The center of Moscow is a part of the city located within the Third
Transport Ring. The main historical buildings have been preserved in the
center, almost all the main Moscow attractions are located here.
Although the center of Moscow is "famous" for the lack of affordable
hotels, it is in no way inferior to other European capitals in terms of
the rest of the tourist infrastructure.
The center of Moscow is
an extensible concept. For a long time, the territory within the Garden
Ring was considered the center, but the unrestrained expansion of the
city also affected the boundaries of its center: the neighborhoods
adjacent to the Garden Ring were filled with people, offices and cafes,
and now almost the entire territory inside the Third Transport Ring is
considered the center. Moreover, after the formation of the "New Moscow"
and the expansion of the administrative boundaries of the city far
beyond the MKAD, a number of prestigious districts in the west,
northwest and southwest of the capital, located outside the Third
Transport Ring, began to be conceptually attributed to the center of
Moscow.
The Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod. The Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod are the very, very center of Moscow, where every second building is a landmark, and an elementary one at that: the Armory Chamber, Red Square, GUM, Alexander Garden are located here, although there are also lesser-known places. To the east of the Kremlin is Kitay-Gorod - in the past a trading settlement, and now a bizarre mixture of ancient churches, pre-Petrine chambers, solid buildings of the late 19th century and new buildings, as well as closed areas where numerous government institutions are located. The semi-ring of central squares, in which literally every building is noteworthy, is also interesting; among them are the Pashkov House, the Metropol Hotel, the Polytechnic Museum and the Bolshoi Theater.
Arbat The name Arbat is consistently associated with the pedestrian street Stary Arbat, although for Muscovites it is a whole area — a maze of cunningly intertwined alleys and one of the colorful corners of the old center. There are large objects here, iconic for the city, like the Cathedral of Christ the Savior or the New Arbat, built in Soviet times — the "false jaw" of Moscow — but the real Arbat carefully hides in the depths of the blocks, where old mansions are adjacent to cozy parish churches. There is the highest concentration of foreign embassies in the city, many ordinary residential buildings, no large industrial enterprises, but there is a place of cultural life: dozens of museums, several theaters, the Moscow Conservatory and cozy cafes, of which there are especially many in the Ostozhenka and Prechistenka districts.
Basmanny District Basmanny is one of those areas that are located behind the Garden Ring, but in all respects belong to the old center. Old Basmannaya Street is entirely built up with noble mansions and is a reserve of Moscow classicism, and it leads to the rude but spectacular Yelokhovsky Cathedral. To the north is the famous square of Three Railway Stations, in the area of which there are two Moscow skyscrapers at once. In the south, in the vicinity of the Kursky railway station, you will find a Winery — the first example in Moscow of the transformation of old industrial buildings into a cultural site with the preservation of historical appearance. In the east, the Basmanny district smoothly passes into Lefortovo, a former German settlement.
Zamoskvorechye Zamoskvorechye is a kind of city within a city, a corner of the old non—paraded Moscow, fenced off from the Kremlin, with all its inherent monumentalism, not only the Moscow River, but also an additional line of the Bypass Canal. In the north, Zamoskvorechye begins with old settlements with a series of elegant temples of Polyanka, Ordynka, Pyatnitskaya Street, near which the old Tatar mosque is sheltered. Beyond the Garden Ring, the landscape is changing: Zamoskvorechye becomes an ordinary residential area with neat inclusions of antiquity — the Donskoy and Danilov monasteries, the unique Shukhov Tower or the industrial facade of the Derbenevskaya embankment. In the western part of Zamoskvorechye, there are traditional recreation areas — Gorky Park of Culture and Neskuchny Garden.
Maryina Roshcha Marina Grove is the northern part of the center and, perhaps, the least historical of the central districts. This is a rather heterogeneous territory, the appearance of which consists of several front streets built up in Soviet times (Tverskaya-Yamskaya, Novoslobodskaya, Mira Avenue) and the antiquity hidden behind them. There is a lot of Moscow Art Nouveau in the former Meshchanskaya Sloboda and the unique Vasnetsov house. To the east is the Apothecary's garden — the old botanical garden of Moscow University, a small corner of nature in the middle of the "urban jungle". To the west, on Suvorovskaya Square, there is the theater of the Russian Army — one of the most spectacular monuments of Soviet architecture, and even further away you will find a quiet suburb in the Novoslobodskaya district.
Presnya If it's Presnya, then it's definitely Red: This revolutionary cliche of Soviet times has become entrenched, including in Moscow toponymy, and it is not for nothing that some dramatic events of modern Russian history took place at the White House, i.e. also on Presnya, although there is not much revolutionary in this area at all. Tourists most often visit the Moscow Zoo and the Vagankovskoye cemetery, located further from the center, where many cultural figures are buried. Recently, another mass attraction appeared on Presnya — the Moscow City skyscraper district, but in general Presnya remains a rather intimate place. Of the lesser-known objects, there are, for example, the wonderful Catholic church and the old buildings of the Trekhgornaya Manufactory.
