Arithmetic School on Varvarka (Old English Court)
Built by wealthy merchants at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, a mansion with spacious storage rooms in Varvarskaya Street was made public property in the middle of the 16th century. Tsar Ivan the Terrible donated the building to the English “Moscow Company” which used it as its trade residence. In 1636, the Moscow Company acquired new premises and the mansion on Varvarka became known as the “Old English Court”. After the execution of King Charles I of England in 1649, the British were banished from Russia. In 1676, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich provided the Old English Court for housing a metochion of the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolia (the bishop’s seat headed by the Metropolitan).
In 1720, the residence of Nizhny Novgorod metropolitans was used to house one of the first arithmetic schools in Moscow. The Decree of the Senate dated February 28, 1714 ordered to open schools teaching arithmetic and geometry at monasteries and the Church’s administrative institutions. Schools also taught writing, reading and geography, producing literate people for the army, navy, government institutions, industry and trade.
In 1722, the Arithmetic School on Varvarka had up to one hundred students. However, it is unknown whether all of them can be attributed to 1722.
In 1723, there were more than 40 arithmetic schools in Russia, but their development was discontinued. In 1744, the Senate decreed to abolish them.
In the 18th-20th centuries, the building changed owners many times and numerous reconstructions have made it unrecognizable. During the first years of the Soviet power, it was adapted to house different institutions and residential units. After the Great Patriotic War, the country’s first Library of Foreign Literature was located there.
In 1968-1972, the Old English Court, which is currently a monument of federal significance, underwent restoration that recreated the appearance of the mansion that existed in the beginning of the 17th century.
The inauguration ceremony of the Old English Court Museum (a branch of the Museum of Moscow) took place on October 19, 1994 and was attended by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.
In 2013-2014, the building underwent a large-scale restoration. 2016 saw the opening of the renewed permanent exhibition of the Museum, which is dedicated to the beginning of relations between the Tsardom of Muscovy and England.
