Fili: the aircraft plant, Gorbushka and the N-209 crew

⏱ 1 h🚶 2.4 km🍽 0📍 3 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

A short walk between Bagrationovskaya and Fili: a Constructivist culture house, a small square by the gate of the plant that built aircraft and now builds rockets, and a Baroque Church of the Intercession.

🏛 History and architecture🏘 Off the centre⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🏛 Gorbunov House of Culture
Новозаводская ул., 27
A Constructivist palace of culture of an aircraft plant, the legendary "Gorbushka" of late-1980s rock concerts.
10 minutes north of Bagrationovskaya, toward Novozavodskaya Street. Inside only for concerts and exhibitions; you can see the facades from the street.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© A.Savin · CC BY-SA 3.0
© Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Built in 1929-1938 to a design by Yakov Kornfeld for aircraft plant No. 22.
- Since 1933 it has borne the name of the plant's director Sergei Gorbunov.
- From 1986 to 1990 the Moscow Rock Laboratory worked here.
- A scene from the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" was shot in one of the halls.
🚶 on foot
2
🏛 N-209 Crew Monument at the Khrunichev Plant
Новозаводская ул., у проходной завода имени Хруничева
A square with memorial markers at the plant's gatehouse: to Levanevsky's crew, who vanished over the Arctic in 1937, and a bust of Mikhail Khrunichev.
Five minutes further along Novozavodskaya, the square by the plant gate. Look for the bust of Khrunichev and the stele to the plant's Komsomol members.
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- On 12 August 1937 the DB-A aircraft numbered N-209 took off for America over the North Pole with six people aboard.
- Contact was lost on 13 August after passing the Pole; the crew's fate is still unknown.
- The second pilot, Nikolai Kastanaev, was a test pilot of this very plant No. 22.
- The plant was founded in 1916 as Russo-Balt, in 1923-1927 it was a Junkers concession, and today it makes Proton and Angara rockets.
🚶 on foot
3
🏛 Church of the Intercession at Fili
A red-and-white tiered church of the 1690s built by Lev Naryshkin; inside is a carved, gilded iconostasis.
Southeast along Novozavodskaya, 12 minutes. The red-and-white tiered Naryshkin church is visible from afar; inside is a carved iconostasis.
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© Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The present church was built in 1690–1694 on the site of a wooden church of 1619.
- No documents about the author survive: the church is attributed either to Yakov Bukhvostov or to Pyotr Potapov.
- The upper church of the Saviour Not Made by Hands is named in thanks for Lev Naryshkin's rescue during the Streltsy rebellion.
- The carved decor and the iconostasis were made by Karp Zolotaryov, a master of the Ambassadorial Office.
- In 1812 Napoleon's soldiers set up a stable in the lower church and a tailor's workshop in the upper one.
- In July 1941 the domes and the upper octagon were removed so the church would not serve as a landmark for German spotters.
- In 1980, for the Olympics, a branch of the Andrei Rublev Museum opened here; in 2019 the church was fully handed over to the Church.

↩️ Getting back: 5 minutes from the church to Fili metro