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 The Arbat in January 2016 | |
| Native name | Арбат (Russian) |
|---|---|
| Former name(s) | Orbat(1493) Smolenskaya Street(middle of the 17th century.) |
| Location | Moscow Central Administrative Okrug Arbat District |
| Postal code | 119019, 119002 |
| Nearest metro station |  Arbatskaya ArbatskayaSmolenskayaSmolenskaya |
| Coordinates | 55°45′4″N37°35′46″E / 55.75111°N 37.59611°E /55.75111; 37.59611 |
Arbat Street (Russian:Арба́т,IPA:[ɐrˈbat]ⓘ), mainly referred to in English asthe Arbat, is apedestrian street about one kilometer long in the historical centre ofMoscow,Russia. The Arbat has existed since at least the 15th century, which makes it one of the oldest surviving streets of the Russian capital. It forms the heart of theArbat District of Moscow. Originally the street formed part of an important trade-route and was home to many craftsmen.
In the 18th century, the Russian nobility came to regard the Arbat as the most prestigious living area in Moscow. Almost completely destroyed by thegreat fire of 1812 associated withNapoleon's occupation of Moscow, the street required rebuilding. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it became known as a place wherepetty nobility, artists, and academics lived. In the Soviet period, it housed many high-ranking government officials.
As of 2016[update], the street and its surroundings are undergoinggentrification, and it is considered[by whom?] a desirable place to live. Because of the many historic buildings, and due to the numerous artists who have lived and worked in the street, the Arbat has also become an important tourist attraction.
The Arbat is in the historic center of Moscow. It begins atArbatskaya square (Арбатская площадь), 800 metres west of the walls of theMoscow Kremlin. Arbatskaya square is also the meeting point of theBoulevard Ring andVozdvizhenka Street (Улица Воздвиженка). The part of this square which is adjacent to the Arbat is calledArbat Gate (Арбатские Ворота), as it is the site of one of the ten gates of the old city wall. The wall, which was intact from the 16th to the 18th centuries, followed the path of the current Boulevard Ring. From this point the Arbat runs southwest, with a dozen side streets leading off, and ends atSmolenskaya Square (Смоленская площадь), which intersects with theGarden Ring. Continuing on from the Arbat in a westerly direction is the eight-laneSmolenskaya Street (Смоленская улица). This street changes its name several times within the city limits, ultimately crossing theMKAD ring road, and becoming theM1 highway toSmolensk,Minsk andWarsaw.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the Arbat remained part of the main road from the Moscow Kremlin westwards. In the 1960s a parallel road, theNew Arbat (Новый Арбат) was built, and took on this function. The New Arbat with its wide sidewalks and 1960s tower blocks has no sidestreets. Two decades later the Arbat was made into the firstpedestrian zone in Moscow. In order to avoid confusion with the New Arbat, people began to refer to the Arbat as theOld Arbat (Старый Арбат).
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The Arbat is one of the oldest surviving streets in Moscow. Exactly when it came into existence is not recorded, but a document from July 28, 1493, mentions it.[1] The document describes a fire which started in the woodenChurch of Nicholas on the Sand (Церковь Николы на Песках). The fire spread throughout Moscow, devastating large areas of the city, which consisted for the most part of wooden structures.The original meaning of theplace nameArbat remains unknown. In addition to places with Slavic names, there are also numerous places of Oriental origin in Moscow.[2] Geographically Moscow is located within Russia between the wooded northwest and the southwesternsteppe areas. The Russian steppes in Eurasian steppes were through its history largely inhabited by nomadic tribes.[3][4][5] Many theories assume that the term arbat is of Oriental origin.
