History
Kitay-Gorod is one of the oldest historic districts of Moscow. The most popular sights of the city are located here.
Initially Red Square was the part of Kitay-Gorod. There are Okhotny Ryad, Theatre square and Teatralnyi proezd in the north, the Moskva river in the south and two squares, Lubyanskaya and Staraya, in the east.
The history of Kitay-Gorod began in the XVI century when the city governors decided to build a wall around the trading area of Moscow called Velikii Posad. It was seperated from the Kremlin by the wide Red Square.
The new wall was aimed to protect the area from the fire and invasions. It was built up to the Kremlin and came close to the Beklemishevskaya and the Sobakina towers.
At first the territory was surrounded by a dike with a high lath fence constructed of wooden stakes called ‘kita’. That is how the area got its name Kita-Gorod. With the time it was changed to Kitay-Gorod. In the late 1530-s a brick wall was erected there.
The wall of Kitay-Gorod was lower than the one of the Kremlin but like it had secret and listening galleries and was designed for gun defense. The wall had 14 towers. Now only one corner round tower and a part of the fortress wall still exist. The brick walls and towers were designed by an Italian architect Petrok Maly. The fortress was up to 2567 m long.
In the XVII century a lot of brick buildings, such as churches, houses, public plases, were erected in Kitay-Gorod. At that time many rich and noble people settled there. But at the beginning of the XVIII century after Peter the Great made St. Petersburg the capital city Kitay-Gorod was no longer known as aristocratic district. A lot of famous habitants moved to the new capital city. There fancy houses in the south part of Kitay-Gorod were replaced with taverns, pubs and tenement buildings. So Kitay-Gorod turned to the ghetto where the poor lived.
In 1804 all wooden buildings were dismantled and only one pub remained. The wall was supposed to be knocked down so there would be a place for avenues. But the Russian emperor Alexander I was against this idea because he wanted to preserve all the ancient buildings of Moscow as they were.
In 1812 during Napoleon’s occupation of Moscow Kitay-Gorod was almost totally destroyed by the fire. Later the district was being rebuilt only with brick buildings.
At the end of the XIX century and at the beginning of the XX century Kitay-Gorod was the business district of Moscow. It had all the signs of a middle-class town: banks, sales offices, and warehouses appeared then. The streets had their specializations. Ilyinka street was a street of commerce and finance, Nicolskaya street was a place of book business.
At the end of the 19 century the Upper (today’s GUM) and the Middle Trading Rows. The Lower Trading Rows that were built in 17 century and since then were being reconstructed a lot were dismantled with the reconstruction of the Red Square.
At the Soviet times Stalin wanted to re plan Moscow. A lot of architectural monuments, historic buildings and whole districts were supposed to be demolished to clear the area for new roads. It was planned to sweep the district of Kitay-Gorod away. Soviet architects should have erected some high buildings in the style of Constructionism. The old buildings started to being demolished before the war of 1941-1945. The process went on until the late 50-s. A great number of remarkable historic monuments were destroyed. At that time it was decided to widen its narrow passages. The metro stations were constructed then as well.
Lubyanskiy proezd starts from Lubyanskaya square to the left of the polytechnic museum and stretches to the south-east along New and the Old squares. There is the polytechnic museum on the right and Luchnikov lane, Solyanka street and Spasoglinischevskiy lane. The street ends at Slavyanskaya square. You can see Ilyinskie Vorota square opposite Solyanka street.
The street got its name after the neighboring Lubyanskaya square. It was formed in the 1870 together with the polytechnic museum and Ilyinskiy park. In fact the passage from Lubyanka street to Varvarskaya square (modern Slavyanskaya square) existed long before it. But it did not has its own name at that time and it was described as “the passage opposite the Kitaigorodskaya wall”, 'the passage near apple bazar” or “the passage to Varvarskaya square”. From 1939 till 1994 the street was called Proezd Serova in honour of a military aviator Anatoliy Serov the veteran of the Spanish civil war who lived on that street.
The building housing the hotel “Kitay-Gorod” was built in 1860. At first it was a house of Chirikov family, later it became a tenement building belonged to Ryazenkov family.
Today's Kitay-Gorod is on of nine conservation areas created by the Moscow city government. Unique historic monuments can be found here. Modern Kitay-Gorod is a cultural and business centre of Moscow, a bohemian district famous for its history, night life, museums and galleries, churches and cathedrals, numerous cafes and restaurants.
