You flow like a river with your strange name
And your asphalt is like transparent river water.
Oh, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my calling,
You are my joy and my sorrow.
The people walking you are not exalted,
Their heels click, they hurry on their way.
Oh, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my religion
Your roadway lies beneath me.
I will never be cured of loving you,
Even as I love forty thousand other roads.
Oh, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my homeland,
No one could ever reach the end of you.
(Bulat Okudzava)
Arbat Street (Арбат) is a historic pedestrian street in the
middle of Arbatskaya District of Moscow. In the Russian culture
Arbat Street has a significant meaning as a gathering place and a
symbol for artists, art, political protest and self- expression. It
was first mentioned in the 15th century (burning of Church of Saint
Nicholas on the Sands in 1493) and today it is considered one of the
oldest streets of the Russian capital. The etymology of the name is
uncertain, but it is most likely come from an Arabic word arbad
(أرباض ) that can be translated as outskirts or suburbs in reference
to Moscow historic nucleus- Kremlin. It was settled by immigrants
from the East and South of Russia. They differed in ethnic
background, but most of them followed Islam as their religion and
thus had close ties with Arabic culture. In the 16th century Arbat
and surrounding streets were inhabited by craftsmen. It is still
visible in the names of side streets of Arvat. Plotnikov Lane
(Carpernter Lane in English) comes from a region where carpenters
lived in several houses. Denejniy Street (Money Lane) was inhabited
by masters of Government Mint, Serebryany Street (Silver Lane) was a
place for silver workers and so on.
In the 19th century
Arbat streets turns into a long market where craftsmen sold their
items. It was a bustling, noisy business center. Many famous
Russians moved here including Russian poet A.S. Pushkin, Marina
Tsvetaea, Mikhail Lermontov and many others. Arbat was also had
numerous famous restaurants, hotels and other commercial buildings.
In the 20th century the fame of Arbat doesn't fade. Poets Andrew
Bely and Bulat Okudzhava live here and further romanticise Arbat
with its streets and old buildings.
In 1980's the street
becomes a new symbol of Perestroyka and new changes in Soviet Union.
It was one of the first places where people were allowed to trade
without control of the government. Additionally it became the stage
for numerous rock groups that were allowed to perform in public for
the first time. Today it still serves as a center stage for various
artists who gather here. Some sing, some read poetry, others bring
their art and sell it on the street.
Arbat Street runs from Arbat Gate Square to
Smolenskaya Square, lies between Prechistenka and Novy Arbat. The
numbering of houses is carried out from the Arbat Gate Square. The
length of the Arbat is 1.2 kilometers.
Arbatsky, Serebryany, Maly
Nikolopeskovskiy, Bolshoi Nikolopeskovskiy, Spasopeskovskiy and
Troilinsky lanes go out to the Arbat from the right; on the left -
Bolshoy Afanasyevsky, Starokonyushenny, Kaloshin, Krivoarbatsky,
Plotnikov and Money Lane.
The street got its
name from the name of the suburb - Orbat (Arbat), which lay to the west
of the Kremlin. In the 16th-17th centuries, Arbat was the name of a vast
area lying between modern Znamenka and Bolshaya Nikitskaya streets,
while the main street of the district was Vozdvizhenka, which was mainly
called Arbat.
The name Orbat was first mentioned in 1475:
"Nikifor Basenkov burned down completely on Orbat."
An
unequivocal conclusion about the origin of this toponym still does not
exist. According to the version first proposed by the archaeographer P.
M. Stroev and spread as the main one in a number of guidebooks, the name
Arbat was formed from the Turkic word arba: in the area of
\u200b\u200bmodern Volkhonka there was Kolymazhnaya Sloboda, where
various wagons were made, including carts - arbs. The hypothesis put
forward by the historian V.K. Trutovsky, according to which the name
Arbat comes from the Arabic word arbad, which is the plural of rabad -
“suburb”, “suburb”, which was probably brought to Moscow by merchants
from the East - the Crimean Tatars, has become widespread. or other
eastern merchants. This hypothesis is supported in their works by P. V.
Sytin, Yu. A. Fedosyuk, V. V. Sorokin, E. Ya.
