Ushkova House

The Ushkova House is an extravagantly eclectic mansion on Kremlyovskaya Street built between 1904 and 1908 for a wealthy chemical merchant. The interior — Moorish hall, Chinese parlour, Gothic library, mythological grand salon, mirrored ballroom — is one of the most extravagant examples of Russian fin-de-siècle decoration anywhere east of Moscow.

Since the 1920s the building has housed the Republican National Library and is now mostly used for special exhibitions. Visitors can usually walk through the lobby and the most impressive of the public rooms; deeper access depends on what is on. A short walk from the Kremlin's southern gate.

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A story
The merchant Konstantin Ushkov is said to have commissioned the building as a wedding gift for his bride Zinaida — she demanded a Spanish-style room, a Chinese room, a Gothic room, and a Greek-mythology room, and the architect Karl Mufke obliged. The marriage ended in divorce a few years later; the house, with all four rooms, has survived since.