The Volkov-Yusupov Chambers: Was Ivan the Terrible’s Palace Once Here?

The Volkov-Yusupov Chambers in Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Lane are associated with Ivan the Terrible’s hunting palace. This legend cannot be verified from the surviving building: a historical and cultural heritage assessment dates the earliest examined parts of the western wing to the 17th century, while the documents reviewed contain no evidence of construction commissioned by the tsar on this site. The falconry scenes in the interiors were added when the Yusupov residence was decorated in the late 19th century. Above all, they reveal how the owners imagined the history of their home.

Can the chambers be called Ivan the Terrible’s hunting palace?

Not as an established fact. The Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate describes the story of ‘Ivan the Terrible’s Falconry Palace’ as a myth about the origins of the Yusupov palace in Moscow. Such a legend cannot establish either the existence of a royal hunting lodge on the site or a connection with the present stone building.

The façade features traditional Russian architectural forms, while the state rooms depict scenes involving Ivan IV. Documents attribute the building’s present appearance to several remodellings and date the murals to the 1890s. The hunting scene shows how the Yusupovs wanted their home to be seen; it tells us nothing about events in the 16th century.

The lack of corroboration does not prove that an earlier building never stood on the site. The monument’s official name gives a date range spanning the 16th and 17th centuries, whereas the 2022 assessment report dates the examined basement of the western chambers to between the mid-17th century and 1684, and describes the eastern chambers on the basis of early 18th-century documents. The broad wording of the heritage designation and the dating of specific masonry address different questions. Neither source identifies Ivan IV as the person who commissioned the house.

What do studies of the building itself allow us to date?

Research reveals several phases of construction, rather than a royal palace built in a single campaign. In expert assessment report the western and eastern wings are described as the chambers of two neighbouring properties, joined into a single building in 1891. The vaulted basement of the western section is dated to between the mid-17th century and 1684 on the basis of stamps on large bricks. This dates specific masonry, rather than the entire complex, and certainly provides no evidence that Ivan IV lived here.

The report also cites archival evidence for the western plot: in 1675 it belonged to the merchant Afanasy Fyodorovich Chiryev. Researchers consider him the likely builder of this section. The wording matters: the document identifies the owner of the plot, while the conclusion about who built the wing rests on comparing the document with the history of the masonry. This illustrates the distinction between an archival record and an inferred attribution.

Letters concerning the eastern chambers survive among the papers of the diplomat Pyotr Pavlovich Shafirov. They describe work on his Moscow estate in 1709–1710, when new sections were added to the old wing. In 1713, another chamber with an entrance hall was added. Thus, even the historic core bears traces of successive extensions. To call this entire structure ‘a building of Ivan the Terrible’ would be to erase the documented work of Peter the Great’s era.

The monument’s official name includes a broad date range spanning the 16th and 17th centuries, while different publications assign different ages to its earliest parts. Individual walls and vaults need to be dated separately; the general designation of the property is insufficient for this purpose. This is why a cautious assessment of the earliest fabric is compatible with a clear conclusion: the materials reviewed contain no evidence of a royal residence.

How can documentary evidence be distinguished from assumptions about the age of the walls?

A building historian has several kinds of evidence, each answering different questions. A stamped brick helps narrow down the age of a section of masonry; a letter to the owner gives the date of a particular extension; a plan records the layout of the rooms at the time of the survey. None of these documents alone can retrospectively reconstruct the entire history of the property. In the assessment report, the early basement of the western wing is dated using stamps on oversized bricks, whereas knowledge of the eastern wing comes primarily from correspondence of 1709–1710.

In 1994, researchers discovered fragments of red 18th-century pantiles beside the walls of the Great Chamber. The report compares this find with letters about Shafirov’s building works: the new rooms had been roofed with tiles. The archaeological fragment and the correspondence describe the same building episode in different ways. Such agreement is more convincing than a recognisable roof silhouette, which could have been altered during a later restoration.

The letters to Pyotr Shafirov themselves mention pre-existing ‘old chambers’. They show that by 1709–1710 there was already a building on the eastern plot to which new rooms could be added. But the phrase ‘old chambers’ gives no date for their construction. A historian can establish the latest possible date by which the earlier structure existed—it was there at the time of the correspondence—without assigning it to the 16th century or to a royal patron in the absence of further evidence.