There are other
versions of the origin of the toponym. Thus, the historian I. E. Zabelin
suggested that the word Arbat could be basically Russian-speaking and
come from the adjective of the short form humpback, reflecting the
features of the area.
Arbat Street runs from Arbat Gate Square to
Smolenskaya Square, lies between Prechistenka and Novy Arbat. The
numbering of houses is carried out from the Arbat Gate Square. The
length of the Arbat is 1.2 kilometers.
Arbatsky, Serebryany, Maly
Nikolopeskovskiy, Bolshoi Nikolopeskovskiy, Spasopeskovskiy and
Troilinsky lanes go out to the Arbat from the right; on the left -
Bolshoy Afanasevsky, Starokonyushenny, Kaloshin, Krivoarbatsky,
Plotnikov and Money Lane. Arbat Street runs from Arbat Gate Square to
Smolenskaya Square, lies between Prechistenka and Novy Arbat. The
numbering of houses is carried out from the Arbat Gate Square. The
length of the Arbat is 1.2 kilometers.
Arbatsky, Serebryany, Maly
Nikolopeskovskiy, Bolshoi Nikolopeskovskiy, Spasopeskovskiy and
Troilinsky lanes go out to the Arbat from the right; on the left -
Bolshoy Afanasyevsky, Starokonyushenny, Kaloshin, Krivoarbatsky,
Plotnikov and Money lanes. Its features of the area, which "depicting a
curved line, went into the city for 150 sazhens." Less common versions
connect the origin of the toponym with the Arabic word rabat (ribat) -
“caravanserai, hospitable house”, with the Russian word orba (plowing),
with the Latin arbutum (cherry), as well as with the word bat taken from
Africa, which, in combination with the formant -p- and the prefix a-
forms the meaning "big mountain without a river". There are also
hypotheses about the origin of the name of the street from the words
arbuy (“pagan”, “healer”) and ropaty (non-religious temple).
By
decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1658, the street was renamed
Smolenskaya, but this name did not take root and was fixed only for the
continuation of the Arbat, which had no previous name, towards the
modern Borodino Bridge.
Often the adjective "old" (Stary Arbat)
is added to the name of the street - in contrast to Novy Arbat Street,
laid in the 20th century.
At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, the area located behind the modern Arbat Gate Square was called "Vspolye", that is, it was an uninhabited space adjacent to the city suburbs. The approaches to them were protected by a moat that existed already in the second half of the 14th century. From here began the ancient Mozhaisk road, connecting Moscow with Mozhaisk and Smolensk.
The formation of urban development at the beginning of the
Mozhaisk road, apparently, began in the last years of the reign of Grand
Duke Ivan III, who undertook a large-scale restructuring of the city
with the participation of Italian masters. One of the results of this
reconstruction was the establishment on the outskirts of the city
suburbs, on the “vspolye”, palace settlements inhabited by artisans who
used open fire in their production. Behind the Arbat, on the Sivtsev
vrazhek, on the left side of the Mozhaisk road, blacksmiths, saddlers,
bridle makers and other artisans were settled, who provided for the
needs of the grand ducal stables and became the first inhabitants of the
Konyushennaya Sloboda.
Here is how the imperial ambassador
Sigismund Herberstein, who visited the Russian capital twice in the
first third of the 16th century, described the panorama of Moscow:
“The city itself is wooden and quite extensive, and from a distance it
seems even more extensive than it really is, because spacious gardens
and courtyards at each house make a big addition to the city; it
increases even more from the blacksmiths and other artisans who work
with fire, stretched out in a long row at the end of its houses,
besides, between these houses there are meadows and fields ... "
Initially, the name Arbatskaya (Orbatskaya, Bolshaya Arbatskaya) street
meant Vozdvizhenka: in 1547, "the temple of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross behind Neglinnaya on Arbatskaya Street on the Island caught fire."
Later it spread to the current Arbat.
