Vnukov's house on Trubnaya. Rozhdestvensky and Tsvetnoy boulevards

The square was planned in 1795, but it finally appeared on the city map in 1817 - when it disappeared.

The people called this place “pipe”, and the market under the walls of the White City was called Trubny. Here there were forges near the water, and under the fortress wall there was a bast market, where you could buy logs, boards, frames and doors, carts and other forest products.

In the 1840s, the poultry market was moved from Okhotny Ryad to Trubnaya Square. And of course, poultry farmers had their own tricks. For example, they sold specially trained pigeons, which, at the first opportunity, returned from the new owner to the old one for a new sale. And in order for customers to come for purchases more often, they used the “sale at Vagankovo”: when transplanting the sold bird into a cage, it was imperceptibly squeezed under the wings, which caused internal hemorrhage, and after a few days it died.

Nevertheless, the poultry market operated here until 1924 and was very popular. Muscovites even had a custom: to come to Truba on the day of the Annunciation, buy a bird and immediately release it into the wild.

In the middle of the 19th century, a horse-drawn horse was built along the Boulevard Ring. On Trubnaya Square, an additional pair of horses was harnessed to it in order to pull the carriage up the steep rise of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard at the site of the steep bank of the Neglinnaya.

And in 1851, in the northern part of the square, near modern Tsvetnoy Boulevard, they began to sell flowers, seeds and seedlings.

There are hens with chicks, turkeys, geese walking along the street, and sometimes you will happen to see a fat pig walking with her piglets. At least, I have met these interesting animals more than once not only on Truba, but even on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard.

But soon Trubnaya Square gained a bad reputation. The fact is that on the site of house No. 2 on Tsvetnoy Boulevard stood Vnukov’s three-story house, where the Crimea tavern appeared on the ground floor in the mid-19th century. It had the reputation of a hangout where the city’s “bottom” gathered. And its basements were called “Hell” and “Hell.”

On the third floor of the tavern, there were traders, sharpers, swindlers and all sorts of crooks, relatively decently dressed. The audience was consoled by songwriters and accordionists. The mezzanine was decorated brightly and roughly, with pretensions to chic. In the halls there were stages for the orchestra and for the gypsy and Russian choirs, and a loud organ was played alternately between the choirs at the request of the public... Here merchants who had been on a spree and various visitors from the provinces were consoled. Under the mezzanine, the lower floor was occupied by commercial premises, and below it, deep in the ground, under the entire house between Grachevka and Tsvetnoy Boulevard, there was a huge basement floor, entirely occupied by one tavern, the most desperate place of robbery, where the underworld, flocking from the hangouts of Grachevka, the alleys of Tsvetnoy Boulevard, and even from the “Shipovskaya Fortress” itself, the lucky ones came running after particularly successful dry and wet affairs, betraying even their hangout “Polyakovsky tavern” on the Yauza, and Khitrov’s “Katorga” seemed like a boarding house for noble maidens in comparison with “Hell” "

In the 20th century, the Crimea tavern was closed, and a store was located in Vnukov’s house. In 1981, Vnukov’s house was demolished. In its place appeared the House of Political Education of the Moscow State Committee of the CPSU. In 1991 it was transformed into the Parliamentary Center of Russia, and in 2004 it was demolished. Now there is a complex of administrative and residential buildings.

The legendary Echkinsky rooms with the Dog Market tavern have not survived either. In their place stands the Neclay Gallery.

A huge block located between Trubnaya Square and Neglinnaya Street was occupied by the furnished rooms of the Echkin coachmen, known in Moscow for their cleanliness, cheapness and the “ability” of the owners to wait for a long time for rent from the most numerous category of guests - students of Moscow University. In the courtyard of the Echkin rooms there was a depot for stagecoaches and city cabs, as well as the Echkin residence itself...
At the corner of Neglinnaya Street and Nizhny Kiselny Lane near the Echkins, Nikiforov’s “Dog Market” tavern was located in the house, where hunters and nature lovers gathered... In this tavern a meeting took place, no less important than the meeting in the “Slavic Bazaar” of V.I. . Nemirovich-Danchenko and K.S. . One day, two lovers of birds and bergamot tobacco, Lucien Olivier and Yakov Pegov, got into a conversation here. They bought tobacco for one kopeck at Truba so that it would always be fresh. And while discussing tobacco products, they decided to build a special restaurant for lovers of dog racing, birdsong and other regulars of the Bird Market on Truba. Which was soon accomplished.

