In 1796, several noble families united under the leadership of Prince Golitsyn and donated funds to establish a hospital for the poor. The planned location was a patch of land along what is now Leninsky Prospekt owned by Golitsyn who also partially financed the project. That money came from the funds from Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn bequeathed for the purposes of “creating in the capital city of Moscow “an institution that’s pleasing to God and useful to people."

The construction was overseen by the cousin of Prince, a privy councillor and chief chamberlain Alexander Golitsyn.

Architect Matvei Fedorovich Kazakov was invited to construct the hospital and design the surrounding area. The building process took place from 1796 to 1802. The project was designed as an urban estate. Inside the hospital there was a church with a dome that these days crowns the Golitsynsky building of the First City Hospital. As conceived by Kazakov, a large garden for patients was set up, stretching from the hospital building to the embankment of the Moscow River. Two ponds were dug in the garden - the Big pond with an artificial island, and the Small pond - to comply with the code of estate landscape design, as well as for the pleasure of patients.

The territory of the garden ended by the stone embankment of Moskva River (the so-called Golitsyn wall) and was flanked by two stone pavilions that served as its borders. In 1833 the First City Hospital was founded nearby, and, several decades later, the Second City Hospital appeared. Currently, all three hospitals function as a single body - The Pirogov City Clinical Hospital No. 1. The architectural ensemble survived without any changes until 1923, when its territory was significantly reduced: the western part, which included lower terraces with ponds, was given to the Agricultural Exhibition which took place that year. Later the garden was assigned to the Central Park of Culture and Recreation that was opened in 1928.