Between Arbat and Povarskaya streets lies a square that can be called the true "heart" of Moscow. Spasopeskovskaya Square got its name from the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior, "that on the Sands," built in the early 18th century on the site of an old wooden church in the стрелецкая слобода. This square is depicted in the famous painting by Vasily Polenov "Moscow Courtyard."

On Spasopeskovskaya Square, to the left of the church, stands a small wooden mansion in the Empire style with a six-column portico (house No. 8), which is the main building of the large estate of A. G. Shchepochkina. Nearby is house No. 6 with a columned portico of the Ionic order, an example of post-fire Moscow construction, also belonging to the wife of Lieutenant Shchepochkin. It was built on an earlier foundation of a wooden house of Collegiate Assessor P. U. Ustinov. Interestingly, the gates between houses 6 and 8 are significantly older than the buildings themselves: they previously led to the church cemetery of the Spasopeskovskaya church.

The main house of the estate of A. G. Shchepochkina, N. A. Lvov was built in the first half of the 19th century and was reconstructed in 1884 by architect V. P. Gavrilov.

In the 1820s, this mansion was rented by the poet S. P. Turgenev, the brother of writer Ivan Turgenev, who actively supported the Spasopeskovskaya church. In this same house, between 1840 and 1880, lived the grandson of Count N. S. Mordvinov, the only member of the Supreme Criminal Court who refused to sign the death sentence for the Decembrists, and the architect, poet, artist, musician, translator, member of the Russian Academy Lvov, N. A. Lvov. In 1871, Lvov, at his own expense and with the permission of the Moscow authorities, laid out a square that still exists today. Being a great admirer of A.S. Pushkin, he named it Pushkin Square. In 1993, a monument to the poet was erected in the square.

In the 1920s, the house housed the editorial office of the magazine "Herald of Statistics" and the publishing house of the Central Statistical Administration. Here also lived Vasily Sergeyevich Nemchinov, one of the founders of the economic-mathematical direction of Soviet economic science. Since 1963, the mansion has been occupied by the Embassy of Somalia, and now it is the residence of the Ambassador of Spain in the Russian Federation.