On Lubyanka Square, at the intersection with Kuznetsky Most Street, in house 21/5, right behind the now-demolished Church of the Introduction, was the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID) of the USSR, founded in 1923. It was located in a former income house that belonged to the First Russian Insurance Society before 1917 and was built between 1905 and 1907 by architects L.N. Benois and A.I. Gunst.

In the early 18th century, several large plots at the corner of Vvedenskaya Street (now Kuznetsky Most) and Sretenka (now Bolshaya Lubyanka) belonged to the Golitsyn princes. Their extensive estate included two-story stone chambers and wooden buildings. In 1819, the owner became V.V. Vargin, a wealthy supplier to the Russian army. The poet A.F. Merzlyakov and brothers N.A. and K.A. Polevye visited his house.

In 1830, Vargin fell out of favor with the military minister A.I. Tatishchev, and his estates were placed under guardianship, which was lifted only in 1858, a year before his death. Later, the property passed to his heirs, among whom were M.I. Lyaskovskaya, the wife of the chemistry professor at Moscow University N.E. Lyaskovsky, and her brother N.I. Vargin, an employee of the Agricultural Society.

From the mid-19th century, numerous shops were located in the two-story building facing Kuznetsky Most: the linen factory of Mertvag, the jewelry store of Ovchinnikov, the bookstore of the Riga merchant V. Deibner, antique and rare items by A.A. Bo, and the first bent beech furniture factory in Russia by Voitsekhov.

In the early 1900s, the graphic artist I.N. Pavlov, known for his woodcuts and linocuts depicting old Moscow, lived here. In the 1880s, the First Russian Fire Insurance Society, established by N.S. Mordvinov and L.I. Shtiglitz, was located here, which purchased the plot in 1903 for 1 million 6 thousand 518 rubles 56 kopecks. Two years later, a six-story income house in the neoclassical style was built.

In the 1910s, the house housed the photography studio of K.A. Fisher and the First Russian Automobile Club of Moscow. From 1918 to 1952, it was home to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). In the autumn and winter of 1924/1925, B. Pasternak visited the NKID reading room, working on his Leniniana. His family was in a difficult financial situation, and he was looking for a steady income. His friend Y.Z. Chernyak helped him find a job related to compiling a bibliography on Lenin for the Lenin Institute at the Central Committee of the VKP(b). Pasternak was engaged in reviewing foreign press about Lenin.

To his sister Josephine, Pasternak wrote: "I have to read entire sets of the best magazines in three languages. There are interesting things, but I waste time, as the work is piecework and depends on the quantity and speed of findings."

The departmental library with a reading room of the NKID was located in apartment 12. In 1934, an Institute for the Training of Diplomatic and Consular Workers opened in the building. A memorial plaque commemorating G.V. Chicherin, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 1918 to 1930, is installed on the house. After the Ministry of Foreign Affairs moved to Smolenskaya-Sennaya into a high-rise building, the Moscow City Sovnarkhoz and various ministries were located here. The building is a valuable urban-forming object.