In 1713, another chamber with an entrance hall, built over a basement, was added to the southern façade of the eastern section. Passageways between the rooms were altered to connect the new section with the old. The monument’s heritage protection description lists the 17th-century eastern chambers, the Dining Chamber of the 1710s and the 17th-century western chambers separately. This listing protects the complex arrangement as a historic asset; it does not offer a convenient legend attributing all its parts to a single builder.

How did the two names—Volkov and Yusupov—come about?

The chambers’ double name reflects their ownership history in the 18th century; it has no connection with the era of Ivan IV. A publication on the 2008 restoration states that the property belonged to Alexey Volkov before being granted to Prince Grigory Dmitrievich Yusupov. The assessment report dates the grant to 1727; the Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate cites an 1850 account by Martynov and Snegiryov giving the date as 30 November. The property remained in the Yusupov family until 1917. Volkov’s brief period of ownership survives in the name, while the estate’s later appearance was shaped by the princely family’s alterations.

The family gradually bought up neighbouring plots. According to the assessment report, in 1779 Princess Irina Mikhailovna Yusupova acquired another property from the merchant Konstantin Chiryev. By the end of the 18th century, the family owned several adjoining properties with stone buildings. Documents from the 1790s called the eastern chambers the ‘Great House’ and the western chambers the ‘Middle House’ or ‘Yellow House’. These names show that the familiar unified façade conceals a history of separate houses.

In 1801–1803, the Pushkin family rented the ‘Middle House’. This verifiable episode is often added to accounts of the palace, but it concerns the western house within the Yusupov estate. In 1812, fire damaged the stone buildings and destroyed the estate’s wooden structures; the main restoration work on Prince Nikolay Borisovich Yusupov’s house was completed by October 1813. These details do more to explain the complex’s appearance than yet another attempt to date all its parts to the 16th century.

What is known about the estate between the fire of 1812 and the major remodelling?

The stone wings had to be restored after the fire of 1812. In 1814, a general plan of the property, floor plans and an elevation of the chambers were drawn up so that the estate could be mortgaged through the Moscow Board of Trustees. These documents are valuable because they record the houses’ condition before the later period-style alterations. They do not reveal the 16th-century past, but they help establish which rooms and external forms existed long before the works of the 1890s.

The assessment report mentions a drawing of the eastern chambers from an instalment of ‘Russian Antiquities in Monuments of Ecclesiastical and Civil Architecture’, which the report’s authors date to 1848. The Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate cites a description of the chambers by Alexander Martynov and Ivan Snegiryov from an 1850 publication. The publication dates differ between sources; both records belong to the mid-19th century. The drawing shows the appearance before the alterations of the 1860s and 1890s, the architect’s design shows proposed changes, and an early 20th-century photograph shows the completed result. These three types of evidence must not be confused.

Major repairs to the eastern house are recorded in an 1850 file in the Yusupov archive. The 1860 remodelling scheme is attributed to the architect Medvedev, but a study by Tatyana Dudina names him as P. N. Medvedev, while the assessment report gives P. M. Medvedev. The initials cannot be expanded without an additional document. Under the scheme, the terem received a steeper roof and decoration drawing on traditional Russian forms; some of the proposed window surrounds were not executed at the time. The drawing therefore cannot be taken as an exact depiction of the building as constructed.

In 1877, the old Red Porch was replaced to a design by the engineer Alexander Evert. The architectural language of old Russia developed on the estate in stages, before Sultanov’s involvement. The remodelling of the 1890s is therefore better understood as a major new chapter in a long process than as the sudden embellishment of an untouched medieval building.

When reading the Yusupov documents, it is easy to confuse two princes with the same name. Nikolay Borisovich Yusupov, whose family restored the house after the fire of 1812, lived from 1751 to 1831. In June 1891, it was his grandson and namesake (1827–1891), Zinaida Nikolaevna’s father, who authorised the major alterations. The Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate describes the younger prince and his relationship to the elder separately. Keeping the two biographies distinct prevents plans and collections from different generations being attributed to one person.