And in the early 2000s, during the reconstruction of Tsvetnoy Boulevard, a memorial “Grateful Russia - to soldiers of law and order who died in the line of duty” was installed in the northern part of Trubnaya Square. At the top there is a pedestrian, striking the Serpent. The central bas-relief uses the theme of the Pieta - a mother mourns her dead son. The monument was opened on Police Day.

They say that......the artist Perov found sitters and subjects for paintings on Truba. For example, he painted “The Drowned Woman” with a certain Fanny, an inhabitant of one of the brothels. Perov even left perhaps the only description of such an institution among his contemporaries: he visited the brothel together with his teacher from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, who was looking for a model.
...March 6, 1953, during the farewell to the body of I.V. Stalin in the Hall of Columns there was a massive stampede in the crowd that had accumulated on Trubnaya Square. The number of deaths was not inferior in scale to the Khodynka disaster of 1896.
...there are still precious trinkets lying around in the Pipe dungeons that the bandits accidentally dropped during their escape.

The radial-ring principle of planning of ancient Russian cities is a feature of the development of ancient Russian cities and Moscow in particular. From the center of the settlement, the expanding city was surrounded by ever new defensive walls. This was precisely the prerequisite for the emergence of many, including Trubnaya.

Pipe Square: history of origin

“The Underworld” is the second part of the complex, accessible only to “initiates”. It consisted of small rooms - "forges" and large rooms - "devil's mills".

There was also an underground part - the "Hell" tavern, where a very dangerous public gathered. Here they played cards for money and life, drank drinks common among exiles and convicts, and resolved issues displeasing to the government.

It is with Trubnaya Square that important events in the political life of the city are connected: an assassination attempt on the Tsar was being prepared, and there was also a mass death of residents of the capital going to the funeral of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

Monument on Trubnaya

In 1994, a stele “Grateful Russia to the soldiers of law and order who died in the line of duty” was unveiled on Trubnaya Square in Moscow. This event sums up everything said above. After all, this square is a bloody place in the capital, where not only citizens died, but also guardians of the law who tried to restore order in the most gangster corner of Moscow. The authors of the stele are A. V. Kuzmin and A. A. Bichukov.

The monument is made in the form of a Roman triumphal column, the trunk of which is cast in bronze. The column is installed on a granite stepped pedestal, the base is decorated with bas-reliefs. One of them depicts a Mother grieving over the body of her deceased son.

On the column is a figure of St. George the Victorious, killing a serpent with a spear. The symbolism of the sculpture is obvious: St. George the Victorious personifies the warrior of Law and Order, and the snakes represent the criminals with whom he fights and invariably wins. It should be noted that the image is different from the canonical one - St. George the Victorious is depicted not as a horseman, but as a standing warrior trampling the enemy snake with his foot.

The height of the column reaches 32.5 m, which is 15.5 m lower than the famous Alexander Column in St. Petersburg.

Every year, a Memory Watch is held near the monument, where Moscow police officers gather and lay flowers - a tribute to the memory of the fallen defenders of law and order.

Sights of Trubnaya Square

At the corner of Trubnaya Square and Neglinnaya Street there is a historical building that houses the School of Contemporary Play. Previously, on the site of this building there was a tobacco stall, and in the 19th century, according to the design of D. Chichagov, this building was built, intended for the fashionable “Hermitage”, which attracted the entire aristocratic elite of Moscow. It was here that the famous chef-inventor Lucien Olivier shone with his art.

This restaurant is also associated with the name of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who signed a contract here with the famous book publisher Suvorin to print the complete collection of his works.

But the house on the corner of Bolshoi Golovin Lane has the historical name “House with Pregnant Caryatids.” It housed one of the most popular brothels in aristocratic Moscow.

Nearby, on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, is the famous Yuri Nikulin Circus.

How to get to Trubnaya Square? The most convenient way to travel is the Moscow metro: to the Trubnaya Ploshchad or Tsvetnoy Boulevard stations.

And in order not to confuse anything, we suggest that you look at the photo of Trubnaya Square in advance.

Have a nice trip and unforgettable impressions!

The Red Light District in old Moscow occupied the area around Sretensky Hill. It is difficult to imagine that modern, well-kept Sretenka was still a hotbed of crime, brothels and slums back in the mid-19th century.

Before the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, Russia was actively fought against the “venal” love. Various punishments were invented for the “night butterflies,” either in the form of shameful exile or in the form of forced labor.

