Nikita Lazarev

• Name — Nikita Gerasimovich Lazarev • Born — 1866 • Birthplace — Moscow • Died — 1932 • Place of death — Moscow • Practice — own practice • Significant Buildings — Mindovsky House • Significant Projects — Arbat and Prechistenka apartment buildings

Mindovsky family originated in Kineshma, where serf Ivan Ivanovich Mindovsky (1781–1853) launched his own textile mill. His grandson, Ivan Alexandrovich, commissioned the first historical Mindovsky House to Lev Kekushev (44, Povarskaya Street). Next of kin, Nikolay Ivanovich, commissioned the second Mindovsky House to Nikita Lazarev. Various members of the clan also owned apartment blocks in the city (including 9, Vspolny Lane by Fyodor Schechtel). Lazarev's Mindovsky House became a statement of neoclassical reaction against "decadent art". It stands next to two William Walcot's Art Nouveau mansions, on a strategic corner lot visible from Prechictenka Street. In 1927-1938 the building housed Embassy of Austria. After the Anschluss of 1938, it was used as an exclusive hotel, housing guests like Joachim von Ribbentrop (August 1939) and Winston Churchill (October 1944). However, the rumour that Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed there is an urban legend. In April, 1955 the building became Austrian Embassy again. Mindovsky House is also known as the site of a fictional shooting in Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Nikita Lazarev's niece was married to Ivan Zholtovsky, however, two architects didn't get along too well (Belyutin). Lazarev, a member of an old a prolific family, was also related to Wassily Kandinsky and other artists. A sportsman and driving enthusiast, he was the active member of upper-class Moscow Automobile Society before 1917. He was also a member of Valery Bryusov's Literary Arts Circle (as well as Fyodor Schechtel). Lazarev's life after 1917 is scarcely documented; he remained in Soviet Moscow, lost his practice but retained a decent standard of living (Belyutin). His son, professor Viktor Nikitich Lazarev, was a prominent historian of Byzantium. He was admitted to the Soviet Academy of Sciences together with Igor Grabar, a long-time friend of Lazarevs; neither Lazarev, nor Grabar ever were in the Communist Party.

• 1902-1903 - Yechkin Hotel, 23 Arbat Street • 1904 - 7, Volkhonka Street • 1904-1906 - Tolstoy Hotel, 29 Arbat Street • 1905-1906 - 43 Bolshaya Ordynka • 1906 - Mindovsky House, 6 Prechistensky Lane • 1906 - 10, Tverskoy Boulevard • 1910 - 8, Tverskoy Boulevard • 1911 - 68, Bolshaya Ordynka Street • 1911-1912 17, Vspolny Lane