GlavUpDK under the MFA of Russia kicked off a project to restore the manor house in Moscow, 67/1 Pyatnitskaya Street. The 1,006-sq. m brick mansion is a cultural heritage site of federal significance managed by GlavUpDK.

GlavUpDK’s Major Projects Department and specialized contractors will restore the façades, upgrade the existing engineering systems, redesign the interiors to fully accommodate foreign representative offices, in addition to a major overhaul of the fence, entrance gates and landscaping of the surrounding area.

Built at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries – between 1769 and 1812, in 1821 it belonged to a clerk’s wife, Varvara Grigorievna von Schepkovskaya. By that time, the two-story house with a basement had been rebuilt after the fire of 1812 and enlarged with an extension on the courtyard side, a service outbuilding and an outbuilding on the side street, as well as a wooden gallery.

Later, it was owned by merchant Olga Semenovna Tolokonnikova, merchant Grigory Kirillovich Soloviev, as well as the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Monetchiki as it was occupied by Archpriest Petr Ivanovich Sakharov.

After the revolution, it was used for communal housing; according to a restoration survey in 1951, in the basement there were workshops of Training and Production Plant No. 2 belonging to the Moscow City Department of the All-Union Society of the Blind.

After repair and restoration in 1998, it got its original exterior to look as it did in the 18th century.

The location – on the corner of the block – influenced its round-cornered design with a 4-column portico and a decorative rotunda. The rotunda’s decoration is indeed remarkable because of four Tuscan columns supporting a low dome with a wide arched window, its northern and western façades featuring rusticated stone, niches, pilasters, and Corinthian plaster capitals.

The work carried out by GlavUpDK’s Major Projects Department involves restoring façades, including plaster decorative elements, and fixing the brickwork and plinth.

The façades will be cleared of loose plaster and late paint layers, any cracks to be treated with a special solution. Particular focus will be placed on decorations, to be restored by certified restoration architects.

They will also remove the later tiles on the southern façade plinth to replace them with granite cladding, in addition to replacement of the dolomite slabs along the southern façade with granite slabs ones.

Experts will also change the external doors and repair the windows, roofing and attics and recreate the granite-clad porches as the existing ones need to be dismantled. The cornice and ridge vents along with the louvered wooden grille on the dome (from the eastern façade) will be restored, too.

The interior restoration will not affect the historical arrangement and will take into account all of the building’s protected elements.

Repair of the fence will include recreating the plaster layer, wall coverings and fence columns, the metal gates to be fixed as well.

Architectural lighting to highlight the bulk of the building in the evening will be the icing on the cake.

The project will ensure long-term safe use of the building and preserve its historical value for further generations of residents and connoisseurs of architecture.