Let me lead you through the streets of Moscow

by Anni Pelmeni

The Park Sokolniky is where Russian tsars enjoy an entertainment of noble men – hunting. For those who care for numbers – this part is 4 times bigger then Guide Park in London. It is difficult to imagine but in the 15 century here used to be a dense forest. On of the most favoured type of hunting of Russian tsars was falconry. This gave the name to the place – ‘sokol’ in Russian is falcon.

This place is also full of historical memories: Peter the Great detested hunting and here he used to make parties with his drinking buddies. In the war of 1812 many Russian people found the protection from the enemies. After the Napoleon’s defeat most of the small wood was used to re-build wooden houses of Moscow people.

In 1879 Sokolniky wood as well as Oleniy wood (aka ‘deer’) Moscow city bought from the State treasure for 300 000 rubles. Most of the contribution to raise this fund was from Sergey Tret’akov from the family of rich merchants and art patrons. Sergey was a brother to Paul Tret’akov who founded Tretjakovsky Gallery. One may consider the Park Sokolniky as another gift of Tret’akovs brothers to the city of Moscow.

The Park Sokolniky is nowadays one of the place to hang around; there are places to roller skate, to dance and listen life music. Also lots of eating establishments.

by Anni Pelmeni

There is a place in Moscow called Vorob’evy Gory aka Sparrow Mountains. But there are neither a special settlement of sparrows nor actually real mountains. What was the reason for this rather peculiar name? In medieval times here used to be a village named Vorob’evo. The named also transferred to the hills around. In Soviet time this placed used to connected to Lenin and had the name of Leninskye Gory. In 1949-1953 here was built a new campus of Moscow State University with the viewing spots which offer great panoramic sights of Moscow.

The main building of Moscow State University located here is one of those Stalin Empire constructions.

Interesting enough that the many wedding pictures are took here so if you come over on Fridays and Saturdays you may be surrounded by newlyweds. In winter this is the place for skiing and ski jumping.