Why does the palace look older than its decoration?

In the late 19th century, the owners deliberately enhanced the chambers’ traditional Russian appearance. In 1891, the existing buildings were joined to a design by Viktor Dmitrievich Pomerantsev; a third storey was added to the western section, which was decorated with references to 17th-century architecture. Nikolay Vladimirovich Sultanov worked on the eastern chambers and the state interiors. The exterior therefore cannot be read as an unchanged record of a single century of construction.

The assessment report describes Pomerantsev’s specific design choices: pilaster strips with recessed square panels, window surrounds with engaged columns, decorative roof features and ornamental weather vanes. A winter garden with a glazed façade was built between the existing sections. The owners instructed Sultanov to give the state rooms an appearance matching their idea of the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries. They wanted to retain some of the existing decoration and create other elements anew.

Who commissioned the ‘old Moscow’ look?

In June 1891, Prince Nikolay Borisovich Yusupov authorised alterations to the eastern and western houses to create a permanent home for his daughter Zinaida Nikolaevna and her husband, Count Felix Sumarokov-Elston, allocating 20,000 roubles to the work. The purpose and sum are stated in the assessment report: the old chambers were being joined to form a family residence.

Viktor Pomerantsev was responsible for joining the buildings and for the western section. After a third masonry storey was added, a double-height winter garden with metal beams and glazing was built between the existing wings. This section appeared at the same time as the façade decoration ‘in the 17th-century style’: the design combined modern engineering with historical styling.

The owners entrusted Sultanov with the eastern section and the decoration of the state rooms. The report distinguishes between the new interiors of the Great Chamber, study, dining room and reception room, and rooms where the existing decoration was to be retained with stylistic changes. The restoration project was also a design for a modern residence. This explains why a hall that looks ‘Old Russian’ may incorporate designs and objects from different centuries: the patrons were choosing an expressive historical language rather than creating an educational reconstruction of the 16th century.

Sultanov also worked on the exterior colours and silhouette. Following the work of 1893, the façades were plastered and painted light turquoise, with details picked out in ochre, cobalt blue and burgundy. His model for the colour scheme was the Amusement Palace in the Moscow Kremlin following its restoration in the 1870s. This reference to another historic monument explains the artistic rationale behind the project, but does not make the borrowed palette evidence of the building’s original colour.

A bronze weather vane featuring the crowned lion from the princely coat of arms was installed on the roof of the Great Chamber. Documents relating to the late 19th-century work link this detail to the Yusupovs’ commission, despite its position among the façade’s Old Russian architectural forms.

When were the falconry scenes created, and who devised them?

The decoration of the Hunting Hall dates to 1892–1895. A Moscow publication on restoration links the preparatory sketches to Fyodor Grigoryevich Solntsev. The historical background section of the 2022 expert assessment report repeats this attribution, but the approved list of protected features in the same report attributes the figurative and ornamental murals to designs by Nikolai Vladimirovich Sultanov, subject to further research. The caption to an archival photograph of the Falconry Room also credits him with the sketch for one ‘Hunting Scene’. None of the documents examined conclusively establishes the authorship of all the compositions.

Solntsev was an artist who studied Russian antiquities. The Russian Museum states that he produced designs for the state rooms of the Grand Kremlin Palace and collected depictions of historic objects. This experience explains the choice of a historicist visual language for the Yusupov rooms. It does not establish the historical accuracy of the story the patrons chose to depict in their interiors.

The dates call for precise wording about authorship. The artist died in 1892, while Moscow publications date the execution of the Yusupov murals to as late as 1895. The phrase ‘after sketches by Solntsev’ reflects the account given in published materials, but does not resolve the discrepancy with the description of protected features, which names Sultanov. The sources examined provide no basis for identifying who painted each section or dating the execution of individual scenes.

The hunting theme was part of a broader decorative programme. The expert assessment report mentions a state room themed around Ivan the Terrible, portraits of Russian tsars, a room with portraits of the Yusupovs, a ‘Chinese’ Hall, and murals depicting a starry sky and the signs of the zodiac. This collection of themes does not form a chronological record of the building. Together, they create a grand interior in which dynastic memory, an interest in antiquity and decorative fashion coexist.

