City Walk: Kitai Gorod

City Walk: Kitai Gorod

A good starting point for your tour is Nikolskaya ulitsa, which begins at the corner opposite the redbrick Historical Museum and runs along the north side of GUM. If you're coming from St. Basil's, walk alongside GUM toward the Historical Museum. If you're coming from outside of Red Square, get to Nikolskaya by way of Teatralnaya Ploshchad (Theater Square). If you're standing with your back to the Bolshoi on this square, walk straight ahead, cross the street, and enter one of the narrow passageways to the right or left of the Teatralnaya metro station (as you're facing it). Taking a right out of either passageway will bring you to Nikolskaya ulitsa. Go a short way farther to the right, to the cobblestone edge of Red Square, to begin your walk.

Nikolskaya ulitsa, which is named after the Kremlin's Nikolskaya Gate Tower, is one of the oldest streets in Moscow. At the corner with Red Square is the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan. Leaving it, take a left to make your way through the teeming crowds of shoppers on Nikolskaya ulitsa to No. 7, the Monastery of the Savior Behind the Icons, a former Slavonic-Greco-Latin Academy now undergoing a slow restoration. Farther down the street, also on the left-hand side, is a once brightly painted white-and-aqua building with an elaborate facade (No. 15). The building was erected between 1810-14 on the site of the 16th-century Pechatny Dvor (Printing Yard), where Russia's first printed book was assembled in 1553. Today the building houses the Moscow Institute of Historical Records and the Moscow Humanitarian University. Cross the street to go down Bogoyavlensky pereulok. Halfway down the block, opposite the entrance to the Ploshchad Revolutsii metro, is the Cathedral of the Epiphany. Continue down the street to where it intersects with ulitsa Ilinka. Before the 1917 revolution this was Moscow's Wall Street, and it's still lined with the impressive facades of former banks. On the left-hand corner stands the former Ryabushinsky Bank. Turn right onto ulitsa Ilinka and you'll see it leads directly to the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower. At No. 3 stands the Tserkov Svyatoi Ilii church from which the street takes its name. The church, which dates to 1520, is in disrepair except for its facade. Opposite the church is one of the border streets of the Merchants' Arcade. Turn left and walk the length of Khrustalny pereulok to reach one of the oldest streets in Moscow, Varvarka ulitsa. The opposite side of the street is lined with quaint old churches and buildings, but the first thing you'll likely notice is the gray bulk of the massive, concrete-and-glass Rossiya, one of Europe's largest and most unattractive hotels, which is scheduled to be knocked down in 2006.

At the farthest corner of the street, to your left, is St. Barbara's Church. Adjacent is the English Court. Next comes the white-stone Church of St. Maxim the Blessed. The pointed bell tower just before the semicircle sidewalk leading to the upper-level entrance of the Rossiya hotel was once attached to the redbrick Cathedral of the Sign on the other side of the sidewalk; with its foundation on the slope below, it's set back from the street. At No. 10 is the Romanov Palace Chambers in Zaryadye, believed to be the birthplace of Tsar Mikhail Romanov. Before leaving Varvarka ulitsa take note of the last church, the blue Church of St. George on Pskov Hill at No. 12. If you stand to the left of the church (on the walkway leading to the Rossiya hotel) you can glimpse a remnant of Kitai Gorod's 16th-century brick fortification wall. It's to your left, opposite the hotel's eastern facade. Cross to the other side of Varvarka ulitsa and walk a short hop past the final church. Make a right and climb up the narrow Ipatevsky pereulok, which leads to several government and administrative buildings. At the top of the incline to the right is one of Moscow's best-preserved 17th-century churches, the Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki.

Continue down the lane to the right of the church to reach Novaya Ploshchad, or New Square, which is more like a boulevard than a square. To your right, at the far bottom of the hill, Slavyanskaya Ploshchad opens up. At the bottom of the hill is the redbrick Church of All-Saints in Kulishki. From Novaya Ploshchad stroll for a long block or two past the government buildings, where the Central Committee of the Communist Party once sat. Now these buildings house the Duma of the Moscow Region. Soon you'll come to the beginning of a busy intersection. To your right, in the median strip that divides Novaya Ploshchad, is a park that holds the Plevna Memorial, an octagonal, towerlike monument commemorating the Russian soldiers who fell in the Battle of Plevna in the Russo-Turkish War (1878). Keep walking up the street on the left side to go to the Museum of the History of Moscow.

On the opposite side of the street is a museum of science and technology that takes up the entire block, the Polytechnical Museum. Directly north is yet another museum, Mayakovsky Museum, which includes a re-creation of the study of the great revolutionary poet. A short distance from here, Novaya Ploshchad intersects with the circular Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, where you can behold the Lubyanka Prison and the former KGB headquarters, which now house the FSB -- the New Russia's federal security service. On the west side of the square is Detsky Mir, a large department store that used to specialize in toys but now carries all sorts of items.

Walk past Lubyanskaya Ploshchad to the west side, down to where it converges with the broad street of Teatralny proyezd, Moscow's most elite shopping street. On a side street to your right stands the ornate and luxurious Savoy hotel (3 Rozhdestvenka ulitsa), which, like the nearby Metropol hotel, was built in connection with the celebrations in the early 20th century honoring 300 years of the Romanov dynasty. On the left-hand side of the street you will pass a statue of Ivan Fyodorov, the printer who produced Russia's first book at the old Printing Yard on Nikolskaya ulitsa. The arched gateway just to the right of the statue links Teatralny proyezd with Nikolskaya ulitsa, the street on which you started the tour. Teatralny proyezd leads into Teatralnaya Ploshchad, site of three of Moscow's most important theaters.

Taking up the block on the southeast corner, the first building you'll encounter to your left as you approach Teatralnaya Ploshchad is the Metropol, an art nouveau hotel. Reaching the square, you'll see at the center a large monument to Karl Marx, carved on the spot from a 200-ton block of granite and unveiled in 1961. Across the boulevard stands the Bolshoi Theater, flanked on the left, on the corner farthest away from you, by the Central Children's Theater, and, to the right, by the Maly Theater. Turn left at the corner of the Metropol, and walk by the park and the hotel's main entrance. The large redbrick wall ahead is the other surviving remnant of the 16th-century fortification wall that once surrounded Kitai Gorod. The wall has been heavily rebuilt, and a new tower has been added. Inside the tower are a couple of restaurants and bars. When you reach the Teatralnaya-Ploshchad Revolutsii metro station, take a moment to admire the exterior of the massive redbrick building on the corner -- the V. I. Lenin Museum. If you still have some time but not much energy, consider hopping on Trolleybus 2, which can be caught at the bus stop opposite the Bolshoi Theater. The trolley ride takes about 45 minutes and makes a loop passing by Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, Ploshchad Pobedi (Victory Square -- note the obelisk topped by an angel), the Borodino Battle Panorama (in a circular blue pavilion), Kievsky vokzal (train station), the Novy Arbat, and Alexander Garden, before returning to Teatralnaya Ploshchad. You can purchase a ticket for 15R from the driver. Try to have exact change. Make sure to punch the ticket on board the bus.

Timing

Taken at a leisurely pace, with stops at least to glance at the interiors of the many churches along the route, this walk should take about five hours. If you intend to take a quick look at the exhibits in the museums along the way, you'll need an entire day. Both the Polytechnical Museum and the Museum of the History of Moscow are worth coming back to for a longer look at their holdings.