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ZAMOSKVORECHYE
"Moscow's Rediscovered Backyard"

If Moscow was a house, then Zamoskvorechye, or Zarechye as it used to be called, would be its forgotten storage room. While people where busily improving - or thought they were improving - other parts of the city, this corner has somehow escaped their progressive zeal. Ten years ago it was a neighbourhood of 2-3 story building in various degrees of degeneration, tiny factories, criminal hideouts, dirty bars, whinos and beggars.   Those who visted Moscow in the 80's still hesitate going there.Then it was discovered that this storage room had a window, and that some of what was thought to be junk was antique. Thanks to decades of neglect, Zamoskvorechye now re-emerges as perhaps the most genuice piece of Old Moscow.

A photo taken on a rainy February day. We are on the Moskvoretsky Bridge that connects Zamoskvorechye with main part of the city. Middle of the bridge, looking North.

"Za" means "behind", "reka" is "river". Zarechae, thus means "the other side of the river". To spare English readers I will use the older and simpler name Zarechye, rather than modern Zamoskvorechye - "benind the Moskva river".

 

Now we are still in the middle of the Moskvoretsky Bridge. Looking towards Zamoskvorechye we see the power station on our left, the Balchug hotel (middle), and turning right I may be wrong by I think it is the Culturology Institute. The crane on the left of what we'll for now assume is the Culturology Institute towers over Czar's Gardens office building.

The Moskva river forms a loop around Zarechye. The Kremlin, as a fortress, was naturlly put up on the higher bank, on the outside of the loop. Zarechye, however, is in the center of concentric circles that form the city. It is also the lowest part of Moscow territory. Lazy cyclists touring the city at random would eventually aggregage by the Balchug Hotel or in the small playground in front of the building where I live. That's Zarechye's claim to being the center of Moscow on the basis of Newtonian physics.

Welcome to this district of two lane streets, parkettes, quiet museums, basement bookstores, and smoke-filled taverns where Russian men hang out after work.

Zarechye is also where I live. This is why I started constructing my Virtual Tour of Moscow from here.......

See Zamoskvorechye Walk on a Rainy Mid-February Day

RELATED RESOURCES

Walks with Alexei Komech Dr. Komech, director of the Art Studies Institute and member of the advisory board to Architect-General of Moscow, talks of Zamoskvorechye district. This excellent text in "academic light" style is presently available in Russian, but I will be delighted to translate it should I sense some interest on the part of prospective travellers to Moscow.

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Posted Feb. 3, 2002 ~ Last update Feb. 3, 2002