The first mention of the
street in the place where Arbat Street lies today is contained in the
chronicle telling about the establishment of Ivan the Terrible's
oprichny inheritance in 1565, when the sovereign ordered:
“In the
settlement of the street, take the river from Moscow to the oprishna:
Chertolskaya street and from the Semchinsky village and to the backyard,
and Arbatskaya street on both sides and with Sivtsov Vrag and to
Dorogomilovsky street, and half the street to Nikitskaya street, driving
from the city on the left side and to help…”
Probably, the
foundation of the first streltsy settlement on the Arbat, which occupied
a vast space at the beginning of the right side of the street, dates
back to the same time. Its main parish church was the Church of St.
Nicholas the Wonderworker "The Manifested", rebuilt in stone in 1600 by
decree of Tsar Boris Godunov.
In its modern limits, Arbat Street
took shape at the end of the 16th century, having received its beginning
at the Arbat Gates of the White City, and its completion at the
Skorodoma (Wooden City) gates of the same name.
After the end of the Time of Troubles, under the new royal dynasty, the
Arbat remains the place of concentration of the palace and archery
settlements. The most extensive territory on the left side of the street
(the area of modern Gagarinsky, Starokonyushenny and Maly Vlasevsky
lanes) was occupied by Konyushennaya Sloboda, which by the middle of the
17th century was already referred to as Staraya Konyushennaya. Its
population consisted of heavy people of various professions, who were
under the jurisdiction of the Stable Department. At the beginning of the
street, two small palace settlements, Ikonnaya and Tsaritsyna, adjoined
Starokonyushenny Sloboda, and from the west (in the area of modern
Krivoarbatsky and Plotnikov lanes) - Plotnichya Sloboda, in which state
carpenters were originally settled, who took part in the restoration of
Moscow after its ruin by the Polish interventionists . The parish church
of the settlement was the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
(Life-Giving Trinity), in Plotniki, known since 1625. Behind the
Plotnichy Sloboda lay the land of the Streltsy Sloboda, founded near the
fortifications of Zemlyanoy Gorod in 1634. Her suburban temple was the
Church of the Life-Giving Trinity, known in 1642 as located in
Grigoriev's order of Onichkov.
The Streltsy Order of Grigory
Mikhailovich Onichkov (Anichkov), allegedly brought to Moscow from
Novgorod, was the last of the four Streltsy orders placed by that time
on the Arbat. The settlements of three other streltsy orders (from 1682
- regiments) stretched in an almost continuous strip along the right
side of Arbatskaya Street. The fate of the Arbat Streltsy regiments
turned out to be different. Two of them - Chubarov's Afanasyev regiment
and Cherny's Ivanov regiment - took part in the Streltsy rebellion of
1698 and, almost in full strength, laid down their heads during mass
executions. Two other regiments were withdrawn to serve in other cities
and later took part in the Northern War of 1700-1721. The settlements of
all Moscow archery regiments were liquidated by special royal decrees in
1699. Former streltsy lands were sold to persons of various ranks. The
memory of the archery past of the Arbat is preserved in the name of Maly
Kakovinsky lane, named after one of the archery commanders, and in the
names of Nikolopeskovsky lanes, which inherited their names from the
archery church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker "on the Sands",
dismantled in 1932.
An important milestone in the history of the
Arbat was the decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1658, according to
which Arbatskaya Street was renamed Smolenskaya. This name existed until
the 18th century, but it never took root among Muscovites, entrenched
only in the continuation of the Arbat to the Dorogomilovsky Bridge,
which had not had a name before.
During a fire in 1736, the Arbat burned out badly, after
which it was decided to expand it. Since that time, the Arbat has become
one of the most aristocratic streets in Moscow, where the most famous
Russian noble families settled - Tolstoy, Rostopchin, Gagarin,
Dolgoruky, Kropotkin, Sheremetev, Golitsyn, Trubetskoy. Small
Empire-style mansions and wooden houses surrounded by gardens were
built; there were almost no shops on the Arbat. During the
reconstruction of the Arbat after the fire of 1812, the building
acquired a special character: small one- and two-story mansions with a
mezzanine and a mezzanine, set with a gap on the red line of the street
and surrounded by small gardens and courtyards without services. In
1806, the construction of a wooden theater designed by K. Rossi began on
Arbatskaya Square. The memoirist S.P. Zhikharev wrote about this:
"This idea is good, because most of the noble families live on the Arbat
or near the Arbat"
At different times, A. S. Pushkin, N. V.