Several hypotheses attempt to explain it:
A non-Russian origin of the word Arbat is generally held[by whom?] to be more likely than a Russian origin. Possibly lending some weight to this view, anArbat Street (Арбатская улица) exists inKolomna, 100 km southeast of Moscow. It is possible that the name of the place hasMongolian roots which came through theGolden Horde culture toMuscovite Russia. Arbat was in ancient times the name of the whole area and not just of the one street. The location of the Old Arbat was in ancient times situated between the borders of today's Sadovoe Kolco. (Garden Ring), Ermolayevski, Vozdvizhenka and Arbat.[9]
As early as the 15th century the Arbat formed the first part of a road which linked Moscow — predominantly the Kremlin — with the western regions of theGrand Duchy of Moscow, and thus via Poland with other areas of Europe. This location attracted craftsmen to the Arbat, and they set up shop hereen masse. This period is recalled in the names of some of the side streets off the Arbat, for examplePlotnikov pereulok (Плотников переулок), i.e. "Carpenters' Lane",Serebryanyi pereulok (Серебряный переулок), i.e. "Silver Lane". As well as the workshops of craftsmen, there were also a great number of churches on the Arbat, along with some houses where merchants and members of the clergy lived.
During the reign ofIvan IV of Russia ("the Terrible"), the Arbat had a less salubrious connotation. It was here that the infamous bodyguards of the Tsar, theOprichnina, had their headquarters. It was from here that orders were issued for mass executions and torture of alleged traitors to the crown. InAlexey Tolstoy's historical novelIvan the Terrible we find the following interpretation of the atmosphere of the period, "News of the fearsome plans had spread throughout Moscow, and a deathly silence reigned. The shops were closed, the streets empty, and only occasionally one heard the galloping horses of the messengers of the Tsar, who had come down to the Arbat, to his favourite palace."[10]
After the dissolution of the Oprichnina, and the death of Ivan the Terrible, the Arbat's significance as a trade route began to grow again. Not only merchants travelled this route, but alsoTsars, along with their messengers and soldiers. Foreign invaders also used the Arbat when attacking the Kremlin, and when retreating in defeat. Time and again the Arbat proved important to the defence of the Kremlin: From its Eastern end, the volunteer army of PrinceDmitry Pozharsky delivered a decisive blow to the troops of thePolish-Lithuanian Field MarshalJan Karol Chodkiewicz. In the 16th and 17th centuries, three regiments ofStreltsy troops were stationed on the Arbat, to better defend the Kremlin.[11]
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the neighbourhood was graced with elegant churches, notably the one featured inVasily Polenov's celebrated paintingA Courtyard in Moscow (1879).
By the 19th century at the latest the growth of Moscow meant that the Arbat was now in the centre of the city rather than at its edge, and so it became an ever more desirable place to live. In 1736 about half the street was destroyed in yet another fire,[12] but by the second half of the 18th century it was already being described as the "MoscowBoulevard Saint-Germain." In 1793 about 33 of the 56 houses on the Arbat belonged to nobility or to civil servants.[12] Amongst the nobles who had houses built for them on or near the Arbat were such celebrated families asthe Tolstoys, the Gagarins, the Kropotkins, theGalitzines and the Sheremetevs. Nevertheless, despite its proximity to the Kremlin and to the seat of power, the district was considered to be tranquil, almost rural. By this period there was hardly any manufacture on the street, and also less trade than in other parts of Moscow.
However the Arbat continued to serve as the most important way into and out of Moscow towards the West. DuringNapoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812, French troops led byJoachim Murat used the street to get to the Kremlin. This event is mentioned inLeo Tolstoy's epic novelWar and Peace, written 50 years afterwards.
The fire lit during the battle for Moscow in 1812 destroyed large parts of the predominantly wooden city, and also decimated the Arbat. The results of the energetic period of rebuilding in the 1810s can still be seen today, in the surviving houses of theEmpire style, which was characteristic for the period. Towards the end of the 19th century, the architecture changed toArt Nouveau, with many luxuryapartment buildings being built in this style. These buildings, with as many as six or seven floors, were technologically remarkable for the period, and fitted with all modern conveniences. Around a dozen are still to be seen along the Arbat today. In the last years of the 20th century and the first of the 21st, they were all renovated and made into plush domiciles or offices.
