Vasilchikov Estate

The exhibition is housed in an enfilade room of the estate’s mansion. The room served as a study and library in the past. The Vasilchikov Estate dates back to the mid-18th century, when the mansion was built. The beginning of the 19th century witnessed the construction of the symmetrically arranged wings joined to the mansion by passageways. The estate survived the French invasion and the 1812 fire of Moscow, which burnt out the first floors made of wood. The estate was completely restored after 1817, with the original layout and façades remaining unchanged.

The central element of the Vasilchikov Estate exhibition is a scale model of the estate complex that took shape after 1870. Based on archive material and photographs, the model is historically accurate: the façades facing Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street are decorated with a cast-iron balcony whose windows show the principal rooms of the piano nobile (dining room, great hall, boudoir, smoking lounge); while a ballroom with dancing figures can be seen through the windows on the building’s other side facing Malaya Nikitskaya Street. All this immerses the visitors in the façade of Moscow’s 19th-century life, well known from books and paintings created at that time.