Is it possible to walk across the Patriarchal Bridge today? Morning walk along the Patriarchal Bridge

The Patriarchal Pedestrian Bridge spans the Moskva River and connects the Prechistenskaya and Bersenevskaya embankments. This majestic hydraulic facility was built in 2004-2005. according to the project of the most famous painter and sculptor of our time and a group of the best Russian architects and engineers. In the appearance of the structure, the creators tried to reflect the best traditions of bridge construction of the 19th century, thanks to which the Patriarchal Bridge is the most beautiful in the capital of Russia.

Main parameters of the structure: length – 203 m; width – 10 m; number of spans – 3; area – almost 260 m². The original cantilever type of span design gives appearance The bridge has unique features.

The Patriarchal Bridge began to be built simultaneously on different banks of the Moscow River. When both parts were ready, with the help of special devices they were turned towards each other, fixing them in the desired position.

The section of the bridge located on the Bersenevskaya embankment side is decorated with white marble. In the structure of this stone, ancient fossils are visible - fragments of various plants, among which the stems and flowers of sea lilies and crinodeus predominate. The other half of the building is lined with rectangular stone slabs contrasting shades.

Streams of newlyweds and loving couples flock to the forged patterned railings all year round, “fixing” their relationship with the help of locks. The metal fence is densely hung with locks different types– both regular store-bought ones and original, made-to-order ones (with hearts, engraved names, etc.).

The lanterns are built into the bridge deck for sufficient close range from each other. During daylight hours, they serve as architectural decoration, a bright addition to the image of the 19th century. And with the onset of dusk, the lights of the lanterns fill the evenings with an atmosphere of romance: reflected in the dark water, they create a unique play of flickering reflections.

Today I invite you to take a short tour of the center of Moscow, around Cathedral of Christ the Savior. From here you can enjoy magnificent views of Moscow - a city that is in constant motion, constantly changing. The main high-rise dominant feature of Volkhonka and its surroundings is, of course, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Its huge golden dome is visible from almost everywhere, sparkling in the sun.

Let's start our journey with Patriarchal Square near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is located in a kind of hollow, from here you can get to the basement level of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where the Hall of Church Councils, the Refectory, a 24-hour car wash, a parking lot and a car service center of the KhHS Foundation, and the Institute of Politics and Business Communications are located.

Here, opposite the Temple, stands monument to Emperor Alexander II the Liberator. Sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov, architects Igor Voskresensky and Sergey Sharov. It was opened on June 8, 2005. Behind the emperor are two bronze lions.

Someone left a scarlet rose on the pedestal. As a sign of respect to the emperor? Or maybe a young man in love whose girlfriend didn’t show up for a date?

The sea-green building behind the monument is Art gallery of Ilya Glazunov, opened on August 31, 2004. The gallery address is Volkhonka Street, 13. Open daily, except Mondays, from 11.00 to 19.00.

From the side of the park, it seems to me, the Temple looks the most monumental.

From the Cathedral of Christ the Savior to the other side of the Moscow River there will be a pedestrian Patriarchal Bridge, which connects Prechistenskaya and Bersenevskaya embankments. It was opened in 2005, architect M. Posokhin, artist Z. Tsereteli and engineers A. Kolchin and O. Chemerinsky. The length of the bridge is 203 m, width is 10 m. From here, magnificent panoramas of the center of Moscow open up. At one time, the bridge railings were full of locks that newlyweds left behind. However, a few years ago they were all removed.

From the Patriarchal Bridge it opens in all its glory. In front of him - Big A stone bridge . The first bridge on this site was built in 1686-1692 on the path of the ancient ford and was called All Saints, after the Church of All Saints on the left bank of the Moscow River. In 1859, according to the design of engineer Tanenberg, a new bridge was built, called Bolshoi Kamenny. It was located a little higher up the river - its continuation was Lenivka Street. The current single-span bridge was built in 1938.

On the other side - already mentioned in previous posts "House on the Embankment". The phrase “House on the Embankment” comes from the title of the novel of the same name by Yuri Trifonov. In the 1960s and early 1990s, this house was also called “Treshka” because it overlooks the Kremlin, depicted on the Soviet three-ruble banknote. Official name — "Government House". It was built in 1927-1931 according to the design of the architect Boris Iofan, and the head of the OGPU, Genrikh Yagoda, supervised the construction.