In the second half of the 19th century, the Arbat also moved away from being a purely aristocratic part of town, and became a popular place for artists to live. This was mainly due to the fact that many of the poets, thinkers, musicians and actors who had shaped Russia's cultural life came from the middle and lower nobility, sometimes from impoverished noble families. It was around the Arbat that Russia'sintelligentsia began to develop, largely made up of young educated nobles who were not afraid to criticize society.Alexander Pushkin lodged in one of its mansions for a short time, and there is a statue of him and his wife, Natalie, in front of the house. Another famous inhabitant was the writerAndrey Bely, many of whose novels feature impressionist portrayals of the area. Thus over time the Arbat lost its richest noble inhabitants, who preferred the splendid districts around the Kremlin andTverskaya Street over the would-be rural idyll of the Arbat. By the start of the 20th century, the Arbat had become popular with the middle classes, and academics, doctors and lawyers settled in the area.
In the first two decades of the 20th century comfortable new apartment buildings were built on the Arbat, which still contribute to the overall appearance of the street. The main inhabitants were now well-off academics, as well as a small number of artists. The Arbat's transport connections were also improved in the first half of the 20th century. In 1904 electrictrams were introduced, which were replaced 30 years later bytrolleybuses (electric buses which get their power from overhead lines similar to those of a tram). For this reason the previous cobbles were replaced with an asphalt surface. In 1935 Moscow's firstMetro station opened on Arbatskaya Square. The fact that the Arbat remained part of the road between Moscow and Smolensk facilitated trade. Arbat became a busy shopping street with many renowned boutiques. At the beginning of the 20th century the most intense business activity took place near the Western end: on the site of today's Smolenskaya Square, a large farmers' market used to take place, theSmolensky Rynok (Смоленский рынок). Furthermore, in 1899Kiev Station was built, a few hundred metres to the west of the Arbat, which further increased the influx of traders fromUkraine andSoutheastern Europe into Moscow via the Arbat.
After theOctober Revolution of 1917, theBolsheviks confiscated private property on the Arbat, as they did elsewhere in Russia, and made the buildings state property. Nevertheless, the street did not immediately lose its reputation as a haunt for artists. Through the 1920s this began to change, as mass immigration from the countryside into the capital put enormous pressure on housing. For this reason, the previous apartment buildings were made intokommunalkas, apartments where more than one family lived together. Furthermore, the area served more and more to accommodate the high-ranking functionaries of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union. This period is described inAnatoli Rybakov's novelChildren of the Arbat (Дети Арбата} This is the reason for the plain apartment buildings in the side streets off the Arbat, some of which replaced earlier, more architecturally significant buildings. Furthermore, most of the Arbat's churches were demolished, including that of St Nicholas, regarded as one of the finest examples of the style of theBoris Godunov period. For visiting functionaries a luxury hotel was also built near the Arbat, theArbat Hotel (Гостиница Арбат) in Plotnikov Street. Some buildings were also renovated or built in theconstructivist style. Probably the most original monument to this new trend is theMelnikov Mansion.
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In the early 1980s the Arbat, which had been a busy street in terms of traffic, was closed off and made into apedestrian zone one of the first in theSoviet Union. This happened at the same time as the construction of a newMinistry of Defence building on Arbatskaya Square, which required a great number of communications, pipes and wires to be laid beneath the Arbat. The renovation of the street and many of its historical buildings was completed in 1986. DuringPerestroika, the street was a gathering place for informal youth movements (likehippies orpunks), as well as street musicians and artists.Tsoi's Wall in one of the Arbat side streets (Krivoarbatskiy Pereulok) remains a curious monument to those turbulent years. To this day, Russian youth frequently gather on the Arbat to play Tsoi's songs and those of other Russian songwriters. However, the overall appearance of the Arbat is dominated by street artists, souvenir stalls and shops, restaurants, cafés and bars.
Since 1986, the Arbat has been dotted with distinctive street lanterns. It has several notable statues, including one to Princess Turandot in front of theVakhtangov Theatre, and another to Soviet-era folk singer,bard and poetBulat Okudzhava, who wrote several poignant songs about the Arbat. Arbat is home to the headquarters of oil companyTNK-BP - a modern building at the beginning of the street. It also contains numerous restaurants, includingThe Hard Rock Cafe. Most of these restaurants are geared towards visitors to Moscow and are considered by many residents to be over-priced and of low quality compared to those in other parts of the city. There are also a few restaurants and cafés that cater to the working population and middle class; these include Praim, andMu-Mu's.
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