What do historical photographs of the palace add?

Photographs of the Volkov–Yusupov Chambers taken after the alterations of the 1890s show the façade and rooms; they tell us nothing about the time of Ivan IV. The ‘History of Russia in Photographs’ portal has published a photograph of the building viewed from Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Lane, dated to the 1900s; the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is listed as the source, and Alexander Zhivago as the photographer. It records the completed façade rather than its appearance before the work by Pomerantsev and Sultanov.

Another photograph of the Falconry Room from the collection of the Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate is broadly dated to 1890–1905. It shows that the hunting scene formed part of the palace’s decoration by the early 20th century. This broad date range does not establish the year in which the paint was applied. That requires documents relating to the work and an examination of the paint layers; on their own, the photograph and the scene on the wall show only that the decoration existed when the photograph was taken.

The expert assessment report records that, by the restoration of 1961–1968, the murals in the state rooms had suffered paint loss and flaking following roof leaks; the paintings were restored again in 2004–2008. An archival photograph therefore shows the historical arrangement of details, but does not confirm that every visible painted line has survived from the 1890s.

Which sources record the rooms’ appearance after the alterations?

Drawings and photographs record what the Yusupovs considered worth showing after the work of 1892–1895. According to materials from the Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate’s 2022 exhibition, the owners commissioned the artist L. M. Brailovsky to produce a series of twelve drawings of the interiors. The collection also holds photographs of the state rooms taken by O. Renard. These two bodies of images offer different ways of checking the evidence: a drawing presents a view selected by the artist, while a photograph preserves the arrangement of visible details at the moment it was taken. Both were created after the Yusupovs’ alterations and cannot serve as evidence of 16th-century decoration.

The museum exhibited a copy of a drawing of the Portrait Room, which, according to its description, Sultanov left almost unchanged. This qualifies the sweeping claim that ‘all the interiors were repainted in the 1890s’. Some rooms underwent extensive alterations, while others retained their earlier decoration. The extent of preservation cannot be judged by the style of an individual hall; it is established through drawings, inventories, historical images and examinations of plaster and paint layers.

The archival materials used by the museum for the exhibition name interiors from the time of Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov the Elder: the Drawing Room, Green Room, Silver Room and Armoury. Authentic Chinese decorative plates survive in the vaults of the Chinese Hall. Similar examples are held at Arkhangelskoye, but the museum itself considers their connection with the Moscow house’s earlier decoration only probable. The distinction between a plate preserved in its original position and a similar object from another collection matters: the latter does not become a ‘returned element of the decoration’ without a record of its provenance.

The Silver Room housed a collection of painted ‘heads’ by P. A. Rotari, later moved to Arkhangelskoye. Two works from this collection, shown at the 2022 exhibition, once complemented the decoration of the Chinese Hall. This history of relocation helps explain why an interior’s earlier appearance cannot be reconstructed from its walls alone: paintings, furniture and porcelain may have moved to another house long before modern restorations. At the same time, a selection of objects in an exhibition is not an exact inventory of every room for a particular year.

What do the other state rooms reveal about the design?

Hunting scenes stood alongside family and royal portraits, a ‘Chinese’ Room, signs of the zodiac and elaborately shaped stoves. The expert assessment report lists details of the late 19th-century decoration, while the museum’s 2022 exhibition confirms that decorative plates survive in the vaults of one of the halls. What we see is a series of decorative programmes for the residence, rather than a single chronicle of royal hunting: scenes painted later do not establish the age of the walls on which they appear.

The stove in the State Hall is a telling example. The expert assessment report states that this 17th-century object was brought from the Meshchaninov house in Kolomna. Its age may be authentic, but its placement in the Yusupov Palace came later. A historic object, old walls and 19th-century decorative painting can readily coexist in one interior. The authenticity of one element does not establish the age or origin of all the others.

