Mansion of Vasily Naryshkin – Count Savva Vladislavich-Raguzinsky
The two-level mansion has survived in its entirety. Originally, the first floor had no windows facing the street. The surviving gate arch in the middle of the façade led to the courtyard. Enfilades of three vaulted rooms each were stretching on each side of the arch. The second floor had en enfilade plan with eight rooms. White stone decorations on three windows on the courtyard façade were recreated by Soviet conservation architects.
Since the 1680s, the building was owned by stolnik (palace servant) Vasily Naryshkin, a cousin of Peter I’s mother Tsarina Natalia Kirillovna.
After the death of childless Naryshkin in 1702, Peter I ordered his mansion to be used as a school of Protestant pastor Ernst Glück of Saxon origin. In the beginning of the Northern War, Glück was taken prisoner during the capture of Marienburg (today’s Aluksne in Latvia) by the troops of Peter I. Also taken captive was his servant Marta Skavronskaya who later became the wife of Peter I and then Empress Catherine I. Peter sent Glück to Moscow to set up a translation school for voluntary training children of boyars, noblemen and merchants to become diplomats of the Ambassadorial Prikaz (Office). In 1707, the building was hit by a fire whereupon the school was moved to another place. The mansion damaged by the fire was given by the Tsar to his associate Savva Vladislavich-Raguzinsky, a Serb coming from a family of Bosnian princes, a merchant, a resident of Russia in Constantinople, a future count and councilor for Turkish and Balkan affairs. A blackamoor boy bought by Raguzinsky in the Istanbul market and brought to Russia in 1706 became the great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin.
Raguzinsky rebuilt the house damaged by fire. Its new façade can be seen on a drawing dating from the early 18th century which is kept by the National Museum of Sweden in Stockholm.
The house was then owned by the heir of Savva Vladislavich-Raguzinsky count Efim Vladislavich and later by Matvei Kantemir, a son of Dmitry Kantemir, a Moldavian hospodar who received Russian citizenship. Under count Matvei Kantemir, the building was rebuilt to have shapes of mature Baroque style and in the 1830s, it was given an Empire style look.
In the Soviet period, the former mansion became an apartment building.
The building is now a monument of federal significance. A few years ago, its residents were relocated and it remained empty for a long period of time, except that the vaulted rooms on the first floor were rented to commercial tenants. In 2018, the building was transferred to a private owner. There is a restoration design which, in particular, involves the rehabilitation of some windows from the 17th century and fragments of the courtyard facades from the early 18th century.
