Gostinyy Dvor

This guide to Gostiny Dvor in Moscow starts with a chance discovery: workmen renovating the floor in the 1990s who struck a hidden hoard of silver coins and vessels, buried and never reclaimed. It traces the building's four centuries as Moscow's grand merchant court, from a 1590s trading court through Catherine the Great's Corinthian-columned rebuilding by architect Giacomo Quarenghi, the fire that followed Napoleon's invasion, and the Soviet-era decline that left it carved into offices. Look down at the floor as you walk through the grand hall.