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      All day: architecture from Art Nouveau to GES-2

      ⏱ 10 h🚶 7 km + 🚕🍽 3📍 12 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      Shekhtel, Melnikov, Narkomfin, Shukhov and Renzo Piano — 20th-century Moscow architecture in a day.

      🏛 History and architecture🎨 Art
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)
      1. 1
        🍽 Aist restaurant
        ул. Малая Бронная, 8/1
        ▮▮▮▮▯
        Breakfast on Malaya Bronnaya
        🍴 Arkady Novikov's restaurant by Patriarch's Ponds: an Italian menu, a bakery and brunches. What to order: oven-baked pizza, pasta with chanterelles, honey cake, Bird's Milk cake.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Shekhtel's Own Mansion
        Ермолаевский пер., 28
        The architect's own Art Nouveau house of 1896 with asymmetrical facades and tiles.
        Shekhtel's mansion
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Shekhtel's Own Mansion
        © Andreykor · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • Shekhtel built the house for his family in 1896 together with his assistant Vladimir Adamovich.
        • The architect joked in a letter to Nikolai Chekhov that cabbies took his "hut" for either a Lutheran church or a synagogue.
        • The mosaic above the entrance, made by Vladimir Frolov from Shekhtel's sketches, shows the owner's initials, the date of construction and irises.
        • Vrubel, Levitan, Sobinov and Savva Morozov visited Shekhtel here.
        • In 1910 the family moved to a more spacious mansion on Bolshaya Sadovaya.
        • Since the 1950s the mansion has been occupied by Uruguayan diplomats; the parquet, wood paneling and wrought-iron grilles survive inside.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Zinaida Morozova's Mansion
        ул. Спиридоновка, 17
        A Shekhtel mansion of 1893 in the Neo-Gothic style with turrets and pointed windows.
        Shekhtel's neo-Gothic
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Zinaida Morozova's Mansion
        © Vzorets · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Zinaida Morozova's Mansion
        © Shakko · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • Shekhtel was expelled from school for skipping classes, and for this commission he took his exams as an external student; formally Ivan Kuznetsov supervised the construction.
        • More than 600 drawings were made for the house, and the interiors were designed by the then little-known Mikhail Vrubel.
        • Savva Morozov hid the revolutionary Nikolai Bauman from the police here, and Bauman slept in the billiard room.
        • In the 1920s a collection of Mikhail Ryabushinsky was found in a hiding place behind a cabinet: paintings by Serov, Vrubel, Repin and a bust by Rodin.
        • Since 1938 it has been the Foreign Ministry's Reception House; in 1943 the Moscow Declaration of the USSR, USA and Great Britain was signed in the mansion.
        • A fire in August 1995 destroyed 70% of the decor, and the interiors were restored from Shekhtel's photographs and drawings.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🖼 Ryabushinsky Mansion (Gorky Museum)
        ул. Малая Никитская, 6/2
        🎟 ticket
        A Shekhtel mansion of 1900 with a wave-like staircase, stained glass and mosaics.
        A wave-like staircase — an Art Nouveau masterpiece
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Ryabushinsky Mansion (Gorky Museum)
        © Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Ryabushinsky Mansion (Gorky Museum)
        © Ted.ns · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • Shekhtel built the house in 1900–1903 for Stepan Ryabushinsky, whose icon collection was considered the largest in Russia.
        • In 1921–1925 an experimental psychoanalytic kindergarten operated here, attended by Stalin's son Vasily.
        • Maxim Gorky, who moved in here in 1931, called the mansion a "ridiculous house".
        • At meetings of Stalin and Gorky with writers here in October 1932, the term "socialist realism" was discussed and given meaning.
        • During restoration in the mid-1970s a bulky eavesdropping device was found in a wall.
        • The windows of the four floors look identical but get smaller toward the top, which makes the house look taller.
        • The basement kitchen was connected to the dining room by a lift so that dishes reached the table instantly.
        • Gorky's library in the mansion has 12,000 volumes.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 Narkomfin Building
        Новинский б-р, 25, корп. 1
        🎟 ticket · a residential building: inside only by guided tour with advance booking
        Moisei Ginzburg's Constructivist communal house on pilotis (stilts) with ribbon windows.
        1930 communal house; tour by appointment
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Narkomfin Building
        © Retired electrician · CC0
        • The building was built in 1928–1930 by Moisei Ginzburg, Ignaty Milinis and engineer Sergei Prokhorov; Ginzburg called it an "experimental house of a transitional type".
        • The People's Commissar of Finance Nikolai Milyutin built himself a two-level penthouse on the roof, in a volume intended for a ventilation chamber.
        • The colours of the flats were chosen by the Bauhaus professor Hinnerk Scheper; the brightest tone was applied to the ceilings.
        • Residents were offered meals in the canteen of the communal block and a mechanical laundry for their linen.
        • The building has three times been on the list of the "100 world buildings under threat of destruction"; in 2016–2020 it was restored by Ginzburg Architects.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🏛 Melnikov House
        Кривоарбатский пер., 10
        🎟 ticket · guided tours by appointment only, buy tickets in advance
        A house of two intersecting cylinders with hexagonal windows, built by Konstantin Melnikov for himself in 1927–1929.
        Melnikov's cylindrical house, a masterpiece of the avant-garde. The house and courtyard are closed for restoration, so view it from the outside from Krivoarbatsky Lane
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Melnikov House
        © Paulkuz · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Melnikov House
        © Trasprd · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Melnikov House
        © Shesmax · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • Architect Konstantin Melnikov built the house for himself and his family in 1927–1929, a rare private house in Soviet Moscow.
