This idealistic experiment of the Age of Enlightenment was intended to manufacture "ideal citizens" for the Russian state by bringing up thousands of abandoned children to a very high standard of refinement, cultivation, and professional qualifications.

Despite more than adequate staffing and financing, the Orphanage was plagued by high infant mortality and ultimately failed as a social institution.

An outgrowth of the Russian Enlightenment, the idea of a state-run orphanage in Moscow was proposed by educator Ivan Betskoy and endorsed by Catherine II of Russia on September 1, 1763.

Betskoy envisaged a spacious, strictly controlled, state-of-the-art institution that could raise abandoned infants and train them depending on each child's abilities—in craftsmanship, fine arts, or in preparation for university classes.

The institution was set on a large lot of land between Kitai-gorod, Solyanka Street, Moskva and Yauza rivers, site of a former armoury.

In the 1940s, the missing eastern wing was finally constructed to a design by Alexander Loveyko, who generally followed Blank's original plans, albeit in a considerably simplified form.

Some were assigned to the Michael Maddox theater school; others managed to qualify for free admission to Moscow State University.

By October 1783, the troupe of orphans had become so popular that Baron Vanzura petitioned the Empress to open this "home theatre" for the general public.

Catherine readily approved the project of a public theatre and presented to the Orphanage a disused wooden building of the Golovin Opera House near the Yauza.

The creation of a rival theatre company enraged Michael Maddox, an English entrepreneur who held the monopoly on public entertainment in Moscow.

She encouraged a thorough inspection of prospective foster parents and limited admissions "from the street", measures which decreased the inflow of new orphans and considerably reduced mortality.

After the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Board of Trustees capitalized on the recent disaster by building cheap rental housing on its properties.

By the 1830s, the Orphanage finally achieved the espoused aim of taking the ablest children from the streets and preparing them for state service and professional careers.

The main building was conveyed to the Soviet trade unions, followed by Dzerzhinsky Military Academy and a long succession of state institutions.

The satirical novel The Twelve Chairs features a famous episode: an abandoned wife chasing Ostap Bender, her runaway husband, through numerous editorial offices of the former Orphanage.