ARBAT

Description

Essentials about the Arbat in brief

The Arbat is the most famous and charming promenade in Moscow. Since the 1980s, the Arbat has been a pedestrian zone, which, with its countless souvenir stands full of matryoshka variations and other typically Russian souvenirs, may seem rather touristy, but its incomparable historical flair also makes it one of the most popular shopping and walking routes for Muscovites themselves.

The location of the Arbat

The street begins at Arbatskaya Square in the center of Moscow and stretches for about a kilometer in a southwesterly direction to Smolenskaya Square. Together with the surrounding neighborhoods, the Arbat forms the district of the same name. The area around the Arbat has always been one of Moscow’s preferred residential areas and an important tourist attraction due to the large number of historical buildings and famous artists who have lived and worked here.

The Arbat as a shopping and strolling mile

There is always something going on on the Arbat: In addition to the aforementioned souvenir stands, dozens of painters and street musicians provide a varied entertainment program, especially on sunnier days. Moreover, the Arbat is one of the main shopping streets of Moscow. And if you get hungry from all the shopping and entertainment, you will find countless small cafes and restaurants here.

However, the Arbat is not just a shopping and strolling mile, but one of the oldest preserved and therefore also one of the historically most important streets of Moscow. Since the Arbat has a very eventful and eventful history behind it and almost every house breathes history, a somewhat longer history lesson is appropriate at this point (whoever wants can of course skip it).

The history of the Arbat

The origins of the Arbat

It is not known exactly when the Arbat was built. The only known fact is that the first documentary mention of the Arbat dates back to 1493. On July 28 of the same year, a fire broke out in a nearby church building and quickly spread throughout Moscow, devastating large parts of the city, which at that time was built primarily of wood.

The original meaning of the name Arbat is not known, there are several hypotheses. The most widespread version says that the name comes from the Arabic word “arbad”, which means “suburb” or “outskirts”. The reason for this is that before the 16th century the street and the surrounding neighborhoods were in fact part of the Moscow suburb, while the actual city was considered to be the Kremlin.

The Arbat in the 15th and 16th centuries

As early as in the 15th century, the Arbat was part of a road connecting Moscow with the western part of Moscovia and with parts of the European foreign countries. The convenient location in terms of transport resulted in the settlement of numerous craftsmen and merchants. These times are still remembered by the names of several alleys adjacent to the Arbat, including today’s Plotnikov Alley (Carpenter’s Alley) or Serebryany Alley (Silver Alley).

During the reign of Ivan the Terrible the Arbat acquired a less praiseworthy significance. A palace was built near it, which served as the headquarters of the tsar’s notorious bodyguard and from which mass executions and tortures of suspected high traitors were commanded. After the death of Ivan the Terrible, the importance of the Arbat as a traffic and trade route increased again at the end of the 16th century, and craftsmen and merchants resettled.

The Arbat in the 18th and early 19th century

As Moscow expanded, the Arbat became part of the city center in the 18th century and for this reason increasingly a noble residential area. After about half of the street burned down in 1736, by the second half of the century it was already heavily dominated by the ostentatious residences of aristocrats and high civil servants.

In 1812, in the course of the fierce battle for Moscow between French and Russian troops, the Arbat once again fell victim to the flames, which destroyed large parts of the then still predominantly wooden city and also left a trail of devastation on the Arbat. With the lively reconstruction of Moscow in the 1810s, however, the cityscape of the Arbat, which still exists today, soon began to gradually take shape.

While in the early 19th century the area was dominated by Empire houses (some of which are still standing today), towards the end of the same century the Art Nouveau style became increasingly popular and was often used in the construction of noble tenement houses. There are still about a dozen of such tenement houses on the Arbat, some of them six or seven stories high, which was unusual for Moscow at that time, and equipped with modern technology for their time. All of them were thoroughly renovated at the end of the 20th or beginning of the 21st century and today house distinguished condominiums or office space.

The Arbat in the late 19th century

At the same time, the second half of the 19th century saw a transformation of Arbat from a purely posh district to a popular residential area for artists. The main reason for this change was that the richer aristocrats preferred the new pompous neighborhoods around the Kremlin and Tverskaya Street to the more rural-looking Arbat. The residents who stayed behind belonged mainly to the middle and lesser nobility and were often poets, intellectuals, musicians or actors who played a significant role in shaping the intellectual life of Russia at that time. Thus, around the turn of the century, the Arbat was transformed into a district dominated by the upper, mostly educated middle class.

The Arbat in the early 20th century

In the first two decades of the 20th century, many apartment buildings were built on the Arbat that were particularly high and comfortably furnished for the time, some of which still characterize the streetscape today. At that time, they were mainly inhabited by wealthy academics and artists. In terms of transportation, the Arbat was also increasingly developed in the first half of the century: in 1904, an electric streetcar ran on the Arbat for the first time; three decades later, it was replaced by a trolley bus line. In 1935, one of Moscow’s first metro stations was also built on Arbatskaya Square. The fact that the Arbat continued to be part of the Moscow-Smolensk transport route favored trade and made it a busy shopping street with a large number of well-known stores. In addition, a few hundred meters to the west of it, the Kyiv Railroad Station was built in 1899, which further increased the influx of merchants from Ukraine and Southeastern Europe to Moscow via the Arbat.

