Description of the attraction
Not far from the metro station "Nevsky Prospekt" in St. Petersburg, on B. Morskaya Street, at number 45, there is a beautiful house, known to all Petersburgers as "Gagarina's mansion". The house has an interesting past. Until 1740, the site on which the building is now located was not built up. According to archival materials, the first residential building was built here in 1740. The owner of the house was then a fairly well-known Russian genealogist Pyotr Timofeevich Savelov. Over time, quite a lot of owners changed at the house, Alexey Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin and Peter Kirillovich Razumovsky settled in it at different times.
And at the moment when the famous architect Auguste Montferrand becomes the owner of the house, he has an idea to completely transform its appearance, change the interior and completely rebuild the building. The reconstruction project, approved by the construction department, was already ready for the architect.
In 1836, Montferrand unexpectedly decided to sell the house and hand over the finished reconstruction project to Pavel Nikolayevich Demidov, a rich man, a descendant of the famous Russian industrialist and founder of the dynasty, Nikita Demidov. But Auguste Montferrand, nevertheless, rebuilds the building, the decoration of which was completely completed in 1840.
The beautiful mansion was quite noticeably different from the general plan of the city architecture. The skilful architect completed the project in a style reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance. The house is decorated, which is emphasized by the free volumes and decorative busts, and is quite unusual for its asymmetrical composition, uncharacteristic for the architecture of the city. Standing out for its extraordinary Italian look, the house spoke of the owner's wealth. The amazing Malachite Hall that existed in the house spoke about the Ural riches.
In 1873, the then owner of the mansion, the son of Pavel Nikolaevich - Pavel Pavlovich Demidov - decided to sell it to Princess Gagarina (Vera Fedorovna Gagarina is the sister of Natalya Fedorovna Lieven, who was the mistress of the house next door), who remained the mistress of the architectural masterpiece until 1918, when for non-payment of fees, he was transferred to the state. In 1890, the architect Ivan Vasilyevich Shtrom, namely, Vera Fedorovna turned to him to rebuild the mansion, moved the front entrance, changed the interior and completed a new decoration of the premises. Strom also removed the doors with umbrellas on the left side of the building and made an entrance on the right side, in the place where the outermost window was located.
The house remains the same as after the renovation in 1890. The floor is covered with black and white marble, similar to a checkerboard, the decoration of the lobby is quite well preserved. The walls are clad with natural oak up to the middle. And then the brackets, passing into the cornice, made of snow-white stucco molding, go to the ceiling. Fireplaces (carved and marble), marble and oak staircases, beautiful halls look impressive in the house. Of great interest (in an artistic sense) is the Great Hall, decorated on three sides with a gallery made of oak. The tall fireplace with a large black marble board with gray veins is also of great interest. The facing of the fireplace insert consists of tiles (white in blue, with landscapes in marine and architectural themes). In the design of the mansion, the architects used exclusively materials of natural origin.
The house was confiscated for two years' fees unpaid by the owners in 1918. The new owner was the Commissariat of the National Economy. As in many old houses, a variety of societies and institutions found registration in the mansion at different times (there was also the Leningrad Auto Club and a ballroom dancing club, during the Great Patriotic War it housed the Maritime Register). Currently, it houses the House of the Union of Composers.
