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      All day: Moscow's monasteries

      ⏱ 10 h🚶 6 km + 🚇🚕🍽 3📍 9 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      Five ancient monasteries that once ringed the city as a defensive chain.

      🏛 History and architecture
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)
      1. 1
        🧺 Usachevsky Market
        ул. Усачёва, 26
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Breakfast at the market
        🍴 A market in Khamovniki with farmers' stalls and a food court on the second floor. What to order: shawarma with Kamchatka crab at Crab and Caviar, pinsa at Pinzeria by Bontempi, a sprat sandwich and a fruit liqueur at Pod Usami.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Novodevichy Convent
        A 16th–17th-century convent with crenellated walls, the Smolensk Cathedral and a tall bell tower, a UNESCO site.
        Novodevichy Convent
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Novodevichy Convent
        © Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Novodevichy Convent
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Novodevichy Convent
        © Anton Zelenov · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The convent was founded in 1524 by Vasily III in fulfilment of a vow made for the capture of Smolensk in 1514.
        • In 2004 the ensemble was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
        • The bell tower of 1690, in the Moscow Baroque style, is one of the tallest in Moscow, at about 72 m.
        • In 1689 Peter I imprisoned Tsarevna Sophia here; she was later tonsured under the name Susanna.
        • In 1812 the retreating French tried to blow up the convent; according to legend, the nuns put out the fuses.
        • The convent was returned to the Church in 2010; large-scale restoration went on for about ten years from 2014.
        • Beyond the wall lies Novodevichy Cemetery, where Chekhov, Gogol and Bulgakov are buried.
      4. 🚇 10 min on foot to Sportivnaya metro, red line to Park Kultury, Ring Line to Oktyabrskaya, orange line to Shabolovskaya, then 8 min on foot; about 35 min
      5. 3
        🏛 Donskoy Monastery
        A 16th-century monastery with a red wall, a large cathedral and an old cemetery with the gravestones of famous people.
        Donskoy Monastery
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Donskoy Monastery
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Donskoy Monastery
        © Виталий Семенов · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The monastery was founded in 1591 by Tsar Feodor Ioannovich on the site of Boris Godunov's army camp, to mark the repulse of a raid by the Crimean Khan Gazi II Giray.
        • The monastery took its name from the Don Icon of the Mother of God, attributed to Theophanes the Greek.
        • The Great Cathedral was built from 1684 to 1698.
        • From 1922 Patriarch Tikhon was held under arrest here; his relics were discovered in the Small Cathedral in 1992.
        • In 1934 the monastery was given to the Museum of Architecture, which brought here fragments of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and Sukharev Tower.
        • Pyotr Chaadayev, Vasily Klyuchevsky and Nikolai Zhukovsky are buried in the necropolis, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn was buried here in 2008.
        • In the 2000s the remains of Anton Denikin, Ivan Ilyin, Ivan Shmelev and Vladimir Kappel were moved here.
      6. 🚇 easier on foot, about 15 min; the nearest metro to the market is Tulskaya (grey line)
      7. 4
        🧺 Danilovsky Market
        Мытная ул., 74
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Lunch
        🍴 A market under a concrete dome shaped like a daisy: food stalls and a food court. What to order: pho bo from the Vietnamese stalls, pies at Lyubov Pirogova, chudu and cornelian cherry lemonade at the Dagestani shop, vareniki (dumplings) at Lepim i Varim.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 Danilov Monastery
        🚪 main entrance from Danilovsky Val
        A monastery behind white walls, with a gate bell tower and several churches from the 17th–19th centuries.
        Danilov Monastery — the Patriarch's residence
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Danilov Monastery
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Danilov Monastery
        © Tess Mattew · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The monastery was founded in the late 13th century by Moscow Prince Daniil Alexandrovich.
        • In 1930 the monastery's bells were bought by the American philanthropist Charles Crane and shipped to Harvard; they returned in 2008, and copies were cast for the university.
        • In 1983 the buildings of the former monastery were handed to the Church, and it became the spiritual and administrative centre of the Russian Orthodox Church.