Although after the October Revolution of 1917 all the homeowners on the Arbat, as elsewhere in Russia, were expropriated by the new Bolshevik rulers and their houses nationalized, the street did not lose its reputation as an artists’ quarter for a long time. However, such a development gradually began in the 1920s, when housing in Moscow became extremely scarce due to the mass rural exodus of those years, and the former tenement apartments were turned into so-called “Kommunalkas,” communal apartments occupied by several families each. Increasingly, however, the district also served as a residential area for high-ranking functionaries of the Communist Party. This is still the reason for the large number of unadorned apartment buildings in the side streets of the Arbat, to which some historically valuable buildings had to make way.

The Arbat in the late 20th century

In the early 1980s, the formerly busy Arbat was completely closed to car traffic and converted into a pedestrian zone, which was a first in the Soviet Union at the time. The reconstruction of the street, which also included the renovation of many historic buildings, was completed in 1986. Since that time, Arbat has been Moscow’s popular promenade, whose flair, in addition to the historical architects, is mainly due to the street artists, souvenir stands, restaurants, cafes and bars.

Buildings worth seeing on the Arbat

If you walk along Arbat from Arbatskaya Square, you should take a look at the following buildings:

House No. 2 – Restaurant Praga

In house No. 2 there is a three-storey building of the Praga restaurant. To this day, this restaurant is one of Moscow’s most prominent eateries. However, contrary to what the name suggests, it is not a Czech specialty restaurant.

House No. 23

A particularly fine example of early Art Nouveau construction on the Arbat is House No. 23. The five-story building was erected in 1902-03 and impresses with its wonderful sculptural ornamentation on the main facade and eye-catching decorative balcony lattices.

House No. 25

House No. 25 is also worth a look. It was built at the beginning of the 19th century and for a long time served as the seat of the Society of Russian Doctors. Very striking is also the wooden cottage standing immediately to the right of the house No. 25. It is one of the few wooden cottages typical for the country, which have been preserved within the Moscow city limits.

House No. 26 – The Vakhtangov Theatre

House No. 26 houses the only playhouse on the Arbat – the Vakhtangov Theater. Despite its relatively young age, the theater is known nationwide in Russia. The current theater building dates back to the late 1940s. It was rebuilt after the old building was destroyed in 1941 during German air raids in World War II. For Moscow’s 850th anniversary in 1997, the so-called Turandot Fountain was erected in front of the building – a tribute to the legendary success of one of the playhouse’s first performances, the play Princess Turandot.

House No. 35

Also worth seeing is the large seven-story building directly opposite the Vakhtangov Theater (House No. 35), which after its completion in 1912 was for a long time one of the most elite residential quarters in all of Moscow. It was built as an apartment building for a particularly wealthy clientele and was luxuriously furnished for the time, with wide, marble staircases, spacious elevators, and spacious apartments with five to eight rooms each. From the outside, the house was meant to resemble a medieval castle. With numerous bay windows and corner towers, as well as massive sculptural ornaments with stylized knight figures on the facade, its style resembles the neo-Gothic style not otherwise represented on the Arbat. Today, the building houses mainly offices.

House No. 37

The yellow-painted house No. 37, only two stories high, is the only building on the Arbat that dates back to the 18th century in a largely unchanged form and was built in the Empire style common at the time. Destroyed in the Great Fire of 1812 and later rebuilt, the house has belonged to the Russian military since the 1840s. At present it is the seat of the Moscow Military Court.

The Zoi Wall

The approximately four-meter-high wall that demarcates the property of the house from the side of Krivobatsky Street has recently underscored the importance of the Arbat as a trendy neighborhood. Since 1991, it has traditionally been a meeting place for rock fans who come here to commemorate Viktor Zoi, the musician and founder of the Russian cult band Kino who died in an accident in 1990. Especially on the days of the rock idol’s death, meetings of his fans are held here. His songs are often played and the wall is painted with pictures and quotations of Zoi as well as declarations of love for him and his life’s work.

The Melnikov House

Also worth mentioning is the striking Melnikov House, which has continuously attracted tourists and onlookers since its construction. Located at 10 Krivobatsky Street, diagonally behind Arbat House No. 37, it was built by Konstantin Melnikov, who was one of the most famous architects of the Russian avant-garde in the first half of the 20th century. Completed in 1929, the house is still one of the most striking buildings in the center of Moscow due to its bizarre shapes – it consists of two cylindrical towers with numerous raised hexagonal window openings.

House No. 51

House No. 51 commemorates another author whose life and work is closely connected with the Arbat: Soviet writer and regime critic Anatoly Rybakov, who later emigrated to the USA, lived here for many years. The building was constructed in 1903 and originally served as an apartment building. With eight floors, it was one of the tallest residential buildings in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

House No. 52 – The Pushkin Museum

The rather plain two-story cottage with No. 52 is the destination on the Arbat targeted by most tourists. It was the residence of the poet Alexander Pushkin for several months in 1831, who spent his honeymoon here with his wife after their wedding. In 1974, the Moscow City Administration placed it under monument protection and decided to establish a Pushkin Memorial House there, open to the public. The museum was opened on January 18, 1986, on the 155th anniversary of the poet’s wedding.

Smolenskaya Square

The massive architectural end of the Arbat to Smolenskaya Square is the building of the Russian Foreign Ministry with its side wings. The 172-meter-high skyscraper, built in the confectioner’s style, is part of the ensemble of the so-called Stalin’s Seven Sisters and was built between 1948 and 1953. Due to its towering height, the building is probably the most unusual component of today’s Arbat streetscape.