The first records of the plot at the modern address Starorusskaya Street, house 5, and Novgorodskaya Street, house 3, date back to 1828. At that time, temporary wooden private buildings were located on it, presumably belonging to the merchant Zelenkov. In 1833, the Ministry of Internal Affairs contested the will left by Zelenkov, according to which the land was supposed to go to the church, and transferred it to the heiress, Princess Shakhovskaya. Around 1855, the princess sold the plot to the merchant’s wife Poigina, with only a small narrow part of the land going to the merchant Polezhaev. On Poigina’s property, a one-story house with a mezzanine and utility buildings were erected. Around 1870, Poigina’s lands were bought out by the Polezhaev brothers, heirs of Mikhail Tikhonovich Polezhaev, one of the country’s leading grain merchants. In June 1877, the sole owner of the plot became his son, first guild merchant Nikolai Polezhaev.

In the early 1910s, after the death of Nikolai Polezhaev, the land was inherited by his son Mikhail. He decided to build a revenue house and in 1913 invited architect Ivan Yakovlev to lead the construction and develop the project. The developed drawings were submitted to the city administration in spring 1913 and approved by the commission at the end of June that year. For the construction of the six-story house with an attic, it was planned to demolish all the buildings of merchant’s wife Poigina and several stone service buildings from the mid-19th century.

Yakovlev designed a complex building in plan consisting of two blocks with striking Art Nouveau-style exterior facades. The central northern facade included a cour d’honneur and was framed by bay window towers with spire-like tops. All the inner courtyard facades were smoothly plastered, while the outer ones were strikingly decorated with stucco, contrasting finishes, shaped balconies, and sculptures. The expressive effect is supported by color contrast—the upper part of the building is surrounded by a band of red brick, while the cladding at the 2nd to 4th floors is made of sand-colored brick. The open pass-through cour d’honneur was an innovative technique—it allowed for better sunlight exposure and ventilation of the apartments. Due to its resemblance to a castle, the house earned the nickname “Carcassonne-on-the-Sands.”

The “medieval” motifs are offset by arched loggias in the Renaissance spirit and a rich color palette of various finishing materials. It creates the illusion that in a fortress wall, having lost its defensive purpose, townspeople have arranged cozy housing for themselves—as was common in European cities at the twilight of the knightly era. Among all this architectural diversity, paired sculptures feel very comfortable: a full-length atlas and caryatid depicted in freely flowing garments easily, without the slightest strain, support the balconies as if continuing a conversation. Their attire is likely from the Renaissance era...

This very house was chosen by director Vladimir Bortko when deciding to shoot the film "The Master and Margarita" in the city on the Neva. And Polezhaev’s revenue house perfectly substituted for the house on Sadovaya where Woland and his retinue lived.

The house is a typical representative of Art Nouveau. It attracted tenants with its gloomy beauty—towers with spires, brick cladding that darkened over time, giving the house even more austere charm. Skillful stucco work, half-columns, and figures of atlantes dressed in Renaissance-era clothing.

The complex was designed for wealthy people—some apartments occupied several hundred square meters. Apartments with windows facing the street were intended for merchants of the highest guild: with bright spacious rooms, where only kitchens and pantries faced the courtyard. Between these apartments, dwellings for engineers were designed—also spacious and well planned, but more modest. In the rear part of the house were simpler apartments for “middle-tier” merchants. Here are memories about the apartment layouts:

“Very useful household features were thoughtfully designed down to the smallest detail, such as: most apartments had two entrances—a front and a back one from the yard. <...> The back staircases had balconies. <...> The 14-square-meter kitchens adjoined a cold pantry with a small window <...>. Large bathrooms with hot and cold water and an additional toilet <...>. A niche for a maid (or cook) was adjacent to the kitchen. Three of the four rooms were connected by double-leaf enfilade doors (for the movement of the owners—the maid used the corridor). Everywhere in the rooms and corridor there was excellent herringbone parquet. The kitchen floor was tiled with a characteristic two-color pattern. The upper transoms in the doors were glass for natural lighting of the corridor and bathroom. There was a built-in closet in the corridor.”

After the revolution, the house underwent the same fate as most Petersburg revenue houses—the apartments were turned into communal flats. However, in Polezhaev’s house, the communal flats were especially large, containing up to twenty rooms and up to a hundred residents (considering the original apartment sizes, this is not surprising). The first floors housed either clinics or branches of educational institutions.

Today, the “castle-house” still retains its role as a focal point of this corner of Petersburg, invariably attracting the gaze of passersby, artists, photographers, and photography enthusiasts. The Starorusskaya, Novgorodskaya, and 8th Sovetskaya streets flowing toward Polezhaev’s house have formed a peculiar square at their junction, allowing the grand building to be admired in all its glory from various angles.

Sources:

https://kulturologia.ru/blogs/240119/42040/

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Доходный_дом_М._Н._Полежаева

https://spbvedomosti.ru/news/nasledie/karkasson_na_peskakh/