Information about the building

The one-story house with a mezzanine and two wings is one of the first constructions in Moscow after the fire. The architectural style of the building can be characterized as eclecticism. The house is adorned with stucco, which emerged due to the fashion for facade renovations that swept the city in the mid-19th century. The stucco was executed by architect K. I. Andreev in 1881. After the reconstruction, the merchant family of the Gandurins settled in the house, known as the uncrowned calico kings. Anton, Sergey, and Alexey Gandurin established a partnership in the 1880s called 'Anton Mikhailovich Gandurin with Brothers', which united several manufacturing enterprises in the Ivano-Voznesensk province.

The partnership produced unique fabrics that were popular not only in Russia but also beyond its borders. Trade representative Bocharov wrote to Anton Mikhailovich Gandurin from the exhibition in Chicago in 1893: 'Your exhibits of calicos attract the most attention from the public at the Columbian Exhibition. If I could sell goods from your showcase, it would have been empty long ago! The public walks past the French showcases with silks and woolen materials. Who would have thought that your designs, created for the Central Asian market, would make such an impression here?'

The older brothers Anton and Sergey visited Moscow occasionally, while the younger brother Alexey lived on Starokonyushenny Lane until the revolution and represented the firm's interests in the capital.

After the revolution, communal apartments were organized in the main house and wings of the former estate, where mainly artists from the Bolshoi Theatre lived, such as Zinaida Leontyevna Afanasyeva, Pavel Ivanovich Rumyantsev, and Minai Germanovich Feltenstein.

Today, part of the building houses the restaurant 'New Vasyuki', reminding us that in 1971, in L. Gaidai's film 'The Twelve Chairs', the house at Starokonyushenny, 2 played the role of a dormitory for chemistry students named after monk Berthold Schwartz.