the city was seen off on his last journey by 200 thousand Muscovites (a quarter of the city’s population), who stood along the entire ten-kilometer route of the funeral cortege.
The newspaper “Moskovsky Listok” wrote: “A MAN is dead! - everyone spoke with such sadness in their voices. “Young, happy, rich, surrounded by family, died at the hands of a barbarian who rushed in armed!” Alekseev was buried in the family plot in the Novospassky Monastery. The grave was destroyed in the early 1920s.
Cigarettes "Dove"
These third-class cigarettes were among the most famous in Tsarist Russia in the second decade of the 20th century. “Golubka” was one of the cheapest “gorloders” from the Bostanzhoglo factory. After the revolution, the factory of the Bostanzhoglo brothers was nationalized and became known as “Red Star”.
Factory school
Staraya Basmannaya, house 20, building 9 - a wooden house built in 1859. It survived several fires, but still stands today. It now contains housing authority. And the house was built at the direction of Mikhail Bostanzhoglo as a school. So that it would be possible to educate the children of tobacco factory workers. Architect N.N. Kühlewijn.
Back in 1717, the merchant Andrei Ivanovich Babushkin opened a large silk factory on Staraya Basmannaya Street (modern property No. 20). Later the business passed to his sons Peter and Semyon. In 1756, the Grandmothers rebuilt the ancient, possibly late 17th century, chambers that stood on their site (current house No. 20, building 1).
In 1787, the Babushkins sold their property on Staraya Basmannaya to Lieutenant General I. L. Chernyshev. The main house was rebuilt again. On the right side there was a balcony built on beautiful stone arcades, which was later lost. The most ancient part is the left one. When the house was renovated in the late 2000s, traces of Baroque platbands and decorations from the time the building was built were clearly visible on the façade, freed from plaster.
In 1859, the estate was bought by tobacco manufacturer Mikhail Bostanjoglo. According to legend, he was the first to introduce Muscovites to cigarettes and inflicted “a severe defeat on chibouks and pipes, inventing paper cartridges or cartridges to replace them.” In addition to the factory, Bostanjoglo had two more tobacco stores in Moscow - on Kuznetsky Most and on Nikolskaya.
The tobacco manufacturers Bostanjoglo came from Nizhyn Greeks. The most “famous” in Moscow was the son of the founder of the dynasty, Vasily Mikhailovich, “who traded under the company “Mikhail Bostanjoglo with his sons”.” He was an extremely vain man, his ambition crossed all boundaries, and for this he was disliked among the merchants. Famous entrepreneur N.A. Naydenov wrote about Vasily Mikhailovich that “he will not take care of his own father because of some order.”
For eight years he was the foreman of the Moscow merchant class and “tried to give the merchant council the significance of a government institution, and he himself seemed to be a ministerial official.” In his apartment there was always one of the government employees in “uniform” - Bostanjoglo observed this custom among department directors in St. Petersburg. One could regularly meet him in the reception room of the Moscow Governor-General, Prince Dolgorukov. In 1875, Bostanjoglo inspired the celebration of his eighth anniversary of service as a merchant foreman. On this occasion, a brochure “Russian thanks to Vasily Mikhailovich Bostanjoglo from the Moscow Merchant Society on January 1, 1875” was even published. In the same year, Vasily Mikhailovich became seriously ill and was sent abroad for treatment. At this time, Emperor Alexander II visited Moscow and, as usual, awarded orders to Moscow leaders. The absent Bostanjoglo was decorated with an order. His grief was boundless. Through Prince Dolgorukov, he nevertheless procured another star for himself, which was brought to him abroad. Despite feeling unwell, he immediately took a photo in his uniform with the new order.
Among other things, Vasily Mikhailovich was stingy and did not like to spend money on public needs. The only case in the history of the Moscow merchants of establishing a scholarship with public funds in honor of a living person occurred precisely on his initiative: a subscription was opened between the elected members of the Merchant Society for the collection of capital for scholarships named after Bostanjoglo in three educational institutions. He himself decided to save his money.
In the 1920s, the Bostanjoglo estate housed the Bauman district committee, in which the then little-known N.S. worked. Khrushchev is the future leader of the party and government. In the early 1930s, the main house was “hidden” into the courtyard. In front of it, with a slight indentation from the red line of Staraya Basmannaya Street, on the site of outbuildings and a fence with a gate, an eight-story residential building of the Baumansky Builder cooperative was built. The famous intelligence officer N.I. lived in it before the war. Kuznetsov.
The THEATR club is a universal concert venue with two halls. The dance floor of the large hall can accommodate up to 800 spectators, the VIP box is designed for 70 guests. Small stage - a small hall for 200 people. Concerts will be held in both halls on a regular basis: every day except Monday and Tuesday. On Fridays and Saturdays there are night events of various types. The club’s concert policy is eclectic; modern Russian and foreign music of all styles and trends, from rock to hip-hop, from metal to modern electronics, will be heard from the Theater stage.
The club is located in a historical building of the 18th century on Staraya Basmannaya Street. Initially, the hall was built for receptions and balls; a serf theater and a puppet theater were located here, and since the 90s they began to hold concerts. The name of the club partly refers to rich history buildings. Another important point is that the room, designed for theatrical performances and social events, has excellent acoustics, which is a rarity for modern Moscow.
A large club stage with a red curtain and balconies with stucco restored according to 18th century models; modern sound and lighting equipment; "Teatr" is a comfortable and excellent-sounding club that allows you to hold concerts of the very high level. In addition, the club will have a restaurant with European and Japanese cuisine; the venue is ideal for holding private events of various formats - from a banquet for 250 people in a large hall to a wedding or birthday in a small one. Separately, it is worth mentioning a large wardrobe with 1200 seats, which will avoid the problem of most Moscow clubs with long queues at the entrance during the cold season.
