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      Golyanovo: ponds at the edge of Losiny Ostrov

      ⏱ 3 h 30 min🚶 2.9 km + 🚌🍽 2📍 6 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      An old village with an 1842 church, two ponds and shashlik right at the edge of the national park, and the Lilac Garden for dessert.

      👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature🏘 Off the centre
      👶 under 3, 3–6, 7–12 years · ✓ stroller-friendly

      The pond embankments are asphalt; the clearings of Losiny Ostrov are dirt — muddy after rain, an all-terrain stroller is needed. Shchyolkovskaya has no lift, so it's better to reach the start by bus. Take a bus to the Lilac Garden.

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      1. 1
        🏛 Church of Saints Zosima and Savvaty in Golyanovo
        Байкальская ул., 37А
        A stone church of 1842 in the former village of Golyanovo, on the site of a 17th-century wooden church; in Soviet times it housed enterprises.
        From Shchyolkovskaya metro, 15 minutes on foot along Baykalskaya. The church of the former village of Golyanovo, 1842
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Church of Saints Zosima and Savvaty in Golyanovo
        © Ulaisaeva · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The first wooden church in Golyanovo was built in the 1660s, when the village was the estate of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich.
        • The present Empire-style church was built by the Trubetskoy landowners; a spring flowed where the "Life-Giving Spring" altar now stands.
        • In 1889 the building was rebuilt to a design by the architect V. F. Baranov.
        • In the 1930s a pasta factory was set up in the church, and the bell tower, without its dome, was used as a factory chimney.
        • Patriarch Alexy II performed the great consecration of the restored church on 21 August 1999.
        • The icon painter Nikolay Gusev began painting the dome and the main cube in the manner of 17th-century frescoes.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        ☕️ Picup Coffee
        Уссурийская ул., 1, корп. 1
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        A snack: coffee to go, then on to the pond
        🍴 A tiny three-table coffee shop on the way to Golyanovsky Pond. What to order: a cinnamon latte, a raf, fresh pastries.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🌳 Golyanovsky Pond
        Гольяновский парк, Уральская ул.
        🚪 entrance from Uralskaya Street
        A large pond in a residential area with a well-kept shore, benches and willows along the edges.
        Walk around the pond along the embankment with a running track
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Golyanovsky Pond
        © Gennady Grachev from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
        Golyanovsky Pond
        © Gennady Grachev from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
        Golyanovsky Pond
        © Егор Черняков · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • As late as the 1960s this was a marshy floodplain of the Sosenka river.
        • In the early 1980s the Sosenka was piped underground, and a pond with concrete banks was dug in place of the marsh.
        • The pond covers 8.6 hectares, has an average depth of 2 m and a volume of about 160,000 m³.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🌳 Babayevsky Pond
        Курганская ул.
        A pond at the edge of Losiny Ostrov on the site of old brick factory quarries; forest clearings begin here.
        Losiny Ostrov begins here: take a 30-40-minute loop along the forest clearings
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Babayevsky Pond
        © Anatolich1 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Babayevsky Pond
        © МиХХ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • By one version the pond is named after the owner of a clay works, by another after Pyotr Babayev, chairman of the Sokolniki Soviet after the revolution.
        • The October 10th Anniversary state farm stood nearby; it was abolished in the 1970s, and the quarry pits were joined into one pond.
        • The pond covers 1.3 hectares and has an average depth of 2.5 m; it is fed by groundwater.
        • The western bay is separated off by a humpback bridge, and a bridge leads to the islet in the northwestern part.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🍽 Berezka café (Birch)
        Курганская ул., 9А
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Lunch: shashlik and lavash with red sauce on a veranda by the forest
        🍴 An old café with a grill, a veranda and gazebos right at the entrance to Losiny Ostrov. What to order: shashlik, summer salad, lavash with red sauce, khinkali (Georgian dumplings).
      10. 🚌 bus toward Cherkizovskaya metro to the stop by the Lilac Garden, or a taxi, about 12 min
      11. 6
        🌳 Lilac Garden (Sirenevy Sad)
        Щёлковское ш., вл. 1
        🚪 entrance from Shchyolkovskoye Highway
        A garden with hundreds of lilac bushes, many varieties bred by Leonid Kolesnikov, including "Beauty of Moscow".
        The garden of the breeder Kolesnikov; quiet and empty in October, in full bloom in May. Cherkizovskaya metro is 15 minutes away
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Lilac Garden (Sirenevy Sad)
        © Gennady Grachev from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
        Lilac Garden (Sirenevy Sad)
        © Gennady Grachev from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
        Lilac Garden (Sirenevy Sad)
        © Gennady Grachev from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
        Lilac Garden (Sirenevy Sad)
        © Ulaisaeva · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • In 1954, on Leonid Kolesnikov's initiative, a lilac nursery was created here, and it became a garden in 1975; the neighboring boulevard was named Sirenevy (Lilac) in 1960.
        • Kolesnikov was a self-taught breeder and a driver by profession; in 1952 he received a Stalin Prize for new lilac varieties.
        • He bred about 300 varieties, of which about 50 survive.
        • Kolesnikov selected "Beauty of Moscow" in 1947 from seedlings of a cross between the Belle de Nancy variety and his own variety "I. V. Michurin".
        • "Dzhambul" grows here — the world's first lilac with a white edge along the petals.
        • Kolesnikov's lilacs grow in the grounds of Buckingham Palace (the "Galina Ulanova" variety), but the story of one at the Capitol is a myth.
        • The popular story that Kolesnikov was Marshal Zhukov's driver is not confirmed either.

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