Gogol, L. N. Tolstoy, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the Aksakov brothers, A. P.
Chekhov, A. Blok, Andrey Bely (B . Bugaev). By the end of the 19th
century, the tribal aristocracy was increasingly replaced by the
raznochintsy intelligentsia, who settled on the Arbat, which began to
gradually acquire a look close to the modern one: the number of shops
increased, the construction of multi-storey apartment buildings began.
Hotels, shops and restaurants appeared near Smolenskaya and Arbatskaya
squares. The names of the owners of the best Arbat stores became known
throughout Russia: Filippov's buns, wines from Shustov's cellars,
Einem's sweets. The merchant Semyon Tararykin opened the Prague tavern
at the end of the 19th century, which after the revolution turned into
an exemplary dining room of Mosselprom and where Ippolit Matveyevich
Vorobyaninov from The Twelve Chairs took Lisa to dine.
From the
1880s, a horse-drawn tram began to run along the Arbat, and in 1908 an
electric tram was launched.
Gradually, the Arbat became the
street of the full-blooded life of Moscow. Vasily Polenov wrote his
"Moscow Yard" in Spasopeskovsky Lane, now there is a school 1231 in this
place, which bears his name. Sergei Yesenin read his new poem Pugachev
in the Arbat Literary Mansion. The Russian composer S. Rachmaninov lived
in Serebryany Lane, and A. Scriabin lived nearby. In the cafe "Arbat
basement" flashed the famous "yellow blouse" by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The
glory of Sergei Yutkevich and Sergei Eisenstein began with the Mastfor
theater studio on the Arbat.
The Society of Russian Doctors arose
on the Arbat, whose members organized a hospital known throughout Moscow
here. Doctors took "for advice" a small fee compared to the usual fees -
20 kopecks, or even treated for free.
In 1909, Alexander
Khanzhonkov opened the Khudozhestvenny cinema (then called the Artistic
Electro-Theatre) on Arbat Square, where in 1931 the premiere of the
first Soviet sound film, Ticket to Life, took place.
The
revolutionary events of 1917 could not but affect the Arbat. In the
premises of the Khudozhestvenny cinema in the October days of 1917, the
white cadets were enrolling in the White Guard; Red prisoners were also
kept there. And the Red Guards, in turn, hoisted a machine gun on the
highest Arbat house No. 51 and, according to the poet Andrei Bely, "one
Bolshevik house defeated the entire area", as a result, the cadets were
forced to retreat from the chosen cinema.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the image of the street
changed in the spirit of constructivist aesthetics. The silhouette of
the Arbat was smoothed out, many houses were built on and brought under
a single cornice. The architects, the Stenberg brothers, developed a
unified color scheme for buildings in ash-gray; a number of buildings
were demolished. New houses on the right side of the Arbat were built
indented from the red line to widen the street. And the once
aristocratic mansions and comfortable apartments of profitable houses
turned into cramped communal apartments, where the builders of the new
society, who flocked to Moscow from all over the country, were settled.
The war and the approach of the front line to Moscow could not but
affect the Arbat. As a result of one of the air raids, the theater was
completely destroyed. Vakhtangov; people died. And the inhabitants of
the Arbat who did not leave for evacuation and survived picked up the
bright colorful remains of theatrical scenery scattered along the street
and the surrounding alleys.
In the 1930s-1950s, the Arbat was a
state highway along which I. Stalin and his cortege drove to the
Kremlin, so the street was the object of close attention of the
NKVD-MGB. So, for example, in April 1944, a group of young people was
arrested, who were going to spend time in a room in a communal apartment
on the Arbat - this youth company included then students Valery Frid,
Julius Dunsky, Mark Kogan, the future wife of V. L. Ginzburg Nina
Ermakova - it was in her room on the Arbat that the youth gathered. They
were accused of preparing the murder of Stalin during the passage of the
cortege along the Arbat (although the window of the room did not look
out onto the Arbat itself, but into the alley). Many memoirs have been
written about this time (for example, by human rights activist Lyudmila
Alekseeva) and works of art, one of the most famous is the novel
“Children of the Arbat” by Anatoly Rybakov.
