Merchant Danila Nikitich Shcherbakov did not think that his two-story chambers with shops on Pokrovskaya Street (now Bakuninskaya) would become famous. However, history decided otherwise…
He bought a plot of land for construction during the Moscow plague. At that time, many houses and yards were given away for pennies. The merchant called the architect Pyotr Trofimovich Bortnikov and ordered him to make it beautiful and splendid.
The chambers turned out to be magnificent. Peter I himself was driving past and admired them. He got out of his carriage and went in to visit.
Shcherbakov received the emperor according to all the rules, and the latter later gave him his own portrait. The portrait hung opposite the sofa where Peter deigned to rest. Dmitry Pokrovsky wrote about this well in his book “Essays on Moscow”. The author saw the portrait, strewn with diamonds, and sat on the sofa.
The house was built with shops – this is how Shcherbakov continued the German Market, placing shopping arcades on Bolshoi Gavrikov Lane (now Spartakovsky).
The owners of the house changed, and in the 19th century the merchant's house, where Peter himself rested, turned into a cheap tavern for the most dashing and poor people of the capital. In the same Pokrovsky we read:
“Now it is all occupied by a grey tavern for the lower classes of the population, and it would hardly occur to anyone drinking vodka or tea in its dirty halls that this house has seen better days…”
The Soviet government retained this orientation and set up a beer hall with slot machines in the building. Baumanka students nicknamed the building the Muddy Eye. It is a mystery why they didn’t make a museum in the building, where even the original 18th century layout has been preserved. After all, it is rare in Moscow history for a building to remain unchanged inside and out for centuries.
But then came 1986. The Third Transport Ring was being built in Moscow, and it was decided to demolish the house to make way for the Lefortovo Tunnel. A group of historians who were studying the house at the time formed a “civil defense” of the building. People sat in it day and night, trying to prevent the demolition. According to legend, even the son of the foreman who was in charge of the process joined the protesters and poured sand into the bulldozer's gas tank, buying time.
It is not known how it would have ended, but the then mayor of Moscow Boris Yeltsin came to the house. He looked at the house and ordered the demolition to be stopped. The Lefortovo tunnel was postponed for ten years, and when it was built under Luzhkov, they managed without demolishing the Shcherbakov Chambers.
It is believed that the defense of the house marked the beginning of the formation of the Moscow urban protection movement and the salvation of the entire historical Lefortovo from destruction.
Shcherbakov's chambers, unfortunately, are still closed to visitors. Isn't it time for city authorities to think about a museum? The building is unique in many ways and could be another landmark of the city. The architect managed to harmoniously combine two styles – classicism, which was just emerging at that time, and baroque.
The house looks good from the outside, although it is covered with small graffiti and inscriptions.
During the research, bottles of 19th-century wine were found in the house, and there is also a hypothesis that there was an underground passage in the house that led to a pharmacy (demolished) on the opposite side of the street.
As for the items found in Shcherbakov's Chambers, they write that they have not disappeared, but are in the “German Quarter” museum in school No. 345 named after D. M. Karbyshev at 10 Lefortovsky Lane. You can view the exhibits by arrangement with the school administration.
I wrote a letter to the school, but they replied that the only thing left from the merchant's house was the bars on the windows. However, I will still go to the museum, and then I will tell and show what I saw.
