Spaso House - Early History

Early History

Spaso House takes its name from Spasopeskovskaya Square, in the Arbat District. "Spasopeskovskaya" meant "Saviour on the Sands", referring to the sandy soil of the neighborhood, which was first settled in the seventeenth century. Most of the original wooden houses on the square were burned by the fire of Moscow (1812). New stone houses were built soon afterwards, including two one-story mansions of plaster-covered stone with columned porticos, built by A. G. Shchepochkina, which stand today at number 6 and number 8 Spasopeskovskaya square, on either side of Spaso House.

In 1913 a large lot on the square was sold by Princess Lobanova-Rostovaya to the family of the Russian industrialist Nikolay Vtorov, who owned the largest textile manufacturing firm in Imperial Russia. Vtorov commissioned the architects Vladimir Adamovich and Vladimir Mayat, two prominent advocates of the neoclassical style, to build the new mansion. As a student, Adamovich had worked with F.O. Shekhel, the master of Russian Art Nouveau in the early 1900s. They chose the "New Empire" style, which was popular with the Russian business class. The exterior of the house was influenced by the Gagarin House, a fine example of the Muscovite Empire Style, which had been built in the 1820s by Joseph Bové.

Another likely source was the Polovtsev House in Saint Petersburg by Ivan Fomin, completed in 1913.

Externally and internally, Vtorov House was a recreation of an early 1820s upper-class estate, with palladian windows and a perfectly symmetrical floorplan. Work on the house began in April 1913, and by the summer the exterior was nearly completed. Work on the interior continued during the winter of 1913-1914. The house was completed and the Vtorovs moved in shortly before the beginning of World War I in August 1914.

In the turbulent months following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Nikolay Vtorov died mysteriously and his family fled Russia. Spaso House was expropriated by the new Soviet government. Spaso House served as a reception house for the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, then as a residence for Soviet diplomats, including Georgi Chicherin, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 1918 to 1930, and Lev Karakhan, who was Chicherin's deputy.