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      Khamovniki: Tolstoy and Novodevichy

      ⏱ 4 h 30 min🚶 4 km🍽 1📍 5 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      The house where Tolstoy wrote "Resurrection", a market with good food and a UNESCO-listed convent by a pond.

      🍽 Food tour🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Church of St Nicholas in Khamovniki
        A five-domed 17th-century church painted in green, red and white, with a tall tent-roofed bell tower.
        A showy church like an Easter egg
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Church of St Nicholas in Khamovniki
        © Matyuschenko · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Church of St Nicholas in Khamovniki
        © Aniacra · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The church was built in 1679–1682 with funds from parishioners, the weavers of the royal Khamovnaya settlement.
        • It is a five-domed church in the uzorochye (ornate) style, with green tiles and red-and-green painted window frames.
        • Its tent-roofed bell tower is one of the tallest in Moscow.
        • Leo Tolstoy, who lived nearby in Khamovniki, was a parishioner.
        • The church was not closed in Soviet times: Archpriest Pavel Lepyokhin served here for almost half a century, from 1912 to 1960.
        • The main shrine is the miracle-working icon of the Mother of God "Helper of Sinners".
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🖼 Tolstoy Estate in Khamovniki
        ул. Льва Толстого, 21
        🎟 ticket
        A preserved city estate where Tolstoy lived with his family in winters from 1882 to 1901, with its authentic interiors.
        A wooden estate with a garden
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Tolstoy Estate in Khamovniki
        © Shuvaev · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Tolstoy Estate in Khamovniki
        © Vitaliy KR · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The main house was built in the early 19th century for Prince Ivan Meshchersky and survived the fire of 1812.
        • Tolstoy bought the estate in 1882 and spent his winters here until 1901.
        • About a hundred works were written here, including The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kreutzer Sonata and Resurrection.
        • Chekhov, Repin, Rachmaninoff, Chaliapin and Rimsky-Korsakov visited the Tolstoys here.
        • The museum opened in 1921, and the furnishings of the house are preserved almost completely.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🧺 Usachevsky Market
        ул. Усачёва, 26
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Farm produce and food counters
        🍴 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.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Novodevichy Convent
        A 16th–17th-century convent with crenellated walls, the Smolensk Cathedral and a tall bell tower, a UNESCO site.
        A 16th-17th-century ensemble
        📖 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.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🌳 Novodevichy Pond
        A pond by the convent walls reflecting the bell tower and the Smolensk Cathedral, with a path and benches around it.
        Swans and a view of the convent — the very one from the postcards
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Novodevichy Pond
        © Pierre André Leclercq · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Novodevichy Pond
        © Alexxx1979 · CC0
        • The ponds lie in an oxbow of the Moskva River, and the park around them began to be laid out under a plan of 1957.
        • The sculpture Make Way for Ducklings is a copy of Nancy Schön's Boston composition, based on Robert McCloskey's book.
        • The ducklings were given to Soviet children in 1991 by Barbara Bush, who a year earlier had shown the Boston original to Raisa Gorbacheva.
        • The ducklings have been stolen more than once: one right after installation, and later the mother duck and several others; the figures were recast.
        • Above the pond stands Novodevichy Convent, founded in 1524, which has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2004.

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