Moscow. Law.
History

We begin our walk at the "old" building of Moscow University on Mokhovaya Street, the cradle of Russian legal scholarship and the alma mater of generations of lawyers. This masterpiece of Russian Classicism preserves the memory of outstanding professors, among whom one figure stands out: Sergey Muromtsev, a profound scholar of Roman law, a well-known advocate and the first Chairman of the State Duma in imperial Russia. We will see the place where the dream of popular representation was born and the foundations of Russian parliamentarism were laid, and then make our way to the place where those ideas take the form of law — the building of the modern State Duma.

Before us stands the Metropol Hotel — a true masterpiece of Moscow Art Nouveau and a witness to one of the most sensational trials of the early twentieth century. We will examine the details that decorate its façades and admire the famous ceramic panel Princess of Dreams. We will learn the dramatic circumstances of the trial of the man who created the hotel, Savva Mamontov, and the part played in restoring his honour and good name by the most celebrated advocate of his day, the "Moscow Chrysostom", Fyodor Plevako.

Without going far, we stop in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum. We will talk above all about Lenin the lawyer: his education, his brief practice at the bar and the creation of Soviet law. Decree on the Court No. 1 abolished the Governing Senate, the commercial courts and other pre-revolutionary courts, and the legal history of Russia turned in an entirely different direction. After that we will return to a more peaceful subject: merchants, transactions and commercial law.

We have come out onto Birzhevaya Square, the centre of Moscow’s business district at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — the Moscow "City". We will examine the ornate façade of the Troitskoye Podvorye and learn why it was once known as the Stryapcheskoye podvorye. We will consider the phenomenon of the "honest merchant’s word" and the way business ethics took the place of the long and complex contracts used by entrepreneurs today. We will look at the work of the Exchange Committee, which long before modern institutions took shape was already resolving commercial disputes and questions of insolvency and why an invitation there "for a cup of tea" was a worrying sign. From here we will make our way to our final stop, where we will talk about private international law: the Chambers of the Old English Court.