Wandering around Basmanny District in Moscow, Russia. Walking from metro station Kitay-Gorod through Solyanka street Podkolokolny lane and Khitrovka Square to Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building. Exploring Shelter for the Homeless on Khitrovka.

Apr 14, 2022

📍 Route https://goo.gl/maps/KTgAfwN5QvUhdTQXA

#moscow #khitrovka #solyanka

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00:48 metro station Kitay-gorod
02:35 Solyanka Street
07:03 Podkolokolny Lane
11:25 Yaroshenko’s revenue house on Khitrovka
19:11 Khitrovka Square
25:48 Yauzsky Blvd (Boulevard Ring)

Yaroshenko’s revenue house on Khitrovka

There are two reasons why this building on Khitrovskaya Square is unique. Firstly, it was built in the 17th century. It is still unknown who it initially belonged to, probably to commander Buturlin. No one knew how old it is until 2004, when a piece of plaster came away from the wall revealing huge stones, a characteristic trait of the mid-17th century. In the inner yard, there are the remains of a red porch, whole tiles and bricks with markings from the time of Tsar Alexis of Russia. Everything had been hidden underneath plaster for centuries.

Balconies are the second characteristic of this building. Let’s go from Khitrovskaya Square under an archway leading to the first yard, where the rooms are situated, and then to the second one. Here we can see the wooden balconies constructed much later: a rare sight for today’s Moscow (there are only two such buildings in Moscow; the second being on 4 Pokrovka Street). Their facades resemble coastal cities, such as Odessa or Batumi. But 150 years ago there were hundreds of buildings with such balconies in Moscow.

In the 19th century, after serfdom was abolished in Russia, the poor rushed to Moscow in search of money. Khitrovka, which had been an elite district, partly became the place in the city were the underworld lurked. There was a real labour exchange for pre-revolutionary illegal workers described in books by Vladimir Gilyarovsky. At that time, in the late 19th – early 20th centuries, the building belonged to Yelizaveta Yaroshenko. It was her who had these wooden balconies built. It was by no means for beauty’s sake but simply to save money. She decided to open a shelter for the homeless in the building. It was something like a cheap hotel for the poorest of poor without any heating or water and with only one utility room on each floor.

By the way, for Yelizaveta Yaroshenko (who was rather wealthy and had a villa in Italy) the shelter was not a way to earn money but for charity. The shelter was the place where the most decent of the Khitrovka beggars lived: former intellectuals who had spent all their money drinking, play copyists and princes who had lost their fortunes. In 1902, workers from the Moscow Art Theatre who rehearsed “The Lower Depths” performance came here to watch how the prototypes behaved in a natural environment.

Gilyarovsky took Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and artist Viktor Simov to the shelter. Gilyarovsky was well-liked on Khitrovka and considered an insider. The participants of that meeting recollect a conflict that took place in the shelter: seasoned thieves found out about the visit of the honoured guests, and attacked Simov with stools and bottles. It might have ended sadly if not for severe Gilyarovsky who stopped the chaos by means of blurting out insults together with curses.

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