On Srednyaya Basmannaya Street stands one of the most interesting architectural monuments, a mansion numbered 23. The building, painted yellow, is adorned with a six-column portico, a corner semicircular rotunda, a triangular pediment, and antique friezes on both sides of the portico.

In the 18th century, this estate belonged to the merchants Babushkins, whose name was carried by the neighboring alley of Alexander Lukyanov until 1964. In 1795, the daughter of merchant Pyotr Babushkin, Alexandra, married Prince Y.P. Volkonsky, and the estate passed to him as a dowry. Volkonsky built a wooden mansion here, which later passed to Captain Pavel Ivanovich Yakovlev. He remodeled the house in the style of late classicism. The authorship of the project of this building is unknown, although it has been attributed to M.F. Kazakov and I.D. Zhukov, whose signature is on the house plan.

The mansion has an interesting feature: the ceilings in the rooms are of different heights. At different times, the estate was owned by Countess E.A. Saltykova and Count R.A. Vorontsov. Around 1815, it was acquired by Praskovya Vasilievna Muravyova-Apostol, the wife of Senator Ivan Matveevich Muravyov-Apostol. Here lived the future Decembrists Hippolyte, Sergey, and Matvey Muravyov-Apostols. In 1816, the poet Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov was quartered in the house, and possibly A.S. Pushkin also visited.

In 1822, the Muravyovs sold the estate, and in the 1840s, the Alexander-Mariinsky children's shelter opened here, which existed until 1917. After the revolution, People's Commissar Lunacharsky proposed to create a museum of the Decembrists here, but instead, communal apartments appeared in the house, and the mansion began to deteriorate. P.V. Sytyn wrote in 1952 that the house was "living its last days." However, it survived.

In 1986, a museum opened in the building, but in 1991, a ceiling collapse on the grand staircase led to its closure. The house could have been lost if not for a descendant of the Muravyovs-Apostols, Christopher Andreyevich from Switzerland. He offered to lease the mansion with a commitment to restore it. In December 2000, a resolution was signed to transfer the building, and restoration began.

In 2001, scientific restoration began, aimed at restoring the house to its appearance in the first quarter of the 19th century. The house was severely damaged, and the engineering communications had to be completely replaced. During the restoration, wallpapers from the late 18th and 19th centuries were found, Venetian plaster, gypsum reliefs, stoves, and artificial marble were restored. The facades were also restored, preserving the original elements.

The area around the house was improved, and the lost fence was restored according to historical drawings. On May 21, 2013, the Matvey Muravyov-Apostol House Museum reopened to visitors.

The restoration of the mansion on Srednyaya Basmannaya has become an example of successful restoration of architectural monuments in Moscow. In 2013, the estate received an award from the Government of Moscow for the best project in the field of cultural heritage preservation.