In 1952, a high-rise
building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was built on Smolenskaya
Square, which marked the exit of the Arbat to the Garden Ring.
Kalinin Avenue (now Novy Arbat), laid in the 1960s, took over part of
the Old Arbat transport, and the state highway moved there.
By
the 1980s, the population of the Arbat had become very diverse: old
Moscow intellectuals lived here, families of high-ranking party
officials settled in new elite houses, and some rooms in communal
apartments in old houses were given to "limiters" - that was the name of
people who came from different cities on heavy work in Moscow.
The project of turning the Arbat into a pedestrian
zone was developed and implemented in 1974-1986 by a team of architects
from the NIiPI General Plan of Moscow and Mosproekt-2 (architects M. V.
Posokhin, A. E. Gutnov, Z. V. Kharitonova, T. V. Malyavkina, O. A.
Baevsky, V. A. Filatov, engineers Yu. K. Bolbot, T. V. Chuveleva and
others). As Z. Kharitonova recalls, the architects “made a careful
analysis of the color scheme of the facades, because before that they
were simply painted with an even yellow color from a spray gun. We
worked with each house separately, found natural colors and shades, in
our collection there was no white color at all. The ground floors were
painted more intensely, the upper floors more relaxed, and the details
lighter. The whole street began to shimmer like mother-of-pearl. We used
Moscow expanded clay plaster, this is a unique technology, the secrets
of which were known only to old painters, we involved them in the work,
they worked with brushes that I bought myself.
A feasibility
study for the project was completed by 1978. The project was not limited
to just a ban on car traffic on the street, it also included work on the
improvement of the street, reconstruction and restoration of building
facades. In 1979 the project was approved. Practical work began in 1982.
The route of trolleybus 39, which had previously passed along the Arbat,
was changed - Bulat Okudzhava's song "The Last Trolleybus" is dedicated
to it. The Arbat was an ordinary Moscow street with two-way traffic;
people were moving along the narrow sidewalks. During the
reconstruction, traffic was completely blocked; in a few years the
street was dug up: the entire sewerage system and underground utilities
were replaced. The first stage of the reconstruction of the Arbat was
completed by 1985. “Tiles 10 centimeters thick were made at the factory
specifically for the Arbat,” recalls Zoya Kharitonova, architect and
author of the pedestrian Arbat project. “We leveled 25 thousand square
meters of such a stone with special rubber mallets. And all this was
laid without cement!
Finally, in 1986, the Arbat appeared in a
new guise: instead of asphalt, a cobbled surface, flowerpots in the
middle of the street and a number of benches for strollers to rest,
retro-style lanterns. The reconstruction of the Arbat caused mixed
reviews. After the reconstruction, the phrase "Arbat ofonarel" appeared,
attributed to Bulat Okudzhava.
On April 1, 1986, April Fool's Day
was celebrated on the Arbat. A few days before the event, the
construction of stages, stages, platforms for performances by artists,
fences and screens for puppeteers began. Real fair performances were
being prepared. In the middle of the day on April 1, the fun began. Very
soon, there were so many people that they had to urgently block the
street in order to avoid a crush. As a result, only residents of the
street and revelers who arrived ahead of time managed to take part in
the celebration. For most Muscovites, the entrance was closed. More such
events were not held on the Arbat, but amateur concerts continued.
In the late 80s, in the wake of Gorbachev's perestroika, numerous
souvenir shops appeared on the Arbat, the range of which was primarily
designed for foreigners. At the same time the street was chosen by
amateur artists and amateur musicians.
Following the example of
Moscow Street, pedestrian sections of streets in other cities of the
country were unofficially called "Arbats".
By now,
the street has become one of the popular places among foreign tourists.
Following the example of American Hollywood, in 1999, a Russian
“avenue of stars” was arranged on the Arbat. It was not difficult to get
into the Russian stars: it was necessary to call the specified phone
number, informing about the wish that had arisen, and pay for your own
"stardom". Subsequently, the road surface was replaced, and the campaign
with personalized tiles was curtailed.
