The former guesthouse of the Stroganov Academy is hardly visible from Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, although it deserves a close glance. This place once held the enormous estate of Baron Stroganov, a confidant of Empress Elizabeth. Nearly a hundred years later, his distant relative founded the first free drawing school, which later became the famous Stroganov School.
The main story about this place begins not in the distant time when it was owned by merchants (although it certainly was) but in the 1930s when the construction of a new institute began. The name of the lane itself changed from Bolshoy Tryokhsvyatitelsky (after the church of the three holy bishops - Tryoksvyatiteli na Kulishakh - nearby) to Bolshoy Vuzovski.
This new column 'HSE. Cornerstone' is about the history of the buildings the university occupies today. The first article is about number 8 Pokrovsky Boulevard which at various times has been a famous girl’s gymnasium, the apartment of the animalist painter Stepanov, and the editorial offices of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
