Studying In Mansions: Exploring The Cultural Heritage Of HSE Buildings
HSE University is famous not only for the quality education and its progressive and ambitious students, but also for its unique monumental campuses spread all over Moscow.
Many of those buildings look modern and shiny, like Strogino Complex – home of HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM HSE) or Pokrovka Complex, which has already become a second home for many students from different faculties. There are also campuses that do not look so fresh, although they keep memories of many years of history – there were factories, wealthy merchant’s apartments and other universities. This article will navigate you through some of the most interesting HSE campuses and tell you about their majestic history.
20 Myasnitskaya Street
The story of the main HSE building located at 20 Myasnitskaya Street starts in the 18th century – there were apartments of Princely family of Koltsov-Mosalskiy – descendants of Rurik. Later, in the early 19th-late 20th centuries the building became a block of flats for rent, so there were people lucky enough to live in this monumental construction. The colorful facades of various stores on this building faced Myasnitskaya Street no earlier than 1888, when the building’s owner, Armenian merchant Ananov died that year. Later there were many facilities: for example, trading house (shopping mall) Mur and Merilis («Мюр и Мерили́з») that has left a mark in the form of its logo on the floor tile – still can be seen today.
9/11 Myasnitskaya Street
Famous for its beauty and appearance on every HSE-related publication, 9/11 Myasnitskaya Street is not that old compared to its neighbor on 20 Myasnitskaya Street. In 1997, a constructing process of the building has started. It took them 20 years to give it the final look. Far before that, there was a Church of St. Euplus that firstly was made of wood in 1471 and was later reconstructed with stone in 1750-s. The War of 1812 brought Napoleon to ruin it. In 1926 the church was finally deconstructed by Soviet officials to build there something else. Fact: during World Ward II, the empty spot was hit with a bomb, fortunately missing beautiful Myasnitskaya buildings.
The Khitrovka Buildings
The residence of Faculty of Communications, Media and Design was built in the 18th century. Prince Golitsyn was the first famous owner of the property. In 1776 the buildings were sold to Moscow governor Fedor Osterman, who was a quite educated man at that time and an appreciator of arts. His brother Leo had a daughter Ekaterina – she has later married lieutenant Ivan Tyutchev and gave birth to famous Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev in 1803. The family later have occupied the residence and lived there for 7 years – «hitrovka and tryokhsvyat became a lullaby for a young poet. Later, there was a fire station and police department in the houses. One of the famous prisoners of its remand center was another famous Russian poet – Vladimir Mayakovsky.
The Shabolovka Buildings
The initial owner of Shabolovka Complex was Petr Goujon – French businessman who used to run a silk factory there – the production began at Shabolovka in 1840. In 1880, his son, Yuli inherited the factory. He was also famous for his publications on management, business and economics which corresponds to modern Shabolovka Complex students’ professional interests.
Also, there is a remarkable old mansion in the territory, that gives the impression of the haunted. It used to be a home for later silk factory owner – Frenchman Hector Simono – the house was built in 1898. This beautiful house is not a property of HSE and is currently for sale for only 3 million dollars. Got tired of your dormitory, anyone?
21/4 Staraya Basmannaya Street
The faith of the philosophy center of HSE might be prosaic but is still quite interesting. 21/4 Staraya Basmannaya building used to be home for various universities before HSE. There were Moscow State University of Mechanical Engineering (MAMI) and Moscow State University of Ecological Engineering (MSUIE). According to the pictures related, exterior of the building changed slightly every time – only the university logotypes have changed.
There are some other remarkable buildings that also can provide a peace of historical information, like Milyutinsky Pereulok, 13, Building 1, 24 Myasnitskya, 8 Pokrovsky Boulevard. Unfortunately, HSE University does no longer reside in those beautiful buildings. If interested, you can learn more about history of some of HSE historical buildings here and here.
Text by
Eduard Oksem