№ 196-198. Civil Architecture in Moscow, 16 – 17 cc.

Moscow. The Old English Court Chambers (16-17 cc, basement 15 c). The chamber is a two-storey building with a high four-slope wooden roof and small windows. The chambers were built in 1556 for English traders who came to Moscow for trading. The chambers housed a warehouse, cellars, living rooms and official rooms. The northern front of the house still bears the characteristic features of the laconic 16th century architecture. The southern front dates back to the 17th century. It was in the Old English Court Chambers that Peter the Great opened the Math School.

Moscow. The Chambers of Boyarin Averky Kirillov (1657). The three-partition building is a fine example of a traditional Russian house, with living rooms and utility rooms separated by the inner porch. The richly decorated side fronts of the house date back to the 17th c. The ornate fa?ade was rebuilt in the 18th c. Under the white-stone arch there is a wide flight of stairs leading to the entrance. The fa?ade is decorated by white-stone window casing and semi-circle pediments. The Averky Kirillov Chambers, also boasting a private chapel, are the only urban mansion in Moscow which survived from the mid-17th century.

Moscow. The Volkov Chambers (end of 17 c). This is an example of traditional pre-Peter the Great urban mansions. The stone house is traditionally structured, comprising a few separate stone houses linked by inner porches. The pointed roofs of various shapes, white-stone window casings which stood out brightly make the house very picturesque. An external stone flight of stairs leads to the first floor, above which there is another storey of small rooms. The splendid decoration is characteristic of the Moscow barocco. In one of the houses of the mansion Pushkin's parents rented a flat in 1801, so the Poet’s first impressions of Moscow are closely linked with this place.

The margins feature an ornamental oval made of fragments of the medieval coat of arms of Moscow.

The margins of the sheetlet feature the elements of the window castings decoration of the Volkov Chambers, the logos of the International Philatelistic Federation, the Philatelistic Union of Russia, MARKA Trade and Publishing House, and the text reads: "The International Philatelistic Exhibition Moscow-9" (In Russian and English).