 
The house of an eccentric 19th-century millionaire was reopened last week after a two-year, $25 million restoration that will allow it host a series of meetings during Russia"s presidency of the Group of Eight.
The house of an eccentric 19th-century millionaire was reopened last week after a two-year, $25 million restoration that will allow it host a series of meetings during Russia"s presidency of the Group of Eight.  The distinctive building at 16 Ulitsa Vozdvizhenka, between the Kremlin and the Arbat, was originally known as Morozov"s mansion, after Arseny Morozov, a wealthy merchant"s son who built the home in 1889. In the last 50 years, during which it became known as the House of Friendship, it had slipped into disrepair. Vladimir Kozhin, the head of the Kremlin"s property department, reopened the house last week as the Reception Building of the Russian Government. "We have completed the reconstruction, installed unique interiors, while at the same time the building has been given the most modern infrastructure," said Kozhin, who is also the deputy head of the organizing committee of Russia"s yearlong leadership of the G8, the Rosbalt news agency reported. The mansion is one of the city"s most eclectic buildings. Some elements of its shell-encrusted facade were inspired by the former royal castle at Sintra, near Lisbon, which Morozov and the building"s architect, Viktor Mazyrin, saw during a trip around the Iberian Peninsula. Inside, the mansion boasts rooms decorated in Chinese, Roman and Gothic styles, some restored after Soviet-period damage. For several years after the 1917 Revolution, the building housed the Proletkult, a proletarian theater that featured plays directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergei Eisenstein, and readings by Vladimir Mayakovsky. Later, it served as the Japanese, British and Indian embassies. In 1959, it was renamed the House of Friendship With the Peoples of Foreign Countries and was used to promote ties with friendly states.
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