New Arbat, the White House and dinner above the City

⏱ 1 h 35 min🚶 4.8 km🍽 1📍 4 stops

🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

The “book” towers of Novy Arbat, the White House, the old Gorbaty Bridge and Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment toward the towers. You can finish with dinner on the 85th floor with a view of all of Moscow.

🏛 History and architecture✨ New places⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🚶 Novy Arbat
A wide 1960s avenue with "book" high-rises, the Oktyabr cinema and the old Church of St Simeon the Stylite.
The 1960s “Moscow's false teeth”
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© Крылов Иван · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Alexander Baranov from Montpellier, France · CC BY 2.0
- From 1963 to 1990 the street was part of Kalinin Prospekt, and Muscovites called it "Kalininsky".
- Building the avenue wiped out Sobachya Ploshchadka, Sobachy Lane and Krechetnikovsky Lane.
- The ensemble was built in 1962–1968 to a design by a group of architects led by Mikhail Posokhin.
- The north side has five 24-story residential towers of 176 apartments each, the south side four 26-story "books" on an 800-meter podium.
- Residents' terraces were planned on the roof of the podium, but after Kennedy's assassination in 1963 the "books" were given to ministries.
- In August 1991 three defenders of the White House died in the tunnel under Novy Arbat.
🚶 on foot
2
🏛 House of the Government (the "White House")
A white building with a coat of arms on its tower (the clock was removed from it in 1994), built in 1972–1981 on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment; the Russian government works here.
The Government House
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© Крылов Иван · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The building was built in 1972–1981 to a design by Dmitry Chechulin; its authors received the Lenin Prize for it.
- At first Chechulin proposed building the House of Soviets on Taganskaya Square.
- The nickname "White House" stuck in August 1991, when the building became the center of resistance to the GKChP.
- On 19 August 1991 Boris Yeltsin spoke by the building from a Taman Division tank.
- In October 1993 tanks standing on the bridge fired 12 shells at the upper floors.
- The architect Charles Jencks suggested marking the burned floors with black granite, but the facade was restored to its former look.
- The Government of Russia has worked in the building since 1994.
🚶 on foot
3
🏛 Gorbaty Bridge (Hunchback Bridge)
A small stone bridge over the buried Presnya River, one of the oldest in Moscow, a stone's throw from the White House.
A memorial to the events of 1905 and 1993
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© A.Savin · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The bridge was built in the mid-18th century on the dam of the Middle Presnya Pond and was called the Lower Presnya Bridge.
- In 1806, when Moscow's first public garden was laid out at the Presnya Ponds, the bridge was faced with white stone.
- In December 1905 fierce fighting took place for the bridge: it connected Presnya with the city center.
- Since 1918 the bridge has officially been called the "1905 Bridge"; it was restored in 1980 for the 75th anniversary of the uprising.
- In the 1990s rallies and pickets were held on the bridge, including by miners and defrauded depositors.
🚶 on foot
4
🍽 Ruski
1-й Красногвардейский пр-д, 21, стр. 2 (башня «ОКО»), 85 этаж
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Along Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment to the towers; dinner on the 85th floor
🍴 A Russian restaurant with a real oven on the 85th floor of the OKO tower, with a view of all of Moscow. What to order: borscht, ribs, oven-roasted duck, medovik (honey cake).