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Walking routes in Moscow

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      Borovitsky Hill and Ivanovskaya Hill

      ⏱ 1 h 15 min🚶 2.5 km🍽 0📍 4 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      From Red Square into the Kremlin to Cathedral Square, a descent along Varvarka past 17th-century churches and a steep climb to Ivanovsky Monastery. Hilly Moscow in an hour.

      🏛 History and architecture⏱ An hour or so
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Red Square
        The country's main square, paved with cobblestones, between the Kremlin, GUM, the State Historical Museum and St Basil's Cathedral.
        From here you can see how Borovitsky Hill drops away to the river
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Red Square
        © Юрий Д.К. · CC BY 4.0
        Red Square
        © Олег Токарев · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Red Square
        © Leokand · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The name "Red" ("beautiful") stuck to the square in the second half of the 17th century; before that it was called Torg ("the Market") and Pozhar ("the Burnt Place").
        • The square measures about 330 by 75 metres.
        • In 1990 Red Square, together with the Kremlin, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
        • The Lobnoye Mesto is mentioned from 1549; contrary to legend, executions were usually held not on it but next to it.
        • The Minin and Pozharsky monument by Ivan Martos was unveiled in 1818 and moved to St Basil's Cathedral in 1931.
        • GUM, formerly the Upper Trading Rows, was built in 1890–1893 to a design by Alexander Pomerantsev.
        • The present granite Lenin Mausoleum was built to a design by Alexey Shchusev in 1930.
        • On 7 November 1941 troops leaving the parade marched from here straight to the front.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Kremlin Cathedral Square
        🎟 ticket · entry to the Kremlin requires a ticket
        The Kremlin's main square, with white-stone cathedrals of the 15th–16th centuries and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower.
        Borovitsky Hill is the chief of the seven; buy tickets at kreml.ru in advance, the Kremlin is closed on Thursdays
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Kremlin Cathedral Square
        © szeke · CC BY-SA 2.0
        • In 1474 the almost finished Dormition Cathedral collapsed after an earthquake, and Ivan III invited Aristotele Fioravanti from Italy.
        • Fioravanti built the new Dormition Cathedral in four years; Russian princes and tsars were crowned here.
        • The Archangel Cathedral holds 46 tombs and 54 burials, almost all the Moscow princes and tsars up to Peter I.
        • The Ivan the Great Bell Tower was erected in 1505 to a design by the Italian Bon Fryazin on the site of the Church of St John Climacus.
        • The Dormition belfry holds the working Dormition Bell, weighing more than 65 tonnes.
        • The Palace of Facets, with a throne hall resting on a single pillar, was laid down in 1487 by the Italian master Marco Fryazin.
        • In 1812 the retreating French blew up the belfry by Ivan the Great; it was restored in 1814–1815.
        • In 1990 the Kremlin, together with Red Square, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🚶 Varvarka Street
        A short ancient street in Kitay-gorod with a string of churches, the Old English Court and the Romanov boyars' chambers on the slope down to the river.
        Pskovskaya Hill: the descent to Zaryadye past 17th-century churches
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Varvarka Street
        © Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Varvarka Street
        © Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Varvarka Street
        © Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The street is named after the Church of St Barbara; the present building was built in 1796–1804 by the architect Rodion Kazakov.
        • From 1933 to 1990 the street was called Razin Street; tradition says Stepan Razin was taken along it to his execution in 1671.
        • According to tradition, Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich was born in the Romanov boyars' chambers; a museum opened here in 1859, one of the first in Moscow.
        • Ivan the Terrible gave the 16th-century Old English Court to the English merchants of the Muscovy Company in 1556.
        • The street still has the churches of Maxim the Blessed and of George on Pskovskaya Hill, and the 17th-century Znamensky Monastery.
        • The south side of the street was occupied by the Rossiya Hotel until 2006; Zaryadye Park opened on its site in 2017.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Ivanovsky Convent on Ivanovskaya Gorka
        A convent behind high walls on a hillside, with a 19th-century cathedral and a quiet courtyard.
        Ivanovskaya Hill: steeply uphill along Zabelin Street, the best view is from the monastery gate
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Ivanovsky Convent on Ivanovskaya Gorka
        © Carbonkidka · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The convent was founded in the 15th century in Zamoskvorechye, and in the 1530s it was moved here, to Kulishki, and made a convent for women.
        • In the 17th century the wives of Tsar Vasily Shuisky and of Tsarevich Ivan were held here.
        • In 1812 the convent was plundered and burned, after which it was abolished.
        • The current Neo-Renaissance ensemble was built to a design by Mikhail Bykovsky and consecrated in 1879.
        • In the 1920s there was a concentration camp here, the "Ivanovsky Correctional House", which held up to 400 prisoners at once.

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