Insight Guides: Pocket Moscow by Guides Insight

Author:Guides, Insight [Guides, Insight]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: APA
Published: 2016-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

South of the River

The area south of the river is called Zamoskvoreche – ‘Beyond the Moscow River’. This low-lying area was flood-prone and still not incorporated in the city proper in the 19th century when the cheap land was purchased for factories. Industrialists built a great number of churches that still grace the narrow streets. Today there are two main areas of interest to visitors.

Monument to Peter the Great on the Moskva River

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Bog Island

To halt the constant flooding, in 1783 a Drainage Canal (Vodootvodny Kanal) was cut, forming a long island between the canal and the Moscow River. Bog Island (Болотный остров, Bolotny Ostrov) had a main square, Bog Square beside which is the House on the Embankment (Дом на Набережной, Dom na Naberezhnoy) commissioned in the late 1920s for high Communist Party officials. More than 100 ministers and 150 deputy ministers lived here, including Khrushchev and Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva. During the Stalinist purges over 700 officials and their families were arrested, executed or exiled from the house. A sculptural group, ‘Children Are the Victims of Adults’ Vices’ , by Mikhail Shemyakin, can be seen here.

At the tip of the island, accessible by bridges from the Christ the Saviour Church and the Krymskaya naberezhnaya, stands Zurab Tsereteli’s most controversial statue: the enormous monument to the 300th Anniversary of the Russian Navy , with Peter the Great towering on three ships over the narrow stretch of river. The former Red October Chocolate Factory adjacent to it is now home to several galleries of contemporary art and photography, avant-garde shops, cafés and bars.

The Wanderers

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