Interrupted Stories

The merchant estate occupied the corner of Bolshaya Ordynka and Klimentovsky Lane. Its name combined the surnames of the Dolgov merchants—who built the estate—and Nikolai Ivanovich Zhemochkin, the last owner before 1917, who traded in hides and drive belts. After the Moscow fire of 1812, the building was rebuilt in the fashionable Empire style of the time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Third Girls' Gymnasium rented the building. In 1918, all girls' gymnasiums in Soviet Russia were officially liquidated. The image of the gymnasium student and the idea of interrupted history formed the basis of the collection’s concept.