In the building intended for the Embassy of Ukraine, there was the editorial office of “MK”

“Some big guy in just panties and a T-shirt deftly jumped out of the window from the street”

“MK” “knocked” 103. During this time, the editorial office of the newspaper changed more than a dozen places of registration. Moreover, most of the moves happened in the first years of the existence of the capital’s youth team. Among the old editorial addresses there is a very remarkable one. Newspapermen, our predecessors, entered the building, marked by one of the most resonant state of emergency in pre-war Moscow. Later they “ceded” this territory to other organizations. And nowadays, until February 24, 2022, the Embassy of Ukraine worked here.

This was already the fifth address of the editorial office of the Moscow youth team in the four years of its existence. At the end of 1923, the newspaper, which was then published under the name “Youthful Truth”, moved to a building located in Leontievsky Lane, and even to what an “exclusive” one!

House No. 18, where “Unpravda” was “registered”, is the former city estate of Count A.S. Uvarov. And before him, a two-story mansion built in the middle of the 18th century was owned, replacing each other, by representatives of famous aristocratic families – Vyazemsky, Trubetskoy, Rimsky-Korsakovs. In addition to such “carriers of blue blood”, there was a hostess and a representative of a not so prestigious estate – the wife of a merchant, Irina Zaborova. In the early 1820s, she rented mansions to retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Alyabyev, the same one who became famous as a composer, author of the famous romance Nightingale. The poets Denis Davydov, Alexander Griboedov, the Decembrist Wilhelm Kuchelbecker came to visit him …

After the seizure of power in the city by the Bolsheviks in 1917, some divisions and services of the Moscow Committee of the RCP (b) were located here. However, their work was soon disrupted by a tragic emergency.

The famous terrorist attack of September 25, 1919 is known from history textbooks. The anarchists managed to throw a bomb at the building of the Moscow Party Committee in Leontievsky just in time for an important meeting to be held here. As a result of this attack, 12 people were killed, among them the secretary of the MK party V. Zagorsky.

It blew very hard. Here is what the Pravda newspaper reported: “This house presents a terrible picture of destruction after the explosion. The front part, overlooking Leontievsky Lane, suffered relatively little damage, although all the windows were broken here too. … In the floor of the large hall there is a huge gaping hole pierced by a bomb, four arshins wide … ”Restoration of the mansion dragged on for several years. After the repair was completed, the premises in the basement floor were handed over for arranging the editorial office and office of UP.

Some colorful details of the editorial life in the former count’s “apartments” could be found by reading the memoirs of one of the freelance authors, and later a fairly well-known Soviet poet, Ivan Molchanov.

“… I began to send my poems and notes to the Youthful Truth. They were eagerly printed. My close acquaintance with Youthful Truth happened in the spring of 1923. The 1st All-Union Congress of Workers’ Correspondents was held in Moscow, where I was also a delegate from the Arkhangelsk Workers’ Correspondence.

Decided to go to “my” newspaper. With difficulty I found Leontievsky Lane and with provincial timidity entered the basement vaults of the editorial office. My Arkhangelsk “pronounce” caused a smile on the face of the yellow-haired typist when I asked: “Can I see the Executive Secretary of the Editorial Board, Comrade Vladimir Petryak?” I was asked to wait.

I was waiting. Visitors came and went.

Some big guy in just panties and a T-shirt, with a pot-bellied briefcase under his arm, ignoring the usual entrance through the door, deftly jumped out of the window from the street. A minute later he was celebrating the contents of his briefcase.

“Are you not with me?” he turned towards me. – “No, I’m going to the responsible secretary, Comrade Petryak.” – “So I am Petryak.”

My eyes became incredibly large: I represented the secretary of the capital’s newspaper with more respectable manners … “

It was during the period of “residence” of the editorial office in Leontievsky Lane that the newspaper changed its name for the next, but by no means the last, time. In the winter of 1924, immediately after the death of the “leader of the world proletariat”, they decided to rename “Youthful Truth” into “Young Leninist”.

Editorial life was seething in the mansion of Count Uvarov until the beginning of 1926, when the ML journalists were relocated to another building.

House No. 18 in Leontievsky Lane was first adapted for an international club of political emigrants, then the Central House of Amateur Arts was placed here. And in 1944, the permanent mission of the Ukrainian SSR moved into the building.

After the collapse of the USSR and the transformation of the former Ukrainian SSR into an independent state, the former permanent mission turned into the embassy of the Independent in the Russian Federation.