In the 1840s, it was decided to legalize prostitution in the hope that the release of brothels “to the light” would reduce the spread of dangerous diseases. Following St. Petersburg, a special medical-police committee appeared in Moscow, whose responsibilities included supervising brothels and issuing licenses to open them. The new department was located on the premises of the Sretensky police station in the Skornyakov house and at the current address 3rd Kolobovsky Lane, 16.

House of Sretenskaya police station

Olga Vaganova/AiF

The location of a specific institution determined the appearance of the quarter here "red light". Since there was a lot of work to control the hot spots, and there were few employees in the department, it was decided to issue permission to open “houses of brothel” not far from the police station. A disastrous area was formed between the current Tsvetnoy Boulevard and Academician Sakharov Avenue. The brothels were located on Grachevka(now Trubnaya Street), Sretensky Boulevard, as well as in alleys.

This is what I wrote about this place Vladimir Gilyarovsky in his book “Moscow and Muscovites”:

« The most terrible thing was the alley leading from Grachevka to Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Maly Kolosov (now Maly Sukharevsky), completely occupied by half-ruble brothels of the latest standard. The entrances of these establishments, facing the street, were illuminated by the obligatory red lantern, and in the back courtyards huddled the dirtiest secret dens of prostitution, where there were no lanterns and where the windows were curtained from the inside».

The inhabitants of the area were mainly beggars, drunken Muscovites and criminals.

Was very popular among local houses of debauchery "Rudnevka" in the current Bolshoi Golovin Lane, 22. The building “with pregnant caryatids”, the purpose of which was to attract customers, has still been preserved and stands out among the modern elite buildings of the alley.

The preserved building of the former “house of tolerance” “Rudnevka”

Olga Vaganova/AiF

By the way, you can recognize houses with a dubious past in the Sretenka area by their number of floors. When taverns that provided special services were destroyed, it was customary to build only 4-5-story houses, so a squat building indirectly indicates its bad reputation.

“Rudnevka” was one of the luxury brothels, with high prices and a rich interior. It is interesting that in Soviet times the Research Institute of Special Equipment of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs was located here for some time. Party meetings were held in the main hall, decorated with frivolous ladies and crafty stucco angels.

Pregnant caryatids

Olga Vaganova/AiF

Nearby, on the current Petrovsky Boulevard (15), there was another famous establishment - the brothel of a citizen Emilia Khatuntseva. The tavern existed for only two years, since even for Grachevka the features of this place turned out to be excessive. The fact is that so-called “sadistic acts” were practiced there, and Khatuntseva’s house was closed down with the wording “for debauchery.” Nowadays, various offices are located in the building of the former brothel.

Petrovsky Boulevard

But the most famous and accessible for the poor people who lived in the back streets of Sretensky was a brothel with a telling name "Hell". He occupied the basement of the hotel “Crimea” (Trubnaya street, 2). The hotel was demolished long ago, and now a glass business center stands in its place.

Business center built on the site of the Crimea Hotel

Olga Vaganova/AiF

And at the end of the 19th century, the corner of Trubnaya Square and Tsvetnoy Boulevard, according to the descriptions of Vladimir Gilyarovsky, looked like this:

« On the corner between Grachevka and Tsvetnoy Boulevard, with a wide façade facing Trubnaya Square, stood Vnukov’s three-story house. Long before the Hermitage restaurant, it housed the riotous Crimea tavern, and in front of it there were always troikas, reckless drivers and paired “darlings”».

In the “Crimea” tavern, “money dealers, sharpers, swindlers and all sorts of crooks, relatively decently dressed, were having fun. And next to the basement “Hell”, “Khitrov’s “Katorga” seemed like a boarding house for noble maidens.”

In the closets of the brothel, criminals not only received intimate services, but also hid from the police. True, in “Hell” they themselves often became victims of clonidine addicts, but, naturally, they had nowhere to seek justice.

And in place of a building in Art Nouveau style with large windows - showcases on the corner Petrovka And Stoleshnikov Lane at the end of the 19th century there was a hotel "England" (Stoleshnikov lane, 13), where ladies of easy virtue lived. Only wealthy citizens could become their clients; prices here were the highest in Moscow.

The building of the Anglia Hotel in Stoleshnikovovo

Olga Vaganova/AiF

By 1908, due to the increased number of crimes, Grachevka began to be cleared of brothels. Licenses to organize brothels were now issued on the outskirts of the city. Many huts were demolished, and the areas under them were transferred for the construction of apartment buildings. And the street was then renamed Trubnaya. Surprisingly, the building of the Crimea Hotel was never touched at that time, and it continued to stand on this site until the seventies of the 20th century.