There are a total of 24 entrances and 505 apartments. It was a prototype of the house of the future: in addition to apartments, all the necessary infrastructure was provided - a dining room, a clinic, shops, a hairdresser, kindergarten, post office, telegraph, cinema, gym, club, savings bank, laundry, etc. The house covers an area of 3 hectares. Of the 2,745 residents, 242 were subsequently shot. The house is shrouded in many secrets and legends. They talk about voids in the walls that were used for wiretapping. It is interesting that there is no 11th entrance in the house - allegedly on the advice of numerologists with whom Stalin consulted. In reality, there is an 11th entrance, but it is technical. Perhaps this is where the equipment for monitoring residents was located.

"House on the Embankment"

The church was built in 1656-1657, the main altar was consecrated in honor of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, it is also often called Trinity. In 1854, a new bell tower was built on the site of the previous one, which was demolished in the 20s of the 19th century. However, in 1932 it was demolished. The temple miraculously survived - it was supposed to be demolished.

In 1870, the Imperial Moscow Archaeological Society, headed by Count Uvarov, was located in the chambers of A. Kirillov. Now the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies is located here. The church was handed over to believers in 1992.

From the Patriarchal Bridge you can see the square near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in all its glory, Art Gallery Ilya Glazunov. Behind it, on the left, you can see the Museum fine arts them. A.S. Pushkin. Modern building on right - new building Russian State Library (formerly Lenin Library).

Another panorama of the Moscow Kremlin.

And on the other side is the former territory of the Red October confectionery factory, the monument to Peter the Great, the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val. On the right is Prechistenskaya Embankment.

And from the Patriarchal Bridge you can zoom in and see the development of the Khamovniki district. On the left, under the red roof, is the residential building of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, built as an apartment building in 1900. It is now an administrative office building. The bright house a little to the right is the residential building of an Ostozhen housing cooperative worker, built in 1926 in the constructivist style. To the left behind them is the apartment building of the merchant Y.M. Filatov, known as the “House under the Glass,” built in 1907-1909. “Ryumka” is a bell-shaped tent over the corner turret; you can see it in the photograph. According to legend, the merchant, being a bitter drunkard, almost lost his entire fortune. And he made a vow that he would stop drinking and use the money he saved to build a house. And the “glass” on the roof is a symbolic last glass.

The high-rise building on the right is the building of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, built in 1948-1953. The height of the building is 172 meters, the central building has 28 floors. Modern skyscrapers of Moscow City can be seen in the background.

And, of course, while on the Patriarchal Bridge, you can’t help but take a photo of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - from here it opens in all its glory.

A few more panoramas of Moscow from the Patriarchal Bridge:

A few more notable buildings in Moscow: the Golitsyn estate, the green building to the right is a gallery of art from Europe and America of the 19th-20th centuries (belongs to State Museum Fine Arts named after Pushkin). The yellow tower a little further in is the building of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The gray buildings in the background are office and residential buildings on Novy Arbat (formerly Kalininsky Prospekt), the “false jaws of Moscow,” as it is sometimes called, which were literally “cut to the quick” during its construction in the 1960s, destroying many memorable corners of the old Moscow, including the famous “Dog Playground”.

Now let’s look again at the other side of Prechistenskaya Embankment. Red building on the corner - apartment house Pertsova. Seen to the right Church of Elijah the Everyday Prophet.

Also on Prechistenskaya embankment, a dark red brick building attracts attention - Tsvetkovskaya Gallery, built in 1899-1901 according to the design of the architect L.N. Kekushev and the artist V.M. Vasnetsov. The owner of the building, I.E. Tsvetkov, placed his collection here, and in 1909 donated it and the building to Moscow. In 1926, the Tsvetkovskaya Gallery became part of the Tretyakov Gallery. In 1942, the building was transferred to the French military mission. Currently, the owner of the mansion is the military attache of France.

Now let's come closer to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Its walls are decorated with high reliefs - these are copies, the originals of the first Temple, destroyed in 1931, are kept in the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

When you are in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, you can’t even believe that underneath you there is a ground floor with various services. The yellow building on the other side of Volkhonki Street - Golitsyn estate. Until recently, it was occupied by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences for more than 80 years. Now the building has been transferred to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and after reconstruction it will house an exhibition of works by impressionists and post-impressionists of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries from the collections of S.I. Shchukin and I.A. Morozova.

On Volkhonka, in an old mansion, is also located Institute of Russian Language named after V.V. Vinogradov RAS.

Here you can also see the entrance to the basement level of the Temple, where services belonging to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior Foundation are located.

