Art Noveau and Gorky House Museum

We invite you for the walking tour of the area of Patriarch's Ponds and Spiridonovka street. This area was glorified in the famous novel of Michail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita". We will follow the routes of his characters and speak about Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century and the early Soviet period. The second part of the tour includes a visit of Gorky House Museum, which is famous for its fabulous décor.
 

In the beginning, we will walk along one of the most elegant streets of Moscow - Spiridonovka which has preserved real masterpieces of architecture and keeps memory of Alexander Pushkin, Maxim Gorky, Michail Bulgakov and Anton Chekhov. The area is famous for exquisite monuments of Moscow Art-Noveau.
 

During our tour we'll discover several mansions built by Fedor Shekhtel, and learn about  people who lived here in the past. You will have a chance to explore Gorky House Museum, one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau in Moscow.
The talented architect Fyodor Shekhtel designed it in 1900, and it's his most accessible mansion to visit, as the others are now used as embassies. The first owner of the house was a millionaire; S. P. Ryabushinsky was a prominent figure in the business life of the city, as well as an old-believer and the owner of one of the best icon collections in Russia.
 

The house looks amazing both inside and outside. There is no solemn symmetry of classicism here, as the house has more than one façade. The outside walls are adorned with a mosaic frieze depicting a garden of paradise with orchids in bloom. Entering the hall is like diving into an underwater kingdom, with the pattern on the floor evocative of shore pebbles. The main staircase climbs up like a curving sea wave, with a fantastic jellyfish chandelier overlooking the hall below. The rest of the house, with its glittering stained glass windows, contains many more surprises from Shekhtel’s imagination.
 

After the revolution, Ryabushinsky fled the country. His mansion was later given to Maxim Gorky, a prominent Soviet writer, who lived here from 1931 to 1936. The museum was opened here in 1995.