In addition to other squares in Moscow, Trubnaya Square requires special attention, notable for its history and place in the national life of Muscovites. Trubnaya has had this name since 1817, when the Neglinnaya River was enclosed in a pipe and removed underground, and the resulting square became the intersection of Petrovsky, Rozhdestvensky and Tsvetnoy boulevards, as well as Neglinnaya and Trubnaya streets.
Long ago, on the site of the busiest square in Moscow, the cabbage of the Nativity Monastery grew, but soon after Neglinnaya was enclosed in a pipe and the formation of the square, it acquired the glory of being the most fertile and promenading place in Moscow.
First of all, a market arose, and over the years it was very diverse: if at first they traded in poultry and other living creatures, then later flower sellers came here, dog shows began to be organized, and menageries came. A horse car was laid along the Boulevard Ring, where an extra pair of horses had to be harnessed at Trubnaya in order to overcome the steep rise of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard.
But most notable was the three-story house of a certain Vnukov, in which there was a tavern “Crimea”, where the city “bottom” and other people who were at odds with the law gathered every night. In addition to the upper floors, there was a basement in the house, and it was huge, and it was divided into “Hell” and “Hell”, where only the “light” of the criminal society had access to what was happening in “Hell”, and even more so in the “Hell”, frightened peaceful townspeople , where high-stakes card games were going on around the clock, loot was being divided, and God knows what else was going on. It is known that it was in “Hell” that meetings of the group of the same name took place, students of the Agricultural Academy dissatisfied with the government, who later organized the first attempt on the life of Alexander II. Despite its bad reputation, the tavern was only reached in the 1980s, it was demolished, a government office was built, and now a business center stands on this site.
In the 1860s, the Frenchman Olivier opened his chic Hermitage restaurant. The “Hermitage” appealed first to the nobility, then to the merchants and foreign businessmen, and then to the entire revelry of Moscow. Of course, it was a sin for students not to celebrate their holidays in such a magnificent place, and the owners of the Hermitage prudently replaced all the expensive furniture with oak tables, chairs with benches, and the floor was sprinkled with sawdust so that the young people who got completely drunk would not cause significant damage to almost the most popular at that time a restaurant in Moscow. In 1917, the Hermitage was closed, but less than five years passed before the NEP began, and the restaurant began to sparkle again with all its colors. And the NEP ended - and in the Hermitage building the Moscow City Council opened the House of the Peasant. Now there is the School of Modern Play theater with a theater cafe, where the main dish, of course, is nothing more than Olivier salad.
It is worth adding that in the northwestern corner of Trubnaya there were merchant houses pressed against each other, and on the opposite side there were cheap apartments rented to students, where a new quarter is now being built. On Trubnaya Street, formerly known as Grachevka, various dubious establishments, taverns and brothels were concentrated, where, by the way, young Anton Pavlovich Chekhov lived as a student.
Now on the well-kept Trubnaya Square you can see cafes and restaurants instead of taverns, instead of horse-drawn buses and trolleybuses, new houses instead of walking apartments, smooth boulevard alleys instead of a market. In the center of the square is a monument to police officers who died in the line of duty, unveiled in 1994. Nothing more reminds of the former “Trumpet”.

On Trubnaya February 2nd, 2016

Trubnaya Street received its name in 1907, after the nearby Trubnaya Square. In the 18th century, in those places there was a wall of the White City, with a blank tower, i.e. there was no gate in the wall, but there was a hole through which the Neglinka River flowed, later enclosed in a collector underground. The hole in the wall, about 5 meters long, was popularly called “pipe”, hence the name of the square, and then the street. However, until 1907 Trubnaya Street had a different name - Drachevka or Grachevka.

Previously, the Neglinka flowed here, the banks of which were “strewn” with monastery gardens (Rozhdestvensky girls’ garden and Sretensky men’s garden) and arable lands.
However, Moscow expanded, and already in the 16th century, craftsmen who tore millet settled in this area, outside the city; in the 17th century, printers of the Printing House and craftsmen who made “rooks” - special projectiles - settled in this area. The memory of the settlements remains in the names of the streets - Pechatnikov Lane, Pushkarev Lane, Kolokolnikov.

In the upper reaches, the river was especially leisurely, and a pond was formed on the site of the current Tsvetnoy Boulevard. Neglinka was called Samoteka for its congestion and laziness. In 1789-1791, a “communication canal with swimming pools” was built from Samotek to the city center along the Neglinnaya River. At the end of the 18th century, the pond was improved by making a pool with trees planted along the banks, and after the war with Napoleon and the confinement of the river into an underground pipe, they even planned a park on the site of the pond. The place of the pool was taken by Samotechny, also known as Trubny Boulevard, which later, due to the flower trade, became Tsvetnoy.