In front of the entrance to the Temple territory there are screens where various church services and sermons are constantly broadcast. Alas, when you are in the distance, these sounds merge with the street noise and the result is a very unpleasant cacophony.

Now we are going out onto Volkhonka - one of the ancient streets of Moscow. You can read more about its history and architecture in the articles:

But one building seems to have remained “behind the scenes” - an outwardly inconspicuous gas station, where only cars with special signals enter. This - Kremlin gas station. A mere mortal will not be able to refuel here. Just a few years ago there were rare gas pumps here. Now they have been replaced by new devices. This gas station is part of the never-built Palace of the Soviets.

And, at the end of our walk, we will walk along Volkhonka again and again look at the square near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

This concludes my story for today. It would seem like a very small corner of Moscow. But how rich it is in history, how much you can see and learn here.

Address: Moscow, st. Volkhonka, 15.
Directions: metro stations Kropotkinskaya, Borovitskaya, Library named after. Lenin.

The Patriarchal Bridge is a relatively new structure, it was built in 2004, but during the short period of its existence the bridge has become a favorite among Muscovites. It opens from it beautiful view to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, to the Kremlin and to the panorama of the center of Moscow.

Story

Construction of a new pedestrian bridge started in 2002. The best Moscow specialists took part in the development of the project: architect Posokhin, sculptor-artist Tsereteli, engineers Chemerinsky and Kolchin.

Grand opening Patriarchal Bridge happened in June 2004.
In 2006, it was decided to extend the bridge to Bolshaya Yakimanka Street. The new part was opened in 2007.
Two years later, in 2009, a memorial plaques in memory of Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy.
In 2017, the city authorities decided to open the Alley of Patriarchs; sculptures of the main spiritual shepherds of Orthodox Rus' from Job to Alexy are also planned to be installed on the bridge.

The Patriarchal Bridge has officially become one of the monuments of the “Golden Ring” of Russia.

Location

The bridge is located in historical center capital, not far from the Kropotkinskaya metro station, it connects the main Moscow Cathedral with Bersenevskaya Embankment, crosses Bolotny Island and the Obvodny Canal. You can get to it both from Kropotkinskaya and from Zamoskvorechye, from the Tretyakovskaya or Novokuznetskaya metro stations.

How to get to the bridge of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is located very close to the Kropotkinskaya station; the majestic building is clearly visible right from the entrance to the Metropolitan. You can also get off at Novokuznetskaya and walk along the Patriarchal Bridge.

Traditions

Despite the “youth” of the structure, certain signs and traditions are associated with the Patriarchal Bridge. It is believed that if one of the lights lights up slowly, this means that new life has arisen in the Moscow family planning center.

The Patriarchal Bridge has become among the people a symbol of family unity. Here you can often see couples in love, as well as newlyweds who, as a sign of the inviolability of marriage bonds, secure locks on the bridge railings and throw the key into the Moscow river.

Bridge in the city center perfect place for a photo shoot. From here you can clearly see the Kremlin, the famous House on the Embankment, which now houses a museum, a monument to Peter the Great, the Pertsev apartment building and other attractions of Old Moscow.

Bridge design

The bridge was built in the architectural traditions of the nineteenth century. The structure consists of three arched spans. The part of the bridge located closer to Prechistenskaya Embankment is made with openwork railings; white marble was used to decorate the second one.

There are more than two hundred lanterns on the bridge, which act as architectural decoration during daylight hours, and beautifully illuminate the structure in the evening and at night. For lighting, spotlights and LED lamps are also used, which change color every fifteen seconds. The bridge is alternately illuminated in blue, red, white, purple and green.

Photos

Photos of the Patriarchal Bridge have taken their rightful place in catalogs of Moscow attractions. You can see both the structure itself at different times of the day, and panoramic views, which open from the Patriarchal Bridge.

It is now about 9 o'clock in the morning, the city is quite awake; someone is already sitting at their jobs, preparing for their work achievements... And public utilities are cleaning and washing Moscow. A woman janitor in a blue blouse carefully sweeps the area and steps around the Engels monument at the Prechistensky Gate.

From the delivered tank with clean water They water the flower beds and lawns... It would be better to water them earlier - it’s already a bit hot and the sun is shining. But city flowers are not too capricious.