Taganka Taganka is not a very central area. With its narrow part, it intrudes into the Garden Ring, but is mostly located outside it, where the main attractions are located. There are three monasteries in different parts of the district at once: Novospassky with the Krutitsky courtyard adjacent to it and Simonov, both on the banks of the Moskva River, as well as Andronikov on the banks of the Yauza. The latter is not very well known even among Muscovites, although it is here that the oldest Moscow temple with a unique museum of iconography is located. The part of the district far from the center is occupied by industrial zones. In addition to the harsh industrial landscapes, you can see interesting examples of industrial architecture, among which the remains of the Rogozhskaya Sloboda, the center of the Moscow Old Believers, are lost.
Tverskaya Tverskaya is the most ceremonial Moscow street. Expanded and reconstructed in the 1930s, it became a haven for luxury shops and a favorite place for folk festivals, but was fenced off from the rest of the city by a wall of tall buildings. There is a completely different life going on behind this wall. East of Tverskaya is the authentic Moscow of Gilyarovsky: Stoleshnikov, Petrovka, Neglinka — narrow alleys and tricky courtyard systems. To the north, the Hermitage Garden, popular among Muscovites, and the Bolshoi Karetny, sung by Vysotsky. To the west of Tverskaya there is the Nirnsee house — the first Moscow skyscraper, and the famous Patriarch's Ponds — one of the most cozy corners in the city center. In the vicinity of Tverskaya, there is almost the highest concentration of theaters in Moscow.
Khamovniki Khamovniki is the southwestern part of the center, located in a bend of the Moskva River. Tourists come here to see the Novodevichy Monastery — one of three Moscow sites included in the UNESCO list — although Khamovniki is not only interesting for this. What are the ancient chambers of the Khamovny Courtyard, the wooden Pogodinsky hut, old temples huddled here and there, the monumental buildings of the Frunzenskaya embankment or the bizarre toponyms of Plyushchikha and Devichye Pole, and, of course, the embankments surrounding the area, from which views of the Neskuchny Garden, the Vorobyovy Gory with the main building of Moscow State University, the Kievsky railway Station and the old Thermal power plant on the Berezhkovskaya embankment.
Chistye Prudy and Pokrovka Chistye Prudy and Pokrovka are the northeastern part of the center. This is a self-contained area that shuns large squares and wide streets, preferring narrow, winding alleys, and, unlike Arbat, the alleys here are also inclined, because in the Yauza area there is one of the seven Moscow hills. There are literally a ton of attractions here - from Chistye Prudy itself, the main Moscow promenade, to the churches of Ivanovskaya Gorka, the old Moscow synagogue and the quaint Menshikov Tower, but people usually walk around this area not in search of architectural masterpieces, but for the sake of the general atmosphere, stylish shops and cozy cafes hidden in the alleys.
All railway stations are located in the center of Moscow. Almost all
metro branches converge to the center, pulled together by the "hoop" of
the Ring Line. Only bus stations are located far outside the center (you
need to go to them by metro), but from airports Aeroexpress trains will
take you directly to the center.
The center of Moscow is quite
large. The diameter of the Garden Ring is 5 km, the Third Ring is about
11 km. It is very interesting to walk around the center, but at some
point you will need transportation. The most convenient metro is
covering the center with a dense network of lines and stations — from
any point on the surface to the nearest metro station no more than 15
minutes at a measured pace. Land transport is concentrated on the main
highways, mainly radial, and for a long time it was arranged in such a
way that it went from the center to the outskirts, and it was almost
impossible to drive through the center. The radical reforms introduced
by the Moscow Department of Transport threaten to reverse this
situation, but there will never be buses entering the alleys in the
center, so ground transport will be useful to you only if you want to
drive along some street in a straight line. The boulevard ring has no
through transport at all, and on some boulevards there is no ground
transport at all.
Boat trips: pleasure boats are actively
cruising along the Moscow River during the navigation period. Their
traditional route is from Kievsky railway station to Novospassky Bridge,
although recently, under the influence of growing demand, a variety of
options have begun to appear: hour—long walks from the Patriarch's
Bridge, walks towards Moscow City, a romantic dinner on a boat and any
other entertainment at your expense. An hour walk costs within 500
rubles (2016), a ticket can be purchased at the pier or online (with a
discount). Motor ships from the Patriarchal Bridge — Rosrechflot,
various routes in the center and not only — the Capital shipping
company.
All seven Moscow hills are located within the center. On one of them,
Borovitsky, in 1147, a fortress was laid, which gave rise to the city.
