Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane

Coordinates: 55°44′51″N 37°35′38″E / 55.74750°N 37.59389°E / 55.74750; 37.59389
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Sivtsev Vrazhek
Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane
Native nameСивцев Вражек (Russian)
LocationMoscow, Russia

Sivtsev Vrazhek is a radial lane in the Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow; it forms the boundary between Arbat and Khamovniki municipal districts. The lane begins at a T-junction with Gogolevsky Boulevard and runs west, roughly parallel to Arbat Street (north) and Prechistenka Street (south), ending at a T-junction with Denezhny Lane, one block short of the Garden Ring. The name of the lane, literally Sivka [ru] stream gully, refers to a historical stream now locked in an underground sewer[1] and is only one of two Vrazheks in present-day Moscow (the other being Kozhevnichesky Vrazhek west of Novospassky Bridge).

History

No. 27, once owned by Alexander Herzen's father
Nos. 8 and 6, early 20th century luxury apartments

Sivka Stream ran eastward along the present-day lane into Chertoryi Stream that flowed southward on site of present-day Gogolevsky Boulevard into

Moskva River. In the 18th century Sivka was locked into an open stone-clad ditch, opening up space for a proper lane, and in the first quarter of the 19th century the ditch was rebuilt into an underground sewer.[1]

In the 15th and 16th centuries Sivtsev Vrazhek was part of a road connecting Moscow with

Peter I depopulated these slobodas, and in the first half of the 18th century their lands were taken over by aristocracy. The area was dominated by wooden estate houses placed on spacious garden lots, with very few stone buildings.[2]

By the end of the 18th century the area was home to Moscow's oldest, but not necessarily the wealthiest, noble families.

Yermolov owned the building on the corner of Boulevard Ring but himself lived on Prechistenka Street.[3] In 1863 Leo Tolstoy wrote in his diary that he dreamed of his own place in Sivtsev Vrazhek where he could spend the winter months in country style.[4]

In the end of the 19th century the old aristocratic mansions on the north side of the lane were gradually replaced by mid-rise, upper- and middle-class apartment buildings; the process was interrupted by

interbellum period was a 1932 experimental apartment block designed by Dmitry Lebedev and Nikolai Ladovsky, notable for its combination of segments linked at 120° angle.[5]
More contemporary buildings were added in the 1950s and 1980s (most of them on the north side). The lane has been converted to one-way (westbound) traffic in the 1990s.

In fiction

The lane, being part of the upper-class west side of Moscow, is featured in Russian-language fiction with notable occurrences in:

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Sytin, p. 173
  2. ^ Pamyatniki, p. 97
  3. ^ a b Sytin, p. 174
  4. ^ Pamyatniki, p. 101
  5. ^ No. 15/25, completed 1932. Dmitry Lebedev was the lead architect. Some sources credit Ladovsky directly as a co-author, some, like the official Moscow Heritage Register[permanent dead link] - as "probable".

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane.
  • Sytin, P. V. (П. В. Сытин) (1948). Iz istorii moskovskikh ulits (Из истории московских улиц) (in Russian). Moscow: MR.
  • Pamyatniki arkhitektury Moskvy. Zemlyanoy Gorod (Памятники архитектуры Москвы) (in Russian). Vol. 3. Moscow: Iskusstvo. 1989.
    ISBN 5-210-00253-5
    .

55°44′51″N 37°35′38″E / 55.74750°N 37.59389°E / 55.74750; 37.59389

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