I was surprised by the summer area near the Vanilla restaurant by Stepan Mikhalkov. Usually a spacious, fashionable summer terrace with silk curtains, exquisite furniture and orchids in fashionable vases is installed here. This time - a simple wooden fence around the tables, and even with the inscription “Beluga”... Did Stepan really take used equipment from another restaurant?
But people are already sitting at the tables in the morning, having breakfast before the working day.

To get to the bridge, you need to go around the Temple...

No one can be seen on the church steps yet, except for the security guard, enthusiastically talking with someone on the phone...

But workers in construction overalls suddenly emerge from the Temple. Did you go to morning service before your shift started?

Flowerpots with flowers are placed throughout Moscow, and the Temple is also not far behind, the steps of the stairs are decorated with flowerpots with petunia...

The façade of the Temple facing the river...

From the terrace of the Temple you can see Trifonov's "House on the aberezhnaya", and from behind it the Kotelnicheskaya skyscraper peeks out...

On the other side sticks out the idol of Tsereteli - the monumental Peter I, placed near the Temple, sorry, backwards...

Below, under the terraces, in the square of the Temple, roses are in full bloom...

And on the embankment behind the square there are already tourist buses, despite the morning hour...

Here is the Patriarchal Bridge, going to Zamoskvorechye. There is a photo exhibition on it, dedicated to temples Russia.

Today is June 23rd, but no one is closing the exhibition yet...

View from the bridge to the Kremlin...

And on the Strelka between the river and the canal, where Peter is piled up...

The main attraction of Strelka, besides the House on the Embankment, is the old chocolate bar. Einem factory, in Soviet time- Red October. Not so long ago it was removed from the center of Moscow, leaving only the chocolate museum in its old place. Now factory buildings are either vacated and put in order, turning them into business and Entertainment Center, or dismantled if they are of little architectural value.
Office life is already in full swing near the former workshops...

But the open restaurant has not yet begun work... The umbrellas are rolled up, the chairs are upside down so as not to interfere with cleaning... The restaurant employees have been swaying for a long time!

There are still few tourists with cameras...

Mostly passers-by go about their business with measured steps... And they don’t even pay much attention to the views that open up.

The famous Tsvetkov house in Soimonovsky Proezd in front of the Temple.

View of the Smolensk skyscraper. And Moscow City, of course, impudently fits into the landscape behind it...

Miraculously surviving next to the House on the embankment is the Church of St. Nicholas the Pleasant (Life-Giving Trinity) on Bersenevka, built in the 17th century, and the adjacent boyar chambers of the 16th century.
It was the proximity to the Government House that helped the church survive during the period of mass demolition of church buildings. In 1932, only the bell tower was destroyed, and the church itself, in which a dormitory was set up for the builders of the House, went through troubled times.... Nowadays it has been restored and looks good against the background of the gray walls of the Stalinist building...

From the bridge you can go down to Bersenevka...

The ancient houses, which had been reduced to the state of slums by the early 1990s, were not demolished; they have been tidied up and turned into offices.

Observation deck with flowers and benches. The benches are hidden between the flowerpots, but there are significantly fewer of them than there were at first... The flowerpots are constantly being rearranged, this way and that, apparently, some of the benches turned out to be superfluous.

And below, work continues to reconstruct the territory of the chocolate factory. Something has been demolished there again and another patch of land is being cultivated... The descents from the stairs here are completely ready, but the exit from them is still closed, it’s not like going down to the construction site...

A little further you can go down to the canal embankment...

And cultural life is already booming there!

In a sense, the bridge is considered a symbolic road leading to the Temple...

But from the Yakimanka side the bridge leads to a new shopping and hotel center. It is not yet open, while finishing work is underway, but the staircase inside the building leading from the bridge to Bolshaya Yakimanka has been operating for several years, directly next to the construction site.

Today I invite you to take a walk around the center of Moscow, around Cathedral of Christ the Savior. From here you can enjoy magnificent views of Moscow - a city that is in constant motion, constantly changing. The main high-rise dominant feature of Volkhonka and its surroundings is, of course, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Its huge golden dome is visible from almost everywhere, sparkling in the sun.

Someone left a scarlet rose on the pedestal. As a sign of respect to the emperor? Or maybe a young man in love whose girlfriend didn’t show up for a date?

From the side of the park, it seems to me, the Temple looks the most monumental.

From the Patriarchal Bridge it opens in all its glory. In front of him - Big Stone Bridge. The first bridge on this site was built in 1686-1692 on the path of the ancient ford and was called All Saints, after the Church of All Saints on the left bank of the Moscow River. In 1859, according to the design of engineer Tanenberg, a new bridge was built, called Bolshoi Kamenny. It was located a little higher up the river - its continuation was Lenivka Street. The current single-span bridge was built in 1938.

