Profitable houses in the past centuries were built to rent furnished rooms, apartments and squares for shops or workshops. Many of these buildings eventually became monuments of architecture. We read about the lucrative houses of Moscow and St. Petersburg - about their architects, masters and famous tenants.

Profitable house Porokhovshchikova

Before the construction of the apartment house Porohovshchikov at this address stood a building belonging to a relative of Alexander Griboedov Nikolai Tinkov. Here lived the general and poet Denis Davydov, who often visited Alexander Pushkin. Alexander Porohovshchikov - businessman and patron of art, owner of the hotel "Slavianski Bazaar" and the restaurant of the same name - bought the site in 1869. A year later, the construction of an apartment house under the project of architect Robert Gedike began here. The building in the Art Nouveau style with Gothic elements looked unusual among the classic neighbors. For a long time the house housed the Society of Russian Physicians with a pharmacy and a clinic. Since 1900, the Classes of Painting of Konstantin Yuon have been opened here. Vera Mukhina, the brothers of Vesnina, Vladimir Favorsky studied with him. On the third floor there were furnished rooms. In the house for a long time lived and worked well-known mathematician, professor of Moscow University Nikolai Luzin.

Today in the former apartment house of Porohovshchikov there is the Museum of the History of Corporal Punishment.

Profit house Pertsov

Construction of a profitable house railway engineer Petr Pertsov began in 1906. On the project of the building in the Russian style, a contest among artists was announced, it was won by Apollo Vasnetsov. However, Pertsov chose Sergey Malyutin's sketches in the "fairy-tale" style. A whimsical house, decorated with majolica with fairy stories, was built a year later. There were rooms for the tenants, art workshops and apartment-mansion owners. In 1908-1910 the basement of the house was occupied by the theater of miniatures "The Bat", where Vasily Kachalov and Olga Knipper-Chekhov performed, often Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Konstantin Stanislavsky. In Soviet times, here lived for a while Lev Trotsky - first in the apartment of one of the lodgers, and then in the personal chambers of the owners of the Pertsovs. In the 1930s, the upper floors housed the workshops of famous Soviet artists, for which the building was nicknamed the "Moscow Montparnasse". Here worked Robert Falk, Pavel Sokolov-Skala, Vasily Rozhdestvensky, Alexander Kuprin.

The house remained residential until the 1970s and only then passed into the possession of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now the building houses the Office of the Diplomatic Corps.

Profitable house Echkina

Entrepreneur Alexander Yechkin began to build a profitable house designed by architect Nikita Lazarev in 1903. On the Arbat appeared a four-story building in the Art Nouveau style with stucco moldings, wrought-iron bars and mansards. The house was equipped with the latest technology of the time - it had both an electric lift and a telephone.

On the first floor of the building there were shops and apartments of their owners. The upper floors were rented by more prosperous tenants. In one of the apartments lived a famous historian Stepan Veselovsky, who subsequently bought from Echkin the whole building. In the attic there was a workshop of the famous sculptor Sergei Konenkov. In the 1920s and 1930s the artist Pavel Korin lived and worked here, Maxim Gorky often visited him. Profitable house Echkin lucky: unlike other buildings, rebuilt in the Soviet era, he retained his original appearance.

Profitable house Rakhmanov

Two-storey apartment house was built in 1810. On the first floor there was a pharmacy, which still works today. In 1877, the building was reconstructed - the third floor and the corner tower on the roof were built up. The works were supervised by the architect Mitrofan Arseniev (although some sources point to Peter Vinogradov).

At the end of the XIX century, the house was bought by the publisher, Professor of Moscow University Georgy Rakhmanov. The house was called "professorial": many of the apartments were rented by teachers and colleagues of Rakhmanov. One of them was a mathematician Nikolai Bugaev. Here he spent his childhood years, his son Boris - later he became a famous poet and took the pseudonym Andrei Bely. A writer Leo Tolstoy, composer Sergei Taneyev, poets Alexander Blok, Valery Bryusov, Zinaida Gippius, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Maximilian Voloshin and Dmitry Merezhkovsky visited the Bugaevs.

In 1930, the fourth floor was added, a year later the apartments were turned into communal ones. In 1983, the house began resettlement, the premises were transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Currently, the Memorial Museum-Apartment of Andrei Bely is opened here.

The House of Three Benois

The Benois house in the beginning of XX century became the largest residential complex of the city. It was built at the request of the First Russian Insurance Company. Two brothers-architects Benois - Leonty and Albert - and their cousin Julius Benoit worked on the project. That's why the building began to be called the House of Three Benois. The complex occupied almost a whole block. In several buildings, connected by a whole system of courtyards, 250 apartments were planned. The house was equipped with the latest technology of those years: there was steam heating, elevators, electricity, telephone, own power station, incinerator, boiler room and laundry. In the lower floors for the residents were arranged carriages and car garages.

Here lived wealthy officials and writers, architects and merchants. After the revolution, part of the apartments were turned into communal ones, part was given to party leaders. In one of them settled prominent politician Sergei Kirov, now in the building works his memorial museum. Also in the House of Three Benois at different times lived composer Dmitry Shostakovich, actor Nikolai Cherkasov, Marshal of the Soviet Union Leonid Govorov.

Today there is the drama theater "Ostrov", in the foyer of which there is a museum of writer and playwright Alexander Volodin.

Profitable house of Suvorin

The first house in this place was built in 1723 for Luke Chistikhin, Peter the Great's jester. The author of the project was Nikolai Gerbel, one of the first architects of St. Petersburg. At the end of the XIX century, the house was reconstructed to rent out apartments: two-story outbuildings were built up to three and four floors. Here there were shops and a bakery, and only wealthy residents of St. Petersburg could rent apartments. In 1905, the house was bought by the publisher Alexei Suvorin, he added another three-story wing: there was a printing house. In 1908 architect Boris Zonn reconstructed it again - the building turned into a modern six-story house with elevators and an updated heating system. After the revolution, one of the apartments housed the publishing house of the newspaper "Pravda", here was the office of Vladimir Lenin. In 1984 the museum "Vladimir Lenin and Pravda" was opened in the building, which was reorganized seven years later in the Museum of the Press of St. Petersburg.