Moscow Guide
The Beliy Gorod
Old Moscow University
The canary-yellow edifices of Moscow University (Moskovskiy universitet) include its "old" building, completed in 1793, reckoned among the finest works of Russian Neoclassicism and Matvei Kazakov, who died soon after the fire of 1812 ravaged dozens of his buildings. The university was repaired and bas-reliefs and lions' heads added to its imposing facade. Behind the scenes is a warren of buildings whose "gloomy corridors, grimy walls, bad light and depressing stairs, coat stands and benches have undoubtedly played an important role in the history of Russian pessimism" – or so wrote Chekhov of his own student days. Outside stand statues of Herzen and Ogaryov, two graduates who were among the founders of Russia's radical tradition in the nineteenth century.
On the other side of Bolshaya Nikitskaya ulitsa are the "new" buildings of the university, which date from 1836. The rotunda on the corner was originally a chapel dedicated to St Tatyana, the patron saint of students, until it was closed down after the Revolution; it was returned to the Church in 1994. In front of the main college building is a statue of Mikhail Lomonosov, the "Russian Leonardo" who founded Moscow University in 1775. Amid the lesser buildings around the back rises the belltower of the Church of the Sign in the Sheremetev Courtyard (tserkov Znameniya na Sheremtevom dvore), a lovely example of seventeenth-century Moscow Baroque with a filigreed spire.