- Walking down the District
- Luzhniki Olympic Stadium
- Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
- The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
- Museum of Private collections Department of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
- State picture Gallery of Ilya Glazunov
- State Museum of Leo Tolstoy
- State Museum of Alexander Pushkin
- L.N. Tolstoy Museum-estate in Khamovniki
- Temple of St. Nikolay
- Novodevichy Cemetery
- Novodevichy Convent
- Conception stauropegic women's convent
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
One of the most interesting buildings in Moscow of present days – reconstruction of cathedral stayed at those place in XIX th century.
Originally the purpose of Christ’s Cathedral was to be memorial monument commemorated Russia's victory over Napoleon’s invasion. Construction works have been started in 1817 by Vitberg project at Sparrow Hills but it was not successful and stopped in 1827. Emperor Nicholas I has personally selected new site for cathedral – at the center of Moscow closer to Kremlin.
In 1831 new project was approved. It was developed by famous architect Konstantin Thon. In order to provide Cathedral site clearance an ancient Alexeevsky Convent was dismantled. This barbarian action is supposed to be the reason of damnation predestinated fate of all other buildings at this place.
Construction of Cathedral which would be even bigger than Saint Isaac's Cathedral of St-Petersburg started in1838. Magnificent sculptural and painting interior was made by efforts of many Russian famous artists such as Alexey Markov, Peter Basin, Fyodor Bruni, Henryk Siemiradzki, Timofey Neff, Vasily Surikov, Vladimir Makovsky and others. Construction and embellishing works continued till 1883.
Building have had so called «Russian-Byzantine» design which was a combination of classicism based composition including some techniques and decoration elements of Byzantine and Old Russian architecture (such design is different from purely imitative pseudo-Russian style which occurred later).
After the October Revolution new authorities considered Cathedral to be the most hateful symbol of past times. In 1931 it was demolished in order to build grandiose construction which was aimed to become symbol of new Soviet Russia – House of Soviets (architect Boris Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko, Valdimir Gelfreigh). Some fragments of art decoration were taken out from Cathedral and delivered to museums. Huge amount of precious stone from it’s incrustation have been used for new buildings (including metro stations construction). Brick framework was blown up and substituted with huge hole and foundation for House of soviets. Construction works have been interrupted by Great Patriotic war. In autumn 1941 metallic assemblies of just started building were cut to produce protective antitank “ hedgehog ” on the enemy’s way to Moscow. When war came to end construction was not renewed and earth hole was occupied for creation of open-air swimming pool “Moscow”.
In 1994 Government of Moscow took decision to reconstruct Cathedral upon to design a replica of extraordinary accuracy. Reconstruction project was made by architect Mikhail Posokhin and Alexey Denisov, an engineer Fadeev. First brick laying was on January 8th 1995.
In 1997 on 850th anniversary of Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was a center of jubilee ceremonies.After solemn thanksgiving service at the Cathedral’s square Apostolic Patriarch Alexey II consecrated walls of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Starting from those moment reconstruction of painting decoration has been started: installation of Saints’ sculptures at fronts and representation of painting of Cathedral.
Only in 2000 Apostolic Patriarch Alexey II performed Great consecration for Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.