Botanical Garden and Ostankino: oaks, ducks, a playground

⏱ 3 h 30 min🚶 1.3 km + 🚕🍽 1📍 4 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

A quiet walk in the north: a daytime nap under the oaks of the Botanical Garden, ducks on Ostankino Pond, a kids' town and lunch at a café with a play area.

👶 With kids🌳 Parks and nature

👶 under 3, 3–6 years · ✓ stroller-friendly

Come to MCC Vladykino — it has lifts (Vladykino and VDNKh metro have none). It's 3 km between the garden and Ostankino — take a taxi or bus. The main paths are asphalt.

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)

1
🌳 Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden, main entrance at Vladykino
Ботаническая ул., 4
🎟 partly ticketed · the grounds are free, the greenhouse and the Japanese Garden require a ticket
The entrance to one of Europe's largest botanical gardens — more than 300 hectares with an arboretum, a greenhouse and ponds.
Entry to the main paths and the oak grove is free. Turn off the main path into the oak grove — the best place for a stroller nap: no cars, no music. The Japanese Garden and the greenhouse are paid and awkward for strollers, so skip them.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© AlixSaz · CC BY-SA 4.0
© AlixSaz · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The garden was founded on 14 April 1945 for the 220th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences; its first director was the breeder Nikolay Tsitsin.
- The garden's living collections include more than 16,000 species, forms and varieties of plants.
- The arboretum covers 75 hectares: plants of one genus are planted in it as a single stand.
- The Japanese Garden was created by the master Ken Nakajima; negotiations about it began in 1978, and in May the cherry blossoms here for about a week.
- The core of the tropical plant collection of the Collection Greenhouse was brought in 1947 from the Sanssouci greenhouse in Potsdam.
- The garden preserves fragments of the Ostankino oak grove and Leonovo forest, mentioned in chronicles as early as 1584.
- In 2014 the garden was merged with VDNKh and Ostankino Park, and the dividing fence was removed.
🚕 taxi, about 10 min to Ostankino Pond
2
🏛 Ostankino Estate and Ostankino Pond
🚪 entrance from Botanicheskaya Street
🎟 partly ticketed · the park and pond are free, the open palace pavilions require a ticket
The Sheremetevs' wooden palace of the late 18th century with a theatre hall (currently under restoration, visible from the outside; the Egyptian and Italian pavilions are open) and the five-domed Trinity Church by Ostankino Pond.
The palace is under restoration but the pond is open: ducks by the shore opposite the Trinity Church. Walk around the pond on the asphalt path from the park side.
🚪 exit to 1st Ostankinskaya Street
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Vtorou · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Usadboved · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Construction of the palace-theatre began in 1792 to designs by Francesco Camporesi, Ivan Starov and Vincenzo Brenna; the theatre opened in July 1795.
- It is the only late 18th-century theatre building in Russia that has kept its stage, auditorium, dressing rooms and machinery.
- The serf actress Praskovya Zhemchugova, who became the wife of Count Nikolai Sheremetev, performed on the stage here.
- Trinity Church was built in 1678–1683 by the serf architect Pavel Potekhin; inside is a nine-tier carved iconostasis.
- The estate was visited by the Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski, Paul I and Alexander I.
- In 1938–1982 the museum was called the Museum of Serf Art.
🚶 on foot
3
✨ Children's Playground in Ostankino Park
1-я Останкинская ул., Останкинский парк (у Останкинского пруда)
Several playgrounds under old trees next to the pond and the Ostankino estate.
Several playgrounds next to each other on 1st Ostankinskaya: low slides and sandboxes. The nearest toilet is 1st Ostankinskaya, 1B, but it has no changing table — change the baby in the café.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
- The grove that the park grew from was planted around 1584 under the clerk Vasily Shchelkalov, owner of the village of Ostashkino.
- From 1743 to 1917 Ostankino belonged to the Sheremetevs; the park, with its formal and landscape parts, took shape by the turn of the 18th–19th centuries.
- A park of culture and leisure opened here in 1932 under the name of Dzerzhinsky; it became Ostankino Park in 1991.
- After the 2014 reconstruction the park was combined with VDNKh and the Botanical Garden into a 540 ha recreation area.
- In September 2024 a monument to Gavriil Derzhavin was unveiled at the entrance from 1st Ostankinskaya Street.
🚶 on foot
4
🍽 Syrovarnya at Sun of Moscow (The Cheese Dairy) · 🧸 play area
2-я Останкинская ул., 3 (МФК «Солнце Москвы»)
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Lunch at Syrovarnya in Solntse Moskvy: a kids' room, high chairs, and the baby's food will be warmed up. Go into the mall by lift, and you can leave the stroller by the table.
🍴 Arkady Novikov's restaurant at the foot of the Ferris wheel: the cheeses are made right here, and there is a kids' room. What to order: wood-fired pizza, crispy focaccia, syrniki (fried curd pancakes), and cake for dessert.