The Polovtsov mansion

The site between the Big Sea Street 52 and the Moika River was known and built up in the 18th century. It changed several owners and by 1777 it was acquired by the real privy councillor Ivan Golovkin, grandson of the first chancellor of the Russian Empire. Since 1779, the land belonged to the pharmacist Nikolai Maksimilianovich Pokhodyashin, since 1785 - to Major General Vasily Ivanovich Levashov.

At the end of the 18th century, his house was a floor above other neighboring buildings. However, the owner was often absent and the house was often managed by the Empress.

For three months in 1787, Francisco Miranda, one of the leaders of the struggle for independence of the Spanish colonies in South America, settled here. Persecuted by Spanish authorities, he ended up in Russia and spent some time in a house on Bolshaya Morskaya Street. In 1793, the Count d'Artois stayed here - the brother of the executed King Louis XVI, who fled from France, later King Charles X. In the spring of 1794, Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova briefly lived in this house.

The first quarter of the 19th century was also marked by the change of several owners, until in 1835 the house was finally bought by Prince Sergey Gagarin. By his order, the architect A. H. Pelem built a front wing along the Big Sea Street (house No. 52), which has been preserved here until now. The son of Prince Gagarin in 1864 sold the house to the wife of State Councillor Alexander Alexandrovich Polovtsov, Nadezhda Mikhailovna (Juneva before marriage). Since then, the house has become known as the “Polovtsov mansion”. The mansion was bought with the money of her adoptive father Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz and presented to the young as a wedding gift. There were rumors that Nadezhda Mikhailovna was the illegitimate daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich or Baron Stieglitz himself (by the way, the richest man of the Empire).

For the Polovtsov family, magnificent ceremonial interiors were created in the mansion, most of which can be seen here today. Over them worked G. A. Bosse, N. F. Bryullo, M. E. Mesmacher. Particularly distinguished are the White Hall (architect G. A. Bosse, later N. F. Bryullo), the Bronze Hall (once was decorated with tapestries donated by Napoleon to Alexander I, architect M. E. Mesmacher), the Oak Hall, dining room, living room, library, boudoir with a bay window. Fortunately, the interiors were almost unchanged in Soviet times and have survived to our time in almost the form they looked in the early 20th century.

Nevertheless, since 1934, the St. Petersburg branch of the Union of Architects of Russia has been located in the Polovtsov mansion. Since then, the mansion has also been called the House of the Architect. Now we have a unique opportunity to see the authentic interiors of this magnificent mansion.

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