Merchant Igumnov’s house in the Yakimanka Street was designed as a fairy tale in the Russian Revival style. It integrated the most varied and complicated components, such as turrets, hipped roofs, vault arches and pillars. The house is veiled with gloomy legends: though a well-known philanthropist, Igumnov refused to pay money to the architect for his work when done, whereas figures of Moscow architecture scarified the complete building. Shocked by this persecution, the architect Pozdeyev committed suicide. There is a myth that he cursed his creation with staying empty and never ever cozy. This is actually what happened: the palace that cost life to its author was empty for many years. Nowadays Igumnov's House, that mosaic gingerbread mansion, is as a recognized monument of the Russian Revival style.

Located at:  43/1, Bolshaya Yakimanka Street, near Oktyabrskaya Metro Station. 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Gorky’s Museum House (Ryabushinsky's Mansion)

This most well-known monument of the Moscow Art Nouveau style constructed by Fedor Schechtel for the businessman Sergey Ryabushinsky in 1902. The snap of this house is balcony grating that correlate with fencing patterns, treelike window frames and broad mosaic frieze with pale lilac irises depicted there. Maxim Gorky settled in this house after his return from Italy and lived there from 1931 to 1936. Nowadays it is not just a private mansion open to the public but also a monumental construction by one of the first-class architects. The house museum interior is remarkable for its well-known “melting” ladder, stained-glass windows, and the Old Belief church in the upper part of the house.

 

Located: 6/2, Malaya Nikitskaya Street, near Arbatskaya metro station.

 

 

 

 

7. Kekushev's House

The mansion designed by the architect L. Kekushev is a vivid example of the Art Nouveau style. It was constructed on the project of the owner in 1901-1902. Contemporaries compared the mansion to a miniature medieval castle. It really looks like a small palace from distance: several buildings of different heights, one of them topped with a multilevel carved tower. Indoors there are state drawing rooms on the ground and first floor, with residential penthouses over them. In the 1960s the building was the residence of military attaches of the United Arab Republic. Now it houses the Attashe Office of Egypt. 

Located at: 21, Ostozhenka Street, Kropotkinskaya metro station.