House of the College of Foreign Affairs is a building of strict classicism on English Embankment (32a), Neva river, St. Petersburg.
In the 1750s the plot belonged to Prince B. A. Kurakin who to build a large two-story house on the English embankment and an outbuilding on Galernaya Street. The facades were richly decorated. Statues and trophies crowned the parapet and pediment. Entrance to the courtyard from Galernaya St. was designed in the form of a portal with columns.
Then the house passed into the treasury, and it housed the Collegium of Foreign Affairs.
The house was rebuilt for the College of Foreign Affairs. In 1782-1783 G. Quarenghi completely removed the baroque decoration of the facades. The walls were smoothly plastered, the center of the facade was decorated with a colonnade of eight Ionic columns.
In 1802 the College was transformed into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
D. I. Fonvizin, A. S. Griboedov, F. I. Tyutchev served here.
After graduating from the Lyceum, A. S. Pushkin and his lyceum friend, poet, Decembrist V. K. Kuchelbeker were assigned here.
The ministry occupied the building until 1828.
In the 1840s the house was already occupied by a military academy.
Here lived the Maykov family, academician of painting N. A. Maikov and his sons: poet A. N. Maikov and critic V. N. Maikov.
