Дом, которого нет

Our house is truly special. It has long been completely stricken off the official records. It is no longer present on the city map...

The house has a long and distinguished history of owners, occupants and visitors, extending over a century. It was originally built for Sergey Muromtsev, the chairman of the first Russian parliament , and is famous as a place where Ivan Bunin, a Nobel prizewinner, was introduced to his future wife, Vera Muromtseva, whom he married in 1907.

Following the Revolution of 1917, the building was used for many different purposes: it served as a boarding school, teachers' housing, and a research laboratory. It was rebuilt to its present style in 1960.

Political dissidents and publishers of Moscow samizdat magazine "Veche" also settled in the house in Soviet times.

In 1990 the Executive Committee converted the house to non-residential use and handed it over to some unknown company called Mercury. The company Mercury wrote the house completely off their books. Crossed off the city's official maps, the house remained unknown, unmapped and undocumented ever since.

The school, the Capital, and the bio-tech lab together have brought many people to the house and some of them have chosen to stay here to work, to marry, and to raise children, because over the years, this place has become their home. These people have been living here side by side through decades, guarding and looking after the house, taking care of the needs of the household, and raising as many sons and daughters as their house could hold!

By the late 80's, this neighbourhood had developed into a close-knit community of highly-educated, intelligent families, consisting of engineers, musicians, grad/post-grad students, and those with PhD degrees.

For many years, countless artists and writers have stayed in the house, and have been inspired by its traditions and its people. This acted as a stimulus for the residents to set up their own small museum dedicated to telling the remarkable story of the house and the famous people who have lived and worked there - among them the renowned writer, Venedikt Yerofeyev, who is most famous for his poem "Moscow to the end of the line".

The residents themselves have built their own civil infrastructures, like water and energy supply, waste treatment and heating. The house has its own electric power plant to supply electricity for lighting and steam boilers for heating.

Even though the city officials have been visiting the house, examining the building and checking its technical and sanitary state, they have never shown any interest in or questioned the building's legal status.