If you start your walk from the Arbat Gate, you will
not be able to pass by the old Moscow restaurant “Prague”. The beautiful
building appeared at the end of the 17th century and was rebuilt many
times. In this restaurant, Anton Chekhov celebrated the premiere of the
play “The Seagull” with the Moscow Art Theater artists, and Leo Tolstoy
organized public readings of the novel “Resurrection.”
There are
many old apartment buildings preserved on Arbat. More than a century
ago, in house No. 9 there was a cafe where Mayakovsky, Blok and Yesenin
liked to visit. The facade of the neighboring building is decorated with
lion masks, which make it look like an Italian Renaissance building.
If you want to see an unusual monument of wooden architecture, turn
into Starokonyushenny Lane. The picturesque mansion of Porokhovshchikov
is distinguished by carved platbands and resembles a miniature
fairy-tale tower.
House No. 33 got its name in honor of the
Russian philosopher Alexei Losev. The wall near house No. 37 is well
known to fans of the work of singer Viktor Tsoi, and house No. 43 is a
gathering place for connoisseurs of the poems and songs of the poet-bard
Bulat Okudzhava.
Old Arbat is interesting as a living, constantly
changing space. The buildings and small alleys can be explored
endlessly, each time discovering new names and unknown pages of the
city's history.
The Alfa Arbat Center
shopping and office complex, which occupies half the block between the
Arbat, the Arbat Gate Square and Bolshoi and Maly Afanasievskiy lanes,
was built in 2000-2005 by order of Alfa Group and designed by architect
M. M. Posokhin. The eight-story complex, according to the historian of
architecture, Professor V. A. Rezvin, “monstrously falls out of scale
and literally crushed the modest Prague.” Art historian and researcher
architect S. V. Zagraevsky considers the construction of the center on
this site to be one of the most gross violations of the urban historical
environment. The chief architect of Moscow, A. V. Kuzmin, recognized the
construction of the building as an urban planning mistake. According to
a survey of a number of Moscow architects, conducted in early 2010 by
Forbes magazine, the Alfa Arbat Center shopping and office center took
second place in the list of "the ugliest modern buildings in the
capital."
Prior to the construction of the retail and office
complex, there was a historical building of the first half of the 19th
century that had town-planning significance on this site. Houses No. 5
and No. 7 along the Arbat that stood here were demolished in the second
half of the 1990s. By 2003, the houses that stood on Arbatskaya Square
were also demolished (No. 1/2, pp. 1, 1a, 3).
In the house number
5, which belonged to Tararykin, at the beginning of the 20th century
there was a private clinic for the doctor V.I. Kedrovsky, who himself
lived in this building. Confectionery Bibin and J. Burban also worked
here. In the early 1900s, the famous lawyer P.N. Malyantovich lived in
the house, and since the 1910s, the founder of Russian and Soviet karst
studies A.A. In the 1920s, the publishing house "Nash flag" worked in
the house. "All Moscow for 1923" indicates that the Arbat Jewish Prayer
House was located here. In the 1930s, the store of the Moskvoshvey trust
worked in the house. In the 1920s, 1950s-1970s, local historian I. M.
Kartavtsov lived here.
A little further along the Arbat was house
number 7, demolished in 1970. In 1863, Kashkadamova's "Library for
Reading" was opened in this house, and since November 1865 it was owned
by M. N. Turgeneva. It was one of the best private libraries in Moscow;
it contained books by authors banned or not cherished by the emperor:
Radishchev, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Ogaryov, Mikhailov, K. Marx, Fr.
Lassalle, Tkachev, Pryzhov and others - for this reason, in 1875 the
library was sealed by the police and ceased to exist. In 1906, this
house housed the Bureau of Trade Unions of Builders, Textile Workers,
Painters and Other Organized Proletarians, which was closed on August
15, 1906. In 1907 or 1908, the Grand Parisian cinema was opened in this
building, which Leo Tolstoy visited (Tolstoy did not like the cinema).
