The horseshoe of tree-lined boulevards laid out on the line of the old White City walls, walked from Kropotkinskaya past Gogol House, Tverskoy and Petrovsky boulevards and Trubnaya Square to the pond at Chistye Prudy.
Best time: Any dry day; late afternoon into evening when the boulevards fill up. In winter Chistye Prudy has a skating rink on the pond.
The route, stop by stop
- 1Kropotkinskaya metro station
Start at the 1935 Dushkin station; Gogolevsky Boulevard opens the ring here. 5 min
- 2Gogol House
House on Nikitsky Boulevard where Gogol lived from 1848 to 1852; closed Mondays. 30 min
- 3Church of the Great Ascension
Church at Nikitskiye Vorota where Tverskoy Boulevard starts. 5 min
- 4Pushkin Drama Theatre
18th-century mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard that housed Tairov's Chamber Theatre. 5 min
- 5Vysokopetrovsky Monastery
Step off Petrovsky Boulevard onto Petrovka for the quiet monastery courtyard. 15 min
- 6Trubnaya Square
Square where Petrovsky Boulevard meets Tsvetnoy Boulevard; continue east on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. 5 min
- 7Sretensky Monastery
Short detour from Sretensky Boulevard down Bolshaya Lubyanka to the monastery. 15 min
- 8Chistye Prudy (Clean Ponds) and Chistoprudny Boulevard
End at the pond on Chistoprudny Boulevard, the busiest stretch of the ring. 20 min
More walks in Moscow
- Kremlin, Red Square and Kitay-gorod
- Zamoskvorechye: Bolotny Island lanes and churches to the Tretyakov
- Patriarch's Ponds and Bulgakov's Moscow
- Khitrovka, Ivanovskaya Gorka and Pokrovka
- Arbat side-lanes to Prechistenka
- Gorky Park, Neskuchny Garden and Sparrow Hills along the river
- VDNKh pavilions and the space trail
- Metro palaces ride
- Taganka to Andronikov Monastery and Rogozhskaya Sloboda