The Reconstruction of Moscow

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Old Lubyanka Square — middle of nineteenth century (now Dzerzhinsky Square)

'Gufom, a merchant, appropriated a part of the area of the street to build his house, and on ihe other side the Petroysky Monastery extended into tlae street. Thus, by the joint efforts of priest and merchant this street was hemmed in from both sides. The barbaric cupidity of the Russian capitalists is attested to by the notoirious case of the so-called "Kho- myatovsky Grove" which existed) for several decades. The big landlord and nobleman, Khomyakov, who owned a house on the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Petrovka, did not want to yield the city fifty sqjuare sazhens (350 sq. ft.) of his land to widen Kuznetsky Most, except at the exorbitant rate of three thousand rubles per sazhen. To prevent anybody from taking away his land in some unexpected way he planted young fir trees there and earned for it the facetious title of "Khomyakovsky Grove." In an airticle by I. Vemer, "The Housiixg Conditions of the Poorer People of Moscow," published in 1902 in the organ of the Moscow City Council of the landlords and merchants, we read:

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