After the October Revolution, the Moscow Press House was opened here
and, with it, the Literary Mansion cafe, where “there was no end to the
performances of poets”; here in early August 1921, Sergei Yesenin read
his new poem "Pugachev". Right there, then, from 1920 to 1924. there was
a theater studio "Mastfor" (Workshop of N. M. Foregger), where S. M.
Eisenstein, S. I. Yutkevich, S. A. Gerasimov, T. Makarova, B. V. Barnet;
V. Z. Mass, O. M. Brik, M. I. Blanter, F. Knorre, and many others worked
there. The theater existed until 1924, when a special decree in the
country banned the activities of all plastic and rhythm-plastic studios.
In 1879, L. N. Tolstoy's niece Elizaveta Valeryanovna
Obolenskaya (January 23, 1852 - April 15, 1935) lived in one of the
buildings that stood on this site, with whom the writer stayed.
The three-story tenement house of Osip Stanislavovich
Burgardt-Gvozdetsky was erected in 1873-1874 according to the project of
the architect N. I. Gushchin, who rebuilt and combined two residential
buildings that previously existed on this site. In the 1870s, an
electrical engineer V. N. Chikolev lived in the house.
In
1897-1899, the house was rebuilt again - tripled in length. The facade
of the house is designed in the form of eclecticism and decorated with
small stucco decoration. In 1898, according to the project of the
architect I. A. Ivanov-Shitz, original showcases were created in the
building.
At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the editorial
office of the Cricket magazine was located in the building. Before the
revolution, D. I. Filippov’s bakery and the Central Store, which sold
hats, worked in the house. On the site of Filippov's bakery, the bread
shop continued to operate in Soviet times.
In the 1920s, the
building housed the Arbat Podval cafe, where V. V. Mayakovsky, S. A.
Yesenin and Isadora Duncan, A. Bely, A. Blok, B. Pasternak and others
visited. In 1994-1998, the house was built on the fourth floor by the
architect E. G. Rubtsov.
Currently, the house houses the National
Cultural Center of Ukraine in Moscow, the Ukrainian Book store, which
has been operating here since the 1950s, and the Ukrainian Sunday School
named after Pavel Popovich. The National Center of Ukraine published two
books dedicated to its activities and the history of the street "Ukraine
on the Arbat, 9" and "Flag of Ukraine on the Arbat". The building is a
valuable city-forming object.
The five-storey apartment building was built in 1909 according to the design of the architect N. A. Eikhenwald.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the property,
like the neighboring number 9, belonged to S. O. Burgard-Gvozdetsky. The
existing tenement house was built for the Moscow Private Pawnshop
Joint-Stock Company in 1911 according to the design of the architect N.
D. Strukov. The facade of the building is decorated with lion masks,
bearing the features of the Italian Renaissance. The original
three-story house was built on two floors in 1933.
During
construction, the house of the Moscow Private Pawnshop was the only
office building on the Arbat. The building housed the Arbat branch of
the Moscow private pawnshop, which issued loans secured by furs, jewelry
and other property, and the famous Baulin hairdresser's. In Soviet
times, the Pervina publishing house, the Notes and Stationery stores
were located here. For a long time, the house housed the Bookinist
store, which eventually turned into an antique store. The antiquarian M.
Klimov, who worked in this store, left his memoirs "Notes of an
Antiquarian Dealer". The house also houses the editorial office of the
Moscow Perspective newspaper published since 1957.
The four-story tenement house on the corner of Bolshoi
Afanasevsky Lane was built in 1885 according to the design of the
architect P.P. Zykov-son. Initially, the corner of the house at the
level of the second floor was decorated with a long balcony. In 1932,
the building was built up to five floors. The house was renovated in
2001.
In the house lived: in 1905-1909 - the artist A. V. Moravov
(1878-1951); later - opera singer, Honored Artist of the Republic E. K.
Pavlovskaya. In the 1910s, Apartment No. 1 housed the Moscow Society of
Factory Doctors. The building is classified as a valuable city-forming
object.
A. Khlebnikov's brokerage office was located in the
two-story house that stood here, in which, on January 23, 1831, A. S.
Pushkin processed documents for renting an apartment in the house of N.
