Secret artifacts found in Alexei Bakhrushin’s mansion

The well-known philanthropist donated his treasures to his homeland in 1913, but his house keeps many secrets

According to an old belief, treasures are “sung” on the night of Ivan Kupala, but this does not mean that a treasure box or a pot of silver coins cannot be found on any other day. The generation that grew up on the books of Mark Twain sees a chest of gold in every old house. But in fact, it turns out that much more valuable finds are not gold and silver, but artifacts similar to those discovered by restorers in the old mansion of Alexei Bakhrushin. What was found in the house of the famous philanthropist? Employees of the Bakhrushin Museum tell about this.

In June 2022, while working in a niche in the wall of the main house of the Bakhrushin estate, builders came across a hidden collection consisting of 109 records from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the unique recordings are the voices of singers from the Zimin Opera House, the Imperial Moscow Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres, and opera singer Vera Nikolaevna Petrova-Zvantseva. There are also records – prototypes of the current audiobooks with Chekhov’s stories. The news about the unusual find at the beginning of summer spread all over the media. But the discoveries didn’t end there. These days, a corner of brickwork was found in the same building, which turned out to be part of a lost fireplace that was in the Faceted Dining Room. The restorers also stumbled upon a painting in Alexei Bakhrushin’s office – an ornamental frieze of the late 19th century, hand-painted. And in the office, a doorway opened under the ceiling, where there was a balcony, which could be accessed from the owner’s library.

“These are not the first unique finds in the museum, made during the restoration and repair work,” the museum staff admits. In 2014, thirteen pieces of sculpture from the turn of the century before last were found under the Salvini stairs. As it turned out, during the Great Patriotic War, when funds were evacuated to the Urals, it was not possible to send these items. The sculptures were kept under the stairs. After the war, the composition of the museum staff changed, and information about the repository was lost.

When asked by MK why there were so many secluded places in the mansion, we received an answer:

– The house of Alexei Bakhrushin, built at the end of the 19th century according to the project of architect Karl Gippius, was remodeled at different times and survived several restorations. In Soviet times, several restorations were carried out in the building, which were carried out at different expert levels, due to which part of the design was largely lost.

It remained to be asked whether we should expect the discovery of a treasure, and not just a stack of plates or a fragment of a tile with an ornament. But here a treasure-hunting disappointment awaited us.

– Aleksey Alexandrovich Bakhrushin handed over the treasures of his collection to the Russian Academy of Sciences on November 25, 1913. On that memorable day, he uttered the following words: “When the conviction was established in me that my collection had reached those limits in which I no longer considered myself entitled to dispose of its materials, I thought about the question whether I, the son of the great Russian people, leave this assembly to the benefit of this people.”

As you know, after the revolution, Alexei Alexandrovich did not leave his homeland and was able to save his life’s work. Bakhrushin became one of the few Moscow philanthropists whose activities, in the same capacity as before the revolution, continued under the Soviet regime. He remained at the post of lifetime director of the museum until his last hour.

Will it be possible to return the building of today’s A.A. Bakhrushin original appearance? Yes. And this will happen by the summer of 2024. The interiors of the Main House of the Bakhrushins’ estate will be recreated according to surviving descriptions, historical photographs and archival documents. And by 2025, the Bakhrushinsky Museum and Theater Quarter will be created, bringing together all the branches of the museum and associated with the names of the great ministers of Melpomene Mikhail Shchepkin, Maria Yermolova, Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya, as well as the outstanding playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky.