Moscow museums · Architecture and estates
Architecture and estates · since 1965
The Ryabushinsky Mansion
The Gorky House Museum — the Ryabushinsky Mansion
The best surviving interior of Moscow Art Nouveau: Shekhtel built the mansion in 1900–1903 and thought it out down to the door handle, and the wave staircase with its jellyfish lamp is the thing for which one comes here instead of any museum of decorative art. What Horta did at the Hôtel Tassel and Mackintosh at the Glasgow School of Art — one hand over the whole building, from plan to fittings — Shekhtel did here, and here it survives with the fittings in place. Upstairs is hidden an Old Believers’ chapel that could not be shown openly, and it has come through. The memorial part — Gorky lived here from 1931 — is markedly weaker than the architecture, and that should be known in advance: one comes for Shekhtel, not for Gorky.
Minimum route
45 minutes – 1 hour
Founded
1965
Ticket
from ₽550
What to see
The wave staircase with its jellyfish light. Stained glass and the mosaic frieze of orchids along the façade. The Old Believers’ chapel on the top floor. Gorky’s study and library.
Minimum route — 45 minutes – 1 hour for the essentials
An hour.
- 20 minutesthe vestibule and the staircase: stand and look, the whole journey is for this.
- 20 minutesthe state rooms of the ground floor and the glass.
- 10 minutesGorky’s study.
- 10 minutesthe chapel, if it is open.
Reference
About the museum
The mansion was built by Fyodor Shekhtel for Stepan Ryabushinsky in 1900–1903. Maxim Gorky lived here from 1931; it became a museum in 1965, in the charge of the Institute of World Literature.
The building
The chief thing at this address. Shekhtel built the house as one work: façade, glass, parquet, furniture, handles and staircase were conceived together. The mosaic frieze of orchids runs round the whole perimeter.
Good to know
The house is small and is walked round quickly; it is worth calling in on the way to something else rather than setting aside half a day. The chapel is not always shown.
What to read
William Craft Brumfield, “The Origins of Modernism in Russian Architecture” — Shekhtel in the line he belongs to, and why in his houses the staircase comes before the façade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
ISBN 9780520069299
Getting in
How to get there
Metro Arbatskaya, Pushkinskaya or Barrikadnaya, about ten minutes on foot from each.
Opening times
Check the hours by telephone with the museum.
Tickets
Adults (citizens of Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union) 550 ₽; foreign nationals 700 ₽; university students 400 ₽; children 7–15, pensioners, school pupils and concessions 350 ₽. A guided tour for a group of up to 20 costs 4500 ₽ on top of the admission tickets.
from ₽550
When to go
A sunny morning. The house was built around light: the glass and the staircase only work in real sun, and on a dull day this is merely a dark hall.
Contacts
Of interest to children
The staircase and the glass impress children by themselves and need almost no explaining. From 8.
· No. 71