By the 14th century, the Kremlin was not enough for everyone, and the
local rulers, who had received the title of Grand Dukes by that time,
needed a full-fledged residence, and not a corner in a communal
apartment, so the city began to actively spread beyond the Kremlin,
gradually covering the neighboring hills (although all seven were built
up at best by the XVIII century).
By the beginning of the XVI
century, the walls of the Kremlin were well established (and in this
form they have mostly reached our days), after which it became possible
to deal with the fortifications of the townships. In the 1530s, the
stone walls of Kitay-Gorod were built, and in the 1590s the walls of the
White City, on the site of which the Boulevard Ring or, to be precise,
the semicircle is now located, since the Moscow River was at that time a
serious obstacle, and stone walls on its right bank were completely
unnecessary. At the same time, another line of fortifications appears —
the Earthen City (or Wooden City), this time a real ring, now known as
the Garden Ring.
There is nothing left of the walls of the White
and Earthen City in Moscow except toponymy — Pokrovsky Gate, Red Gate,
Earthen Rampart. All these fortifications were built on the occasion of
the attacks of the Tatars, already in the XVII century the need for
walls disappeared, and in the second half of the XVIII century both the
White and the Earthen City were dismantled, turning into boulevards,
which survived in place of the White City, and in place of the Earthen
turned into a giant highway. The name White City is often associated
with white stone walls (although the expression "White Stone Moscow"
most likely came from the old Kremlin walls), but there is also a more
pragmatic version — reliable stone walls defended the White City, the
city of lords. The area outside the White City was poor in the XVI
century — a pile of villages and settlements, it officially became part
of Moscow in 1590, and therefore was awarded only an earthen rampart
with wooden fortifications built on it, which was called a city, that
is, made hastily.
In the XVIII century, the territory of the
Earthen City of Moscow became small, which is why a new border, the
Chamber-Collegiate Shaft, is being formed. It was also a fortification,
but this time an internal one — the customs, and since 1806, the
official police border of the city. There were outposts on the rampart
where documents were checked. The shaft, which was demolished in the
second half of the XIX century, left a noticeable trace in the city:
extensive toponymy, according to which the old border of Moscow can
still be traced (Trekhgorny Shaft, Sushchevsky Shaft, Zolotorozhsky
Shaft, etc. D.), and also the old city cemeteries (Vagankovskoye,
Danilovskoye, Kalitnikovskoye), after the plague of 1771, taken outside
the city and built along the perimeter of the Chamber-Collegiate shaft.
In the sense of the shaft, it was a beta version of the Third Ring - at
that time, however, not a transport one.
The official border of Moscow went beyond the Kamer-Kollezhsky Val
only before the revolution. These areas were built up in the Soviet era,
most often in the post-war period, so that almost all Moscow attractions
are located in the center. However, this does not mean that the ensemble
of old Moscow has been preserved anywhere. Preserving the historical
appearance has never been a strong point of Russian cities, and Moscow
has traditionally led this process. The Soviet government, which
restored Moscow's metropolitan status, decisively rebuilt the center in
accordance with new ideological attitudes and its own ideas about
beauty. If it is no longer possible to imagine Moscow without Stalin's
skyscrapers or ruby stars on the Kremlin Towers, then many other
interventions in the historical environment were at least controversial:
it is enough to recall the New Arbat that destroyed areas of old
buildings or the giant monument to Peter I stuck almost opposite the
Kremlin.
The most integral architectural ensembles in the center
of Moscow are, oddly enough, the streets built up in the middle of the
XX century in the Stalinist style: Tverskaya, Prospekt Mira, Leninsky
Prospekt. Some corners of old Moscow can still be found in the Pokrovka,
Arbat, Zamoskvorechye area, on Staraya Basmannaya Street, but most of
the center of Moscow is a tricky jumble of small, often rather
provincial mansions of the XIX century, multi-storey apartment buildings
built before the revolution, interspersed with constructivism,
functional architecture of stagnation times and quite numerous new
buildings that in places are trying to fit in into the historical
environment, and in some places they deliberately stick out of it. This
diversity, the eternal pursuit of new things, is the whole life and the
whole essence of the city.
In the 1990s, post-Soviet Moscow
quickly became the business center of the country, and the streets
within the Garden Ring turned into a chaos of cars parked everywhere,
leaving no room for pedestrians. Recently, the Moscow government has
been trying to combat this by pushing cars out of the center and
expanding pedestrian zones. Tverskaya, Bolshaya Dmitrovka, Ordynka,
which have become a good place for walking, have undergone total
reconstruction. The Boulevard Ring is also unique, a rare corner of
greenery for the center and a wonderful walking route, but the Garden
Ring, on the contrary, has turned into a wide highway, from the noise of
which you want to quickly escape into the alleys. A similar fate befell
the embankments, where there are good viewpoints, but too many cars.