On Spartakovskaya Street, formerly known as Yelokhovskaya, stands a remarkable building, the House of A. I. Musin-Pushkin. This magnificent red brick estate, which includes a house, three wings, and a fence, was built in the 1790s-1800s.

Count A. I. Musin-Pushkin, who lived in St. Petersburg on the Moika River, moved to Moscow after retiring during the reign of Paul I and acquired this estate in 1776.

The house is associated with many historical events and the names of outstanding individuals. The count himself was a well-known historian, archaeologist, collector of book rarities of Ancient Rus, collector, publisher of monuments, a full member of the Russian Academy, and president of the Academy of Arts. Historian V. O. Klyuchevsky referred to him as an "antiquarian-publicist." Musin-Pushkin did not hide his unique collection, and many scholars worked in his library, including historian Karamzin.

The core of the count's collection consisted of ancient books and manuscripts gifted by Catherine II. Among them were documents from the time of Peter I, ancient Russian chronicles, drafts of works by various writers, original paintings by Raphael, Rubens, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, as well as a collection of coins and medals.

In the 1780s, after the abolition of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in Yaroslavl, Musin-Pushkin acquired from the abbot Ioil (Bykovsky) a manuscript collection "Chronograph," which contained a list of the previously unknown "Word on Igor's Campaign." In 1800, the count translated and published it in Moscow with a print run of 1,200 copies.

Unfortunately, in the fire of 1812, the count's estate suffered greatly. The rich library burned down, including the only manuscript copy of the "Word." Only about twenty manuscripts survived, which the count had kept elsewhere or managed to distribute. Some of them ended up with Karamzin and future Emperor Alexander I.

Today, the surviving copies of the first edition are a rarity. By the late 1970s, 68 copies were known.

The loss that befell Musin-Pushkin was a heavy blow for him. In 1812, already in old age, he was at his estate in Ilovnya, Yaroslavl. From the village, just before the French captured Moscow, carts were sent to evacuate property. There were not enough carts to save the entire collection, and the house manager Shepyagin, assessing the value of the property in his own way, preferred to load the carts with furniture rather than manuscripts.

After the fire of 1812, during the restoration of the house, its architecture was supplemented with elements of the Empire style.

In 1834, the estate was sold to the city, and in 1835, the 2nd Moscow Gymnasium was located there. The house was converted for the needs of the gymnasium. In the 1850s, the poet L. A. May lived and worked here. After the revolution, the gymnasium was closed, and in 1930 the building was enlarged and turned into the House of the Red Army. Later, it housed the K. Liebknecht Industrial-Pedagogical Institute, and in 1943, the Moscow Engineering and Construction Institute named after V. V. Kuybyshev moved into the House of Musin-Pushkin, now known as the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering.