Central Chess
Club

In 1822, second lieutenant Alexander Vasilchikov’s wife bought a land plot that had been unoccupied since the 1812 Fire of Moscow. Shortly afterwards, two houses were built there.

The estate owners’ son, horseguardsman Nikolai Vasilchikov, was a Decembrist. After the Decembrist revolt he was sentenced to exile to the Caucasus, and returned to Moscow only in 1831.

In the early 1830’s, the estate was sold to Countess Ekaterina Zubova, wife to Alexander Suvorov’s great-grandson.

The Zubovs rebuilt the manor from inside and outside. At the turn of the 1850’s and 1860’s, two manor buildings were merged into one.

Since 1865, the estate belonged to the Alekseevs, a wealthy merchant family. The famous theater director Konstantin Stanislavsky was the owner’s nephew and visited the estate.

In 1885, it was acquired by Vladimir von Meck, a son of philanthropist Nadezhda von Meck. She was known for her friendship with Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

In 1899, a sister of a well-known philanthropist and a private Opera House founder Sergey Zimin became the owner of the estate. She was married to then-noted opera singer Nazariy Raisky.

Many celebrated artists and musicians visited the manor: composers Alexander Glazunov, Sergey Taneyev and Sergei Rachmaninoff as well as the famous singer Feodor Chaliapin.

After 1917, the nationalized manor was converted into an apartment building. One of the apartments (Apartment No 4) was assigned to the former owners.

In 1923, the building housed the RSFSR Supreme Court. Political emigrants had lived there since the late 1920’s. In the late 1940’s, the house was occupied by the “Dalstroy” State Trust.

Since 1956, the building housed the USSR Central Chess Club. In 1980-2009, the exhibition area located in the Central Chess Club small room of 30 square meters. The Chess Museum was founded in 2014.

Today the manor hosts the Chess Federation of Russia headquarters, as well as the Central Chess Club named after M. Botvinnik and the “64 – Chess Review” editors office.