In the courtyard of the house at Zemlyanoy Val, 39, built from 1939 to 1953 according to the design of I.N. Kastel and T.G. Zaikin, an amazing structure has been preserved. If you go inside, you can unexpectedly discover a charming old building from the 18th century with a single-column chamber and vaults.

In the 1680s, the chambers belonged to the boyar P.I. Matyushkin, the nephew of Tsarina Evdokiya, the wife of Alexei Mikhailovich. In the 18th century, Matyushkin's great-grandson sold the ancestral chambers. From 1764, the house was owned by Princess N.P. Volkonskaya, who held it until 1810. It is possible that the building was reconstructed in the second half of the 18th century, but it acquired the Empire style after a fire: in 1813 and 1817, a portico with six Ionic columns was added to the house.

In the 1820s, the estate was purchased by merchant P.V. Lukutin. The Lukutins became famous for their lacquer factory in the village of Danilkovo, known as Fedoskino. They developed production, founded an art school, but in 1904, after the death of the last owner, the factory was sold.

In the 1880s, Nikolai Alekseevich Lukutin married the daughter of the neighbors, the Khlyudovs, Lyubov Gerasimovna, bought a house on Tverskaya Street, and sold this estate to the Zhivago merchants. Before the revolution, Leonid Vasilyevich and Sergey Vasilyevich Zhivago lived here. They had a factory and a store for officer goods in Gazetny Lane, and they worked as cotton brokers on the Moscow exchange. However, they were most known for their hounds, which people came from all over the country to see. They also had a dream of acquiring an old violin, either Stradivari or Amati, and it came true. Together with the family of Vasily Alexeyevich Khlyudov, they held concerts in this house.

The estate had a large garden behind the residential house, which has partially survived and was called the Poteshny Garden, meaning entertaining. During the Soviet era, it became the garden named after E.F. Kukhmisterov, a participant in the October Revolution of 1917 and chairman of the railway workers' union of the Moscow node. Now the garden has become a dull and dreary place next to the railway tracks.