At the end of the 19th century, two orphanages operated in Tashkent — the Alexandrovsky and the Kaufman, the latter located at the corner of Khiva and Pushkin streets, where School No. 50 now stands. 

The Kaufman Orphanage was named in memory of the Turkestan Governor-General and founder of the Turkestan Charitable Society, K. P. von Kaufman, who annually allocated funds for the orphans. 

The orphanages were overcrowded, and in 1912, the city authorities decided to construct a new building on what was then the outskirts of the city, near the village of Nikolskoye. In 1916, the building, designed by architects V. S. Geyntselyman and N. N. Botvinkin, received its first orphans. 

From 1918 to 1931, the building housed the Exemplary Labor School named after Karl Liebknecht, under the leadership of educator and enlightener V. F. Lubentsov. During this time, approximately 600 children were educated there. 

In 1931, due to the transfer of the capital of the Uzbek SSR from Samarkand to Tashkent, the former Kaufman Orphanage building was allocated for government needs. 

In 1941, it accommodated the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, evacuated to Tashkent, on the basis of which the Energy Institute was established, later transformed into the Institute of Energy and Automation. In 2016, the institute was reorganized into the Scientific and Technical Center of the “Uzbekenergo” company. 

In 2017, in connection with the reconstruction of the Mirzo Ulugbek district and numerous public requests to preserve the architectural monument, a decision was made to relocate the building to the pedestrian zone of Sayilgoh Street (Broadway).

The building was relocated, and today the “Zamin” Foundation operates in it.