A private chapel dedicated to Saints Nicholas and Tatiana was established in the small tower above the entrance hall; the petition for it is among the documents dated 1893. The chapel and its decoration formed part of the same campaign to turn the old chambers into a habitable family residence. The date of the petition helps identify the chapel as a specific Yusupov commission rather than an anonymous ‘ancient’ feature. Taken together, information about dates, functions and materials reveals the late 19th-century programme more precisely than a general impression of its style.

Can the murals serve as evidence for the old legend?

No. The murals in the Volkov–Yusupov Chambers show that, by the late 19th century, the Yusupovs were using the legend of Ivan IV in the decoration of their palace. Their dates and subject matter tell us nothing about the existence of a hunting lodge in the 16th century. They are a source for the history of the later residence; they do not substantiate the story of royal hunting.

Evidence that such a lodge was built would take a different form: a dated document recording ownership or construction, corresponding archaeological material, or a reliable chain of evidence linking an early structure to this particular site. The report examined provides archival information about owners and building work in the 17th and 18th centuries, but offers no comparable chain of evidence for Ivan IV. The lack of corroboration should be acknowledged honestly as a limit of the research, rather than turned into a sensational ‘debunking’ of every detail of the legend.

There is also a semantic trap in the word ‘Falconer’s’. It sounds like the precise name of a royal palace and encourages the assumption that falconry took place within these walls. Yet the Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate classifies this account as a myth. The name establishes neither the date of the masonry nor who commissioned the building. The falcons painted on the vaults at a later date reinforce the image, but do not change the status of the source.

What happened to the state rooms after 1917?

After 1917, the rooms of the Volkov–Yusupov Chambers served various purposes, and sources differ on the dates of the earliest phase. The expert assessment report dates the British Consulate General’s occupancy to December 1917–August 1918; Andrey Postnikov’s archival research extends this period to November 1918. From 1919, museum organisations operated in the palace, occupying different parts of the house.

From July 1919, military history collections were stored in the building; in early 1922, the repository became an independent institution. In January 1924, part of the west wing was allocated to the A. P. Chekhov Moscow State Museum, and in spring 1925, other rooms were assigned to the Museum of Old Moscow. Postnikov documents this through archival files from the People’s Commissariat for Education, the State Historical Museum and the Russian State Library. His research is particularly valuable for its floor-by-floor and month-by-month precision: an institution’s name on the door does not prove that it occupied the entire house.

By 1924, the management of the institution concerned was already discussing how the palace was ill-suited to housing military history exhibits, although the building itself was of interest as an architectural monument. The Museum of Old Moscow occupied four rooms on the first floor of the western half, including the winter garden, but never mounted a full exhibition there: the collections remained in boxes. This example shows how former state rooms became workspaces and storage areas. For researchers studying the interiors, this change of use helps explain later alterations and losses.

At the end of 1927, the museum collections were removed and the building was handed over to the Institute of Agricultural Economics, associated with Alexander Chayanov. Later, it housed the Presidium of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Mentioning these institutions here is no biographical digression: prolonged office use required new partitions, passageways and technical adaptations. When restoring the painted decoration and layout, specialists therefore had to distinguish the Yusupov-era finishes from traces of the 20th century.

How do restoration records change our understanding of the palace?

Restoration records help distinguish the original parts of the chambers from repairs and alterations. The 2022 expert assessment report compares archival evidence of construction, 19th-century designs and the results of restoration work carried out in 1946–1952, 1961–1968 and 2004–2008. It allows us to trace where later layers were removed, what was repaired and what was recreated. A reconstruction may be valuable, but its present appearance alone does not reveal the age of an adjoining wall.

The building’s later history also requires a careful chronology. The Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate reported that the chambers had been transferred to federal ownership and the museum granted operational management rights in 2020. This announcement records the legal and museum-related decision made at that time; it does not confirm the current arrangements for visiting the interiors. For an article about the legend, the more relevant point is that conservation and restoration require an understanding of the differences between the 17th-century fabric, the Yusupovs’ programme of the 1890s and subsequent work.

What exactly could the restorers preserve and restore?

In 1946–1952, specialists from Moscow’s state heritage protection service restored the façades and interiors, with the involvement of architects Sergey Toropov and Dmitry Razov. The expert assessment report notes that measured surveys, design drawings and photographic records from this work survive in the Shchusev Museum of Architecture. At that time, the façades were given a green background with white architectural details. This alone shows that the chambers’ familiar colour was not an unchanging feature of the old masonry.

