Architectural, Cultural sights in Moscow
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Kolomenskoe Museum-Reserve
Set amid 4 sq km of parkland, on a bluff above a bend in the Moscow River, this Museum-Reserve is an ancient royal country seat and Unesco World Heritage Site. Many festivals are held here, so check if anything is happening during your visit. From Bolshaya ul, enter at the rear of the grounds through the 17th-century Saviour Gate to the whitewashed Our Lady of Kazan Church, both built in the time of Tsar Alexey. The church faces the site of his great wooden palace, which was demolished in 1768 by Catherine the Great. Ahead, the white, tent-roofed 17th-century front gate and clock tower mark the edge of the old inner-palace precinct. The golden double-headed eagle that top…
reviewed
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Melnikov House
On a side street near the Arbat, the home of Konstantin Melnikov still stands as testament to the innovation of the Russian avant-garde in the 1920s. This plot of land was granted to the architect on the grounds that the house was a social experiment that would then be applied to mass housing. (It never was.) He created his unusual new home – the only private house built during the Soviet period – from two interlocking cylinders. It is an ingenious design that employs no internal load-bearing wall and has a self-reinforcing wooden grid floor. The house was also experimental in its designation of living space: the whole family slept in one room, painted a golden yellow and…
reviewed
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Narkomfin
The model for Le Corbusier’s Unitè D’Habitation, this architectural landmark is set slightly back from the Garden Ring, wedged between the US embassy and Novinsky Passage shopping centre. On the World Monuments Fund Watch List since 2002, this building is an early experiment in semicommunal living, and a prototype for contemporary apartment blocks. Designed and built between 1928 and 1930 by Moisei Ginzburg and Ignatii Milinis Narkomfin, the building offered housing for members of the Commissariat of Finances. There was room for 52 families in duplex apartments and a penthouse on the roof for the Commissar of Finances. In following with constructivist ideals, communal spa…
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Hall Of Facets
Named for its Italian Renaissance stone facing, the Hall of Facets was designed and built by Marco Ruffo and Pietro Solario between 1487 and 1491 during the reign of Ivan III. Its upper floor housed the tsar's throne room, scene of banquets and ceremonies.
Access to the Hall of Facets was via an outside staircase from the square below. During the Streltsky Rebellion of 1682, several of Peter the Great's relatives were tossed down the exterior Red Staircase, so called because it ran red with their blood. (It's no wonder that Peter hated Moscow and decided to start afresh with a new capital in St Petersburg.) Stalin destroyed the staircase, but it was rebuilt in 1994.
The na…
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Moscow State University (MGU)
The best view over Moscow is from Universitetskaya pl, at the top of the hill. From here, most of the city spreads out before you. It is also an excellent vantage point to see Luzhniki, the huge stadium complex built across the river for the 1980 Olympics, as well as Novodevichy Convent and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Behind Universitetskaya pl is the Stalinist spire of Moscow State University, one of the ‘Seven Sisters’. The building is the result of four years of hard labour by convicts between 1949 and 1953. It boasts an amazing 36 stories and 33km of corridors. The shining star that sits atop the spire is supposed to weigh 12 tonnes. Among other socialist rea…
reviewed
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Mayakovsky Museum
The startling postmodern entrance on this prerevolutionary mansion is appropriate for a museum dedicated to the revolutionary, futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. The building is actually where Mayakovsky lived in a communal apartment during the last years of his life. The room where he worked – and shot himself in 1930 – has been preserved. Run by the poet’s granddaughter, the museum contains an eclectic collection of his manuscripts and sketches, as well as the requisite personal items and family photographs.
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House of Friendship With Peoples of Foreign Countries
The ‘Moorish Castle’ studded with seashells was built in 1899 for an eccentric merchant, Arseny Morozov, who was inspired by a real one in Spain. The inside is sumptuous and equally over the top. Morozov’s mother, who lived next door, apparently declared of her son’s home, ‘Until now, only I knew you were mad; now everyone will’. This place is not normally open to the public, but sometimes exhibitions are held here; alternatively, Dom Patriarshy Tours (http://russiatravel-pdtours.netfirms.com/) occasionally brings groups here.
reviewed
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Romanov Chambers in Zaryadie
This small but interesting museum is devoted to the lives of the Romanov family, who were mere boyars (nobles) before they became tsars. The house was built by Nikita Romanov, whose grandson Mikhail later became the first tsar of the 300-year Romanov dynasty. Exhibits (with descriptions in English) show the house as it might have been when the Romanovs lived here in the 16th century. Some of the artistic detail, such as the woodwork in the women’s quarters, is amazing. Enter from the rear of the building.
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Gorky House-Museum
This fascinating 1906 Art Nouveau mansion was designed by Fyodor Shekhtel and gifted to celebrated author Maxim Gorky in 1931. The house is a visual fantasy with sculpted doorways, ceiling murals, stained glass, a carved stone staircase and exterior tile work. Besides the fantastic decor it contains many of Gorky’s personal items, including his extensive library. A small room in the cupola houses random, rotating exhibits of contemporary or quixotic artwork.
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Old English Court
This reconstructed 16th-century house, white with peaked wooden roofs, was the residence of England’s first emissaries to Russia (sent by Elizabeth I to Ivan the Terrible). It also served as the base for English merchants, who were allowed to trade duty free in exchange for providing military supplies to Ivan. Today, it houses a small exhibit dedicated to this early international exchange.
reviewed
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