Not far from the Novodevichy Monastery, on Pogodinskaya Street, there is a wonderfully beautiful little blue house, the Pogodinskaya House. Surrounded by typical buildings of research institutes, it looks toy-like and completely out of place in the modern urban landscape. It seems as if some mysterious force has transported it here, like in the fairy tale about the Emerald City.

Few people know about this building, which is one of the oldest surviving wooden structures in Moscow. The Pogodinskaya House is over 150 years old. It was built in 1856 by architect Nikolai Vasilyevich Nikitin and gifted to Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin, a professor at Moscow University, historian and publicist, by the prominent Russian entrepreneur Vasily Alexandrovich Kokorev. This was a sign of respect for the famous historian's interest in folk architecture and art. The house was one of two wings of the main estate and was conceived as a programmatic work in the 'Russian style,' executed in the forms of folk wooden architecture. It is a tall log cabin with a light room on the second floor, decorated with patterned carved woodwork, shutters, 'towels,' 'underviews,' and other details, presumably created based on the designs of Prince G.G. Gagarin.

The house served as a 'repository of antiquities,' where Pogodin kept historical relics. Slavophiles such as Samarin, Khomyakov, and Chizhov gathered here. It was a well-known literary salon in Moscow, frequented by writers and actors, including N.V. Gogol, who worked here on the first volume of 'Dead Souls,' edited 'Taras Bulba,' and celebrated his name day. Among other guests were A.N. Ostrovsky, F.I. Tyutchev, P.Ya. Chaadaev, M.N. Zagorskin, A.F. Pisemsky, E.A. Baratynsky, M.S. Shchepkin, P.A. Vyazemsky, K.S. Aksakov, and S.T. Aksakov.

In 1941, during the Great Patriotic War, a bomb hit the main house of the estate, destroying it, and the house suffered significant damage. It was not until 1972 that the building was restored by the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, after which the district branch of the VOOpiK of Moscow was located in the house and lectures were held there. Before the reforms and privatization, Muscovites came here to listen to interesting lectures or the sounds of an old piano. Then the house stood closed for several years and gradually fell into disrepair. Now it looks quite decent, but has lost its cultural significance and, like many historical buildings in Moscow, is used for offices.