The next major phase took place in 1961–1968. Restorers found damaged roofs, a dilapidated south porch, a plinth hidden beneath accumulated layers of soil, and areas of painted decoration lost through water leaks. During the work, limewash was removed from the gallery’s granite columns, while the façades were finished in brick red with white details after later cement render had been stripped away. Some planned work, including the restoration of the gallery platform, was not carried out at that time. The document allows us to distinguish the completed work from the unrealised plans.

The restoration of 2004–2008 addressed both the architecture and the painted decoration. According to the expert assessment report, the northern extension was reinstated to Pomerantsev’s design, the blocked carriage archway was reopened, and the roof, porches, floors and stoves were repaired. Following the work, this passage once again became a visible part of the building’s construction history, although its subsequent glazing belongs to a later adaptation of the building. A single opening can thus reveal both the earlier architectural composition and the modern approach to presenting it.

Sources assess the work of 2004–2008 differently. The expert assessment report lists repairs to the roof and stoves, the reopening of the archway and the restoration of the painted decoration, but also records violations identified by a commission from the Federal Service for Cultural Heritage Protection in 2006. The Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate, in a 2020 statement, stated that the owner had taken no measures to protect the monument from further deterioration; at that time, the museum considered the palace to be in a dire condition. The 2022 document noted damp affecting the ground-floor painted decoration and the need for further conservation work on the building. A list of completed tasks therefore cannot be taken as evidence that the interior decoration is fully preserved.

The schedule of protected features approved in 2022 lists the western and eastern masonry chambers, the 19th-century roofs, the gallery, the façade decoration, the layout and the interior finishes. The heritage protection document distinguishes physical layers from different periods. The same precision is needed when considering the legend of Ivan IV: the monument’s name is no substitute for dating each wall and painted surface.

What can we conclude from viewing the chambers from the street?

The Yusupov Palace on Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Lane retains its 17th-century walls, while its familiar appearance was shaped by 19th-century alterations and subsequent restorations. The façade’s Old Russian motifs cannot establish whether Ivan the Terrible hunted on this site. That would require 16th-century evidence, which is absent from the materials examined.

The legend found visual expression in the Hunting Hall, whose painted decoration was created in the late 19th century. Brick stamps, letters to Shafirov and designs by Pomerantsev and Sultanov help date different parts of the building. The most precise conclusion remains a limited one: the present chambers cannot confidently be called Ivan IV’s palace.

The building is included on the route excursions “Architecture in Moscow” from Krasnye Vorota to Yauzskiye Vorota. The façade provides a good setting for discussing the building’s early core, later historical styling and the history of neighbouring houses; the tour programme does not promise access to the interiors. The hunting scenes painted inside are examined here through published documents, so the walk complements the study of the building rather than replacing it.

Sources

1. State Historical and Cultural Heritage Assessment Report on the Volkov Boyars’ Chambers (Yusupov Palace)
2. Restoration — a Dialogue Between Past and Present: the Volkov–Yusupov Chambers
3. Russian Museum: Fyodor Grigoryevich Solntsev
4. Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate: Transfer of the Palace to the Museum’s Management
5. ‘Architecture, Moscow Style’ Tour
6. ‘Hunting Scene’ in the Falconry Room: an Archival Photograph from the Collection of the Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate
7. Yusupov Palace Viewed from Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Lane: a Photograph from the 1900s in the Collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
8. A. V. Postnikov. Museums in the Yusupov Chambers on Kharitonyevsky Lane in Moscow (1919–1927): Archival Research
9. Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate: ‘The House of the Yusupov Princes at the Red Gate’ exhibition
10. Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate: biography of Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov the Younger
11. Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate: ‘Yusupov’s Moscow House’, quotation from an 1850 description
12. T. A. Dudina. New Information on the Yusupov Princes’ Property in Bolshoy Kharitonyevsky Lane
13. Arkhangelskoye Museum Estate: lecture on the myth of ‘Ivan the Terrible’s Falconry Palace’