History

The building on Moika, No. 14, has been known in history as Puschin House. Ivan Ivanovich Puschin was a Lyceum classmate and friend of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who lived in No. 12, in the next building.

The Puschins owned the land between the Moika and Konyushennaya Ulitsa for more than one hundred years. In the 18th century the land belonged to Admiral Peter Puschin, then his son who was a general-intendent, and then to Ivan Puschin's brother, Mikhail.

In 1846 the mansion was reconstructed according to the project by architect Heidenreich. A fronton was added, and the facade was decorated with four busts. Puschin's house on the Moika was the meeting place of the creme de la creme of Russian high society. On October 19, 1818 a Lyceum anniversary was celebrated there.

In 1823 Puschin recommended the admission of K. Ryleev into the Northern Society (future Decembrists). Three leaders of the uprising were elected: Muraviev, Obolensky and Trubetskoy.

On December 14, 1825 Puschin participated in the Decembrist uprising. On the next day, another famous Lyceum graduate, the future Russian Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov, visited the building on the Moika. He brought a filled out international travel passport and entreated Puschin to escape.

He refused saying that he would be ashamed to leave his comrades after the disastrous uprising. Later that day Puschin was arrested and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to twenty years of hard labor. He never returned to St. Petersburg again.

In 1860 the Puschin house was sold to Utin, a merchant.