        • Meetings of the Holy Synod are held in the Synodal Residence on the grounds.
        • Holy Trinity Cathedral was built in 1838, designed by Osip Bove.
        • Gogol, Khomyakov and Yazykov were buried in the monastery cemetery; after the monastery was closed the necropolis was destroyed, and some graves were moved to Novodevichy.
      10. 🚇 Tulskaya metro to Serpukhovskaya (grey line), change to Dobryninskaya, Ring Line to Taganskaya (2 stops), then about 15 min on foot; about 35 min in total
      11. 6
        🖼 Andronikov Monastery and the Rublev Museum
        🎟 partly ticketed · the monastery grounds are free, the museum exhibition requires a ticket
        A 14th-century monastery above the Yauza behind white walls, where, according to tradition, Andrei Rublev lived and was buried.
        Andronikov Monastery and Rublev icons
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Andronikov Monastery and the Rublev Museum
        © Mike1979 Russia · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Andronikov Monastery and the Rublev Museum
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        Andronikov Monastery and the Rublev Museum
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The monastery was founded in 1357 by Metropolitan Alexius and named after its first abbot, Andronik, a disciple of Sergius of Radonezh.
        • According to the saint's life, Alexius vowed to build a church when he was caught in a storm on the way to Constantinople.
        • The white-stone Cathedral of the Saviour of 1420–1427 is the oldest surviving church in Moscow.
        • Fragments of murals from about 1428 by Andrei Rublev, a monk of this monastery, survive in the cathedral.
        • In 1653 Archpriest Avvakum was held here under guard.
        • After the monastery was closed in 1918, one of the first Cheka concentration camps operated on its grounds until 1922.
        • The monastery's bell tower, the second tallest in Moscow after Ivan the Great, was demolished in 1929–1932.
        • The Rublev Museum was officially opened in 1960, for the 600th anniversary of the icon painter.
      12. 🚕 taxi, about 7 min, or about 25 min on foot
      13. 7
        🏛 Novospassky Monastery
        🚪 entrance from Krestyanskaya Square
        A monastery on a hill above the Moskva River with mighty walls, towers and a tall bell tower.
        Novospassky Monastery
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Novospassky Monastery
        © Святослав · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • Ivan III founded the monastery in 1490, moving here the brethren of the Kremlin's Saviour-on-the-Pine Monastery (Spas na Boru).
        • It was the Romanov family necropolis, and until the 18th century the monastery served as a burial place for the royal family.
        • From 1646 to 1649 the monastery's archimandrite was the future Patriarch Nikon.
        • Construction of the stone wall, about 650 m long and up to 7.5 m high, began in 1640.
        • In 1918 the monastery was closed and turned into a concentration camp, and in 1927–1930 its cemetery was destroyed.
        • In 1995 the remains of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, killed by Ivan Kalyayev in 1905, were brought here.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        🏛 Krutitskoye Compound (Krutitskoye Podvorye)
        A former residence of the metropolitans with passageways, chambers and a tile-clad Terem (Teremok).
        Krutitskoye Compound at sunset
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Krutitskoye Compound (Krutitskoye Podvorye)
        © Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Krutitskoye Compound (Krutitskoye Podvorye)
        © Ted.ns · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The name comes from "krutitsy", the steep left banks of the Moskva River below the mouth of the Yauza.
        • A monastery was founded here in 1262; later Krutitsy became the compound of the bishops of Sarai, whose see was in the Golden Horde.
        • In July 1612 the militia of Minin and Pozharsky swore an oath in the local Assumption Cathedral to liberate Moscow.
        • The tiled Krutitsy Teremok above the gate was built in the 1680s–1690s to a design by Osip Startsev.
        • In 1666 Archpriest Avvakum was held prisoner here.
        • Twenty-two-year-old Alexander Herzen spent seven months in the guardhouse of the Krutitsy barracks before his exile to Vyatka.
      16. 🚶 on foot
      17. 9
        🍸 City Space Bar
        Космодамианская наб., 52, стр. 6, 34 этаж
        ▮▮▮▮▯
        Dinner and a cocktail with a panorama on the 34th floor
        🍴 A panoramic cocktail bar on the 34th floor of the Swissôtel Krasnye Kholmy with a 360° view of the center and Moscow City. What to order: one of the signature cocktails, with more than 250 on the menu.

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