The Gorky House Museum combines Russian's bourgeois and communist past but also showcases the extraordinary architecture and design of the Russian Art Nouveau period.
The house was built for a Russian oligarch but gifted to the Bolshevik writer Maxim Gorky who lived there from 1932 until his death in 1936.
And today while its exterior may look a little shabby, its extraordinary interior and furnishings have been preserved, making this a must-see stop on any visit to Moscow.
There is, of course, great irony that a mansion built for a millionaire capitalist should become the home of Russia's greatest proletariat writer.
The mansion was built in 1900 for StepanRyabushinksy, the chairman of the Moscow stock exchange who was a renowned art collector. He engaged the renowned architect Fyodor Shekhtel, the most influential exponent of Russian Art Nouveau and late Russian Revival architecture, to create a home that would also be an exhibition space for his vast art collection and Shekhtel's design is considered among the finest of the Style Moderne buildings he created.
Ryabushinsky fled Russia after the 1917 October Revolution and his house and art collection became state property before Soviet leader Joseph Stalin offered it to the writer Maxim Gorky.
Gorky - born Alexander Peshkov in 1868 - was a political activist and writer who was one of the founders of the literary method known as Socialist Realism, capturing the lives of ordinary people in his writing.
He spent seven years in exile in Capri for his Bolshevik support during the 1905 October Revolution before returning during an amnesty in 1913. An enthusiastic supporter of the Bolsheviks during the 1917 October Revolution, he published a series of articles criticising Lenin and the Bolsheviks during the civil war that followed and returned to exile in Italy and would not come back permanently to Russia until Stalin personally invited him in 1932.
He was presented with the Ryabushinsky mansion as his Moscow residence and given a dacha in the country, too.
Today visitors can enjoy Shekhtel's creation in all its glory. The exterior is eye-opening enough - a shocking pink floral mosaic frieze on glazed brick. But it is the preserved interior that provides a fascinating insight into both Gorky's later life and the out-of-the-box design ideas of Shekhtel.
A limestone staircase epitomises Shekhtel's left-field thinking, appearing to drip and sag like molten wax, almost melting into the floor.
Inside what was Ryabushinsky's salon - utilised by Gorky as his library - the ceiling is decorated with stucco snails and flowers. The parquet flooring and ceiling of the dining room have feature patterns of wave-like motifs, while giant lizards decorate a pillar on the landing.
It will surprise no one to note that Gorky was no fan of the ostentatious style of his new home and visitors will note the more practical elements of the rooms he used which are now filled with his memorabilia, his writing desk, books and cabinets he had custom made.
Gorky's House is a must-see experience for any visitor to Moscow, bridging the two most important eras in Russian history.