On the other side - already mentioned in previous posts "House on the Embankment". The phrase “House on the Embankment” comes from the title of the novel of the same name by Yuri Trifonov. In the 1960s and early 1990s, this house was also called “Treshka” because it overlooks the Kremlin, depicted on the Soviet three-ruble banknote. Official name - "Government House". It was built in 1927-1931 according to the design of the architect Boris Iofan, and the head of the OGPU, Genrikh Yagoda, supervised the construction.

There are a total of 24 entrances and 505 apartments. It was a prototype of the house of the future: in addition to the apartments, all the necessary infrastructure was provided - a dining room, a clinic, shops, a hairdresser, a kindergarten, a post office, a telegraph office, a cinema, a gym, a club, a savings bank, a laundry, etc. The house covers an area of 3 hectares. Of the 2,745 residents, 242 were subsequently shot. The house is shrouded in many secrets and legends. They talk about voids in the walls that were used for wiretapping. It is interesting that there is no 11th entrance in the house - allegedly on the advice of numerologists with whom Stalin consulted. In reality, there is an 11th entrance, but it is technical. Perhaps this is where the equipment for monitoring residents was located.

"House on the Embankment"

Near - Nicholas Church on Bersenevka in Verkhniye Sadovniki And chambers of the Duma clerk Averky Kirillov, which form a single complex. The date 1657 is engraved on the foundation stone of the chambers. However, as archaeological research has shown, already in the 15th-16th centuries there was a wooden house with a basement on this site. The chambers were connected to the church, which was a brownie. Averky Kirillov, who was killed by Streltsy during the Streltsy riot in 1682, is buried there. The church was built in 1656-1657, the main altar was consecrated in honor of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, it is also often called Trinity. In 1854, a new bell tower was built on the site of the previous one, which was demolished in the 20s of the 19th century. However, in 1932 it was demolished. The temple miraculously survived - it was supposed to be demolished. In 1870, the Imperial Moscow Archaeological Society, headed by Count Uvarov, was located in the chambers of A. Kirillov. Now the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies is located here. The church was handed over to believers in 1992.

From the Patriarchal Bridge you can see the square near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the art gallery of Ilya Glazunov in all its glory. Behind it, on the left, you can see the Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin. The modern building on the right is the new building of the Russian State Library (formerly the Lenin Library).

Another panorama of the Moscow Kremlin.

And, of course, while on the Patriarchal Bridge, you can’t help but take a photo of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - from here it opens in all its glory.

A few more panoramas of Moscow from the Patriarchal Bridge:

A few more notable buildings in Moscow: the Golitsyn estate (now the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences), the green building to the right is a gallery of art from Europe and America of the 19th-20th centuries (belongs to the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts). The yellow tower a little further in is the building of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The gray buildings in the background are office and residential buildings on Novy Arbat (formerly Kalininsky Prospekt), the “false jaws of Moscow,” as it is sometimes called, which were literally “cut to the quick” during its construction in the 1960s, destroying many memorable corners of the old Moscow, including the famous “Dog Playground”.

Now let’s look again at the other side of Prechistenskaya Embankment. The red building on the corner is Pertsova’s apartment building, which I already talked about in the post “A walk through Moscow streets and alleys around the Conception Monastery.” There you can also see photographs of the details of this amazing building. To the right you can see the Church of Elijah the Everyday Prophet, which I also already talked about.

When you are in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, you can’t even believe that underneath you there is a ground floor with various services. The yellow building on the other side of Volkhonki Street is the premises of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The building has already been transferred to the balance of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the institute will be transferred to another location.

On Volkhonka, in an old mansion, the Institute of Russian Language named after V.V. Vinogradov RAS is also located.

Here you can also see the entrance to the basement level of the Temple, where services belonging to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior Foundation are located.

Now we are going out onto Volkhonka - one of the ancient streets of Moscow. I have repeatedly written about its history and architecture on the blog: “Walk along Volkhonka”, “Old photographs of Volkhonka”, “The fate of Volkhonka: street of destruction”, etc.

And, at the end of our walk, we will walk along Volkhonka again and again look at the square near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

This concludes my story for today. It would seem like a very small corner of Moscow. But how rich it is in history, how much you can see and learn here. To be continued…

Maria Anashina, “On the Roads of the Middle Way”, anashina.com