        • The house consists of two cylinders of equal diameter cutting into each other, forming a figure eight in plan.
        • Its signature feature is the hexagonal windows: the rear tower has 57 of them, and the only octagonal window is in the living room.
        • The Melnikov family moved in in November 1929; after his parents' deaths, the architect's son, the artist Viktor Melnikov, lived here for the rest of his life.
        • In 2014 the house became a federal monument and a branch of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        ☕️ Mu-Mu on the Arbat
        Карманицкий пер., 9 (БЦ «Арбат»)
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        Lunch
        🍴 An inexpensive Mu-Mu canteen on the 2nd floor of the Arbat business centre, two minutes from Smolenskaya. What to order: a cutlet with mashed potatoes, borscht or another homemade soup, blini.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        🏛 Pashkov House
        🎟 ticket · inside by guided tour only
        A snow-white Neoclassical manor of 1784–1786 with a belvedere; today the building belongs to the Russian State Library.
        Bazhenov's classicism
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Pashkov House
        © Юрий Д.К. · CC BY 4.0
        Pashkov House
        © Perituss · CC0
        • The client was Captain-Lieutenant Pyotr Pashkov, son of Peter I's orderly; Bazhenov is considered the author of the house, but there are no documents.
        • It was the first secular building in Moscow from whose windows people looked at the Kremlin not from below.
        • On Paul I's orders the statue of Minerva, a symbol of the victories of his mother's reign, was removed from the dome.
        • After the fire of 1812 the belvedere was rebuilt in 1815–1818, presumably by Osip Bove.
        • From 1861 the Rumyantsev Museum and its library, the future "Leninka", were housed here.
        • Repairs to the building took almost twenty years, from 1988 to 2007.
        • In Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", Woland, Azazello and Levi Matthew meet on the roof of Pashkov House.
      16. 🚶 on foot
      17. 9
        🖼 Shchusev Museum of Architecture
        ул. Воздвиженка, 5/25
        🎟 ticket
        An 18th-century Neoclassical Talyzin estate that holds drawings, models and fragments of Moscow's lost buildings.
        Museum of Architecture
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Shchusev Museum of Architecture
        © Kemal KOZBAEV · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The museum was founded in 1945 with Alexey Shchusev as its first director; it has borne his name since 1949.
        • The museum is considered the largest architecture museum in the world: its collection holds more than a million drawings, models and photographs.
        • Until the early 1990s the exhibition of Old Russian architecture was in the Donskoy Monastery.
        • In the mid-1960s the mansion became deformed when the Filyovskaya metro line was driven under Vozdvizhenka.
        • The museum archive holds the personal archives of Pyotr Baranovsky, Alexey Shchusev and Ivan Zholtovsky.
        • A branch of the museum is Konstantin Melnikov's round house, built in 1927–1929.
      18. 🚶 on foot
      19. 10
        ✨ GES-2 House of Culture
        Болотная наб., 15
        🎟 partly ticketed · the building is free with registration, exhibitions require a ticket
        A former power station across from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, rebuilt by Renzo Piano into an open house of culture with exhibitions and cafés.
        A power station rebuilt by Renzo Piano
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        GES-2 House of Culture
        © Юрий Д.К. · CC BY 4.0
        GES-2 House of Culture
        © Юрий Д.К. · CC BY 4.0
        • The power station was built in 1905–1907, designed by Vasily Bashkirov, to power the Moscow tram.
        • The reconstruction was carried out by the studio of Italian architect Renzo Piano, who also designed the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
        • The House of Culture opened in December 2021; it was created by Leonid Mikhelson's V–A–C Foundation.
        • Four steel chimneys about 70 metres tall serve as air intakes, bringing fresh air into the building.
        • At the opening, Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson spent months re-filming the series Santa Barbara here, live for visitors.
        • Inside there is a library, a cinema, a concert hall and open workshops.
      20. 🚕 taxi, about 10 min along Leninsky Prospekt to Shukhov Street
      21. 11
        🏛 Shukhov Tower
        ул. Шухова, 10
        A steel lattice tower made of six hyperboloid sections, an engineering landmark by Vladimir Shukhov. According to RTRS's plan, repairs begin in October 2026 and will take about three years: the tower will be taken apart piece by piece and reassembled, so there may be fencing around it.
        Shukhov's hyperboloid tower at sunset. Repairs planned by RTRS start in October 2026 and will take about three years — the tower may be fenced off
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Shukhov Tower
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Shukhov Tower
        © Arssenev · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The tower was built in 1919–1922 for a radio station that Lenin, by a decree of 30 July 1919, ordered to be set up "in an extremely urgent manner".
        • The first design was for 350 m, taller than the Eiffel Tower, but it was cut back because of a metal shortage; 240 tonnes of steel were allocated from military reserves.
        • During assembly a cable snapped and the fourth section fell from a height of 75 m, damaging the fifth and sixth.
        • Radio broadcasts from the tower began on 19 March 1922.
        • Shukhov built his first lattice tower in 1896 for the exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod; it survives at the Polibino estate.
        • Alexei Tolstoy's novel The Garin Death Ray (Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin) was inspired by the buzz around the tower's construction.
      22. 🚕 taxi, about 15 min to Manezhnaya Square
      23. 12
        🍽 Doctor Zhivago restaurant
        ул. Моховая, 15/1, гостиница «Националь»
        ▮▮▮▮▯
        Dinner by the Kremlin
        🍴 A modern Russian restaurant by Rappoport in the National hotel with a view of the Kremlin, open around the clock. What to order: pirozhki (small pies), pelmeni (dumplings), crayfish, and for dessert the Tsvetaeva pie.

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