In the 19th century, you could put the night you spent on Tsvetnoy on the list of your most daring and reckless actions. The monastery gardens and blissful silence are long gone. And there are slums, brothels, brothels and numerous taverns. Robbery, carnal pleasures and gambling. Between Trubnaya Street, Tsvetnoy Boulevard and the vacant lot on the site of Trubnaya Square stands Vnukov’s huge, long, gloomy three-story house. So, the middle of the 19th century. Only visitors don’t know about the Crimea tavern. And everyone will tell you about what is happening there. Moreover, he will add on his own behalf, widening his eyes to heighten his fear. Actually, it is not so much the tavern itself, which occupies two floors of the house, the second and third, that is surrounded by legends, but the large basement floor, which is hidden under the shops and shops huddled on the first floor. "Hell". “Hell” is always silent, the entrance to it, even the “official” one, is not easy to find.

“Hell” was in charge, as Satan should be. Only no one has ever seen this man. Between him and random people who wandered in there were always the barman and the bouncers. But, move on, the common, drunken and smelly hall is not yet hell. The heart of “Hell” is deeper and only a select few can get there. “The Underworld” occupies half of the dungeon, all entirely of corridors and closets, which are divided into “hellish forges” and “devil’s mills.” This is where big games are played and fortunes are lost. There are no days off here, money rules here. Once you come here, you can disappear forever. If you chase the offender, you will never find him - he will leave through one of the many underground passages. These places are still entangled in a dense network of dungeons. True, many underground passages are walled up and blocked by the basement floors of new buildings.

At the end of the 19th century, there were many brothels on this street. Moscow brothels were officially divided into 3 categories. In higher-class brothels, clients were charged 3-5 rubles per visit and 10 rubles per night. In brothels of the second category, prices “per time” ranged from 1.5 to 2 rubles, and per night - from 3 to 5 rubles. In third-rate brothels, sexual intercourse cost 30-50 kopecks, and a night cost about a ruble and a half.
There were few brothels of the highest category in Moscow, and only a few have survived to this day. For example, in “Rudnevka” in Sobolev (now Bolshoi Golovin) lane there were 18 prostitutes working. In the 1860-1870s, Rudnevka was famous throughout Moscow for its luxury and comfort. The “Turkish room”, which was especially loved by Old Believers merchants, enjoyed particular success:
The walls of this room, ceiling, floor, doors are covered with expensive carpets; Soft couches are placed near the walls, in the middle there is a luxurious double bed with springs; There is a dandy chandelier hanging above the bed and finally there are several mirrors along the walls.
Her visit was paid at a special rate - 15 rubles at a time.

"Crimea" was located exactly on the site of this glass house.
The assassination attempt on Alexander II was forged in the “hellish forges”. Students who decided to actively fight the tsarist government found shelter here. The Ishutinians, having conceived the regicide, did not think long about the name of their group - “Hell”. The attempt was unsuccessful, nine “hell men” were sent to hard labor, and the shooter Karakozov was hanged. Their unsuccessful attempt was the beginning of the end of “Hell”; the police were forced to take on the underworld...
At the beginning of the 20th century, “Crimea” no longer existed on Trubnaya Square. Vnukov’s house came into the possession of the merchant Praskovya Stepanovna Kononova, who set up a trade in alabaster and building materials in the former tavern. And she rented part of the house to Nikolai Dmitrievich Chernyatin to organize a manufacturing store. In general, everything is orderly, profitable and decent. No robberies - just a kit, and no students with a revolutionary consciousness.

“Crimea” was demolished in the 1980s, and in its place grew a massive socio-political center of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, subsequently the Parliamentary Center of Russia (which in itself is a curiosity in the context of the story being told) and a center for training in electoral technologies of the Federation Council. Subsequently, this building was demolished, and in its place in 2011 the Legend of Tsvetnoy residential complex appeared. The lower floors are given over to offices, and the upper floors to luxury apartments. The residential complex blocked the wonderful view of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard from Pechatnikov Lane. This is what the view was like before, they are just building a slide. Author of the photo Dmitry Rozov. Who knows, maybe the Tsvetnoy Legend won’t last long. This place definitely has a bad energy.

I found a very rare photo from 1973 on the Internet. It depicts the legendary "Crimea". And where the trio stands at the arch was the entrance to “Hell”. Photo by Yuri Slavin. The photo was taken from Tsvetnoy Boulevard towards Trubnaya Square.