The residence of American ambassadors.

Location
Beyond the place depicted by Vasily Polenov there is a neo-classical mansion aka Spaso House. The name was taken from Spasopeskovskaya Square, in the Arbat District  (see the previous post "Where the legend was born"). Not far from the American Embassy grounds, Spaso House sits just off the garden ring road that passed the old American Embassy and is a few short block from Arbat. The great hall is 82 feet long with a domed ceiling that holds the largest Russian crystal house chandelier in Moscow.

Neoclassical Revival building
It was one of the mansions confiscated by the communists during the Russian Revolution of 1917.  Spaso House had been completed only three years earlier in 1914 by wealthy banker, munitions dealer and textile merchant Nikolay Aleksandrovich Vtorov. He commissioned the architects Vladimir Adamovich and Vladimir Mayat, two prominent advocates of the neoclassical style, to build the new mansion.

Where the legend was born.

 V. Dubossarsky, A. Vinogradov

Moscow courtyard

2007

The one who depicted the typical image of the 19th century Moscow as well as the lives of the people in their daily pursuits was Vasly Polenov. His best-known painting "A Moscow Courtyard" (1877, State Tretyakov Gallery) shows some patio not far from Arbat street. The subject was chosen right. In their memoirs many 19th- and 20th-century writers, poets, artists and public figures who lived in pre-revolutionary Moscow returned time and time again to its magical courtyards with their special sounds and smells, which so captured the childish imagination.
"A Moscow Courtyard" shows a multi-dimensional world, which accommodates equally well an old manor estate with a shady neglected garden, a church and abandoned lopsided barns. Children are playing in the yard, and a baby is crying. The mother is carrying a pail of water from the house - possibly to a horse which is hitched to a cart on the other side of the yard. More details such as chickens, a clothesline, and a covered well are in the foreground. And in the background are the spires, cupolas, and a bell towers of churches.

V. Polenov

A Moscow courtyard

1877

Later, the artist would reminisce: “I was looking for a flat, when I saw a notice on the door. I popped in to look, and immediately saw this view from the window. I sat down and painted it there and then.” In the list of Polenov’s works compiled by the artist himself, this painting (no. 123) is entitled “A Spot Near the Arbat”. This charming spot portrayed by Polenov still exists in nowadays Moscow though the neighbourhood has altered very much since then. The grassy ground is known by the name of Spasopeskovskaya ploshchadka (square). It is situated not far from Arbat street. A short Spasopeskovsky pereulok (lane) that takes off Arbat leads to the square.
'Spasopeskovskaya' means "Saviour on the Sands," referring to the sandy soil of the neighborhood, which was first settled in the seventeenth century. The centre of this place is the beautiful Saviour Transfiguration church "on the sands", the Spasa Preobrazhenia na Peskakh, that gave the name to the site. Built around 1711, with railings dating from 1849, this five-domed church was a typical example of mid-17th – early 18thcentury architecture.

 Constructed without the use of internal columns, it included a refectory, chapel of St. Nicholas and tall, hipped bell-tower, and was decorated with ornamental shells, nalichniki window frames and kokoshniki arches. The includes an additional church with bell-tower on the right – that of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker in Nikolsky Pereulok, now Plotnikov Pereulok. A further church in the Prechistenka area is discernible in the distance.

Archnadzor rally at Pushkinskaya ploshchad.

On October 1, Archnadzor, a Moscow preservation society, organized a rally opposing the destruction of Moscow architectural landmarks. Around 700 people attended. The participants were Archnadzor activists, public figures, experts.

Konstantin Mikhailov, coordinator at heritage watchdog Arkhnadzor

As recently as May, Arkhnadzor was optimistic about the new Moscow city government’s construction policies, and praised the new administration’s efforts in protecting the capital’s historic sights.
Now, however, the movement is arguing that despite all the promises, historical buildings are no more protected by Mayor Sergei Sobyanin than they were by his predecessor Yury Luzhkov.
“Neither promises to ban new construction in the historic center, nor statements about cancelling previous decisions concerning historical buildings’ demolition has become a real guarantee of keeping the historical city,” Arkhnadzor stated.
 In 2011 Moscow has lost more than 10 historic buildings. In September the authorities demolished the Central Mosque, the Russian capital's oldest one. In August the “Veterenariya” pavilion, that was built in 1939 as part of a Soviet showcase of agricultural achievements, was burnt out.  In July a property developer  destroyed a historic building on Bolshoi Kozikhinsky alley without permission. The demolition of the courtyard of the Glebov-Streshnyev-Shakhovsky Mansion in June was the culmination of a struggle that had been going on for several years. The Helikon Opera House, tenants of the mansion, wanted to create a new stage in the courtyard of the building. The work was halted by Acting Mayor Vladimir Resin in October 2010. Any work – demolition or construction – was illegal there. In May Capital Group destroyed Dom Kolbe on Bolshaya Yakimanka, claiming that “the front side fell down by itself”. So every month Archnadzor lamented at least one considerable loss of Moscow landmarks.