New Arbat Street

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The varied architecture of New Arbat Street (north side). "Old" buildings were built in 1996, using fragments of 1900s facades; the highrise is dated 1960s
The varied architecture of New Arbat Street (north side). "Old" buildings were built in 1996, using fragments of 1900s facades; the highrise is dated 1960s

New Arbat Street (Russian: Но́вый Арба́т) is Moscow's major avenue running west from Arbat Square on the Boulevard Ring to Novoarbatsky Bridge over the Moskva River. The new 6-lane Kalinin Avenue (проспект Калинина), lined with grey book-like highrise buildings, was literally cut through the old streets of present-day Arbat District in 1962-1968. It assumed its present name in 1990.

[edit] Boulevards to Garden Ring

A modern avenue running parallel to the picturesque Arbat Street was planned by the 1935 Stalin's Master Plan, but the project was delayed by World War II until late 1950s; its first stage, Novoarbatsky Bridge, was completed in 1957; in 1957-1963, the city redeveloped the lands on the opposite (western) river bank, creating the beginning of Kutuzovsky Prospekt, and completed the main part of New Arbat by 1968.

South side of the avenue (excluding the historical buildings of Praga restaurant and Grauerman Nursery near Arbat Square) contains four V-shaped, 26-storey office blocks based on a common 2 storey slab with restaurants, retail shops and two underground levels for storage and delivery trucks. Despite the government's public statements against gambling, more than half of this space is now occupied by casinos.

Opposite, northern side, has five narrow 26-storey apartment towers. Uncle Vova, lead character of Kin-dza-dza!, lived in one of these towers, and was thrown into outer space on his way to the nearby bakery, one of Moscow's largest, which was built as a part of the same project. The spaces between five towers is occupied by (west to east)

  • Oktyabr cinema
  • A row of "old" office buildings, actually built in 1996 using fragments of historical structures
  • A row of genuine 1900s buildings, although heavily rebuilt
  • Moscow House of Books, the city's largest bookstore. Mikhail Lermontov's memorial house stands right behind it - one of few surviving single-story wooden houses built after the Fire of Moscow (1812).

[edit] Beyond Garden Ring

The short stretch to Novoarbatsky Bridge is lined with stalinist apartment buildings; a five-story postconstructivist block on the south side was recently torn down for luxuru apartment buildings.

[edit] References

  • Russian: Александров, Ю.А., "Силуэты Москвы", М, 1978, стр.135-141