N. Khitrovo (Arbat, No. 53). In 1906, on the second floor of the house,
which already belonged to the Moscow merchant S.Yu. According to a
correspondent of the Cine-Fono magazine, “the theater, rebuilt from a
residential building, was a staircase, on top of which the gallery’s
audience almost propped up the ceiling with their heads. The stuffiness
in the theater was unbearable, but the audience willingly sat out until
the end of the session and, despite external inconveniences in the form
of crampedness and heat, willingly visited this theater and gave it
preference over the rest of the theatre.
In 1910, instead of a
two-story house, the architect F. A. Kognovitsky built a multi-storey
apartment building for S. Yu. Bobovich, who owned it until 1917. In the
house there was a well-known bookstore P. D. Putilova "Moskovsky" and a
shoe store of the St. Petersburg association of mechanical production of
shoes "Skorokhod". The building is classified as a valuable city-forming
object.
The property at this place belonged to A. I. Fonvizin,
the father of the Decembrist M. A. Fonvizin and the brother of D. I.
Fonvizin, and their relatives Khlopov; then to the father of the writer
V. A. Sollogub.
In 1898, according to the project of the
architect A. O. Gunst, a four-story apartment building was built. Gunst
was a versatile talented person - he was engaged in architecture,
teaching, was fond of music and dramatic art. Together with E. B.
Vakhtangov, he founded the Studio of Dramatic Art, which later served as
the basis for the creation of the Vakhtangov Theater (house number 26).
There is also a legend in the family of A. O. Gunst’s descendants that
it was he who came up with the idea of adding a colonnade to the
building of the restaurant “Prague” (No. 2).
The artists K. K.
Pervukhin and K. F. Yuon, the biologist A. G. Bannikov lived here. In
1905, from this house to the opposite number 12, the street was blocked
off by a barricade. Before the revolution, Antipenkov's jewelry store
and Pavlov's children's toy store worked in the house; in the 1920s - a
bakery, one of the few shops that worked until 24 hours. In 1935, the
house was built on the fifth floor and brought under a single eaves with
a neighboring building. In 1947-1965, the writer and translator N. K.
Chukovsky lived here. The building is a valuable city-forming object.
A modern residential building was built in the back of
the property in 1994. The first floor is located on the red line of the
street, it houses various cafes and shops. Colonel General of the
Internal Service, Minister of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR (1989-1990)
V.P. Trushin lived in the house.
In the wooden house of the
merchant of the first guild, O. F. Bromley, which stood on this site, a
confectionery shop of the supplier of the court of His Imperial Majesty
“A. Sioux and Co., A. Pavlova's bookstore and the fashion store of the
Korolev and Fokin trading house. Here, at the end of the 19th century,
S. A. Epifanov lived - a writer, an acquaintance of A. P. Chekhov. In
Soviet times, one of the popular antique shops worked in the house.
Walking along Arbat is pleasant both in summer and in
cold weather. Restaurants, cafes, unusual shops and souvenir shops do
not stop working, so life in the old part of Moscow is in full swing at
any time of the year.
In winter, the street is cleared of snow
and decorated with New Year's garlands and decorations. On Arbat you can
meet Father Frost and Snow Maiden. In the warm season, the design
changes to summer. Tourists are greeted by clowns, photographers and
artists.
If you want to take spectacular photos of ancient
facades, come to the Prague restaurant, house No. 11 with lions, the
residential building of the architect Melnikov in Krivoarbatsky Lane, or
the Vakhtangov Theater. When entering the street from the Arbat Gate, it
is interesting to photograph the colorful Khudozhestvenny cinema. At the
opposite end, on Smolenskaya Square, it is worth capturing one of the
famous Moscow skyscrapers - the Foreign Ministry building.
If you
like to take selfies near monuments, take a route to the bronze figure
of Bulat Okudzhava, monuments to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,
Alexander Pushkin and Natalya Goncharova. There is a Museum of Optical
Illusions at 4 Nikolopeskovsky Lane. Photographers enjoy capturing
themselves and their loved ones against the backdrop of art
installations with a 3D effect. Entrance costs 450 rubles.