Yakimanka District район Якиманка | |
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.png) Flag .png) Coat of arms | |
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| Coordinates:55°43′53″N37°36′14″E / 55.73139°N 37.60389°E /55.73139; 37.60389 | |
| Country | Russia |
| Federal subject | Moscow |
| Time zone | UTC+3 (MSK  [1]) |
| OKTMO ID | 45384000 |
Yakimanka District (Russian:райо́н Якима́нка) is adistrict ofCentral Administrative Okrug of thefederal city ofMoscow,Russia. Population:26,578 (2010 Census);[2]22,822 (2002 Census).[3]
It is named after the former church ofSaint Joachim andSaint Anne. Yakimanka contains the western half of the historicalZamoskvorechye area (its eastern half is administered asZamoskvorechye District proper), including theTretyakov Gallery and the territories ofGorky Park andNeskuchny Sad. The boundary between Yakimanka and Zamoskvorechye districts followsBalchug Street and Bolshaya Ordynka Street (north of theGarden Ring), Korovy Val and Mytnaya Streets (south of the Garden Ring).
Territories on the right (southern) bank ofMoskva River, now known as Zamoskvorechye, were colonized from the fourteenth century. Two river crossings, west and east of theKremlin walls, continued south toKaluga andSerpukhov, and served as main axes of settlement. The western part of Yakimanka District (between the Moskva River and Bolshaya Yakimanka Street) was regularly flooded, and thus its inhabited area was contained within a 700-meter-wide tract of land between Bolshaya Yakimanka and Bolshaya Ordynka streets (formerly the Kaluga and Serpukhov roads). The floodland was gradually built out in the nineteenth century when theBabiegorodskaya Dam was completed, but even then a large field existed nearKrymsky Bridge until 1972, when the new building of the Tretyakov Gallery was built. Theclover leaves on the district's coat of arms are a memory of these fields. (SeeBalchug for an explanation of the Vodootvodny Canal flood control development that separated the Bersenevka and Boloto neighborhoods from the mainland and the history of the island.)[4]
The lands south of the Moskva River, exposed to southern enemies, were regularly destroyed by raiders, notably byAlgirdas in 1366 and 1368,Tokhtamysh in 1382,Edigu in 1408, and theTatar pretender Mazovsha in 1451. Permanent militarized settlements of Muscovites, calledslobodas, were established byPrince Vasili III in the early sixteenth century. The fortified line on the site of the present-day Garden Ring was built in 1591–1592 in the reign ofFeodor I. The church of St. Joachim and St. Anne at Bolshaya Yakimanka, 13, which gave the district its name, was initially built in 1493 and subsequently rebuilt before being destroyed by the Soviet government (see19th century photo).[5]
Yakimanka District has had a diverse and rapidly changing ethnic and social composition:
The century was preceded by mass executions ofstreltsy. September 30, 1698Peter I hanged 36 soldiers at the Serpukhov Gate, 36 at the Kaluga Gate, etc., physically destroying the human core of thesloboda system. By 1720, all streltsy troops were disbanded. At the same time, craftsmen lost their businesses when the royal court relocated toSaint Petersburg. The patchwork sloboda system of Zamoskvorechye fell apart, and within the 18th century social diversity settled down. Bolshaya Yakimanka remained a quiet street of single-family households, many of them still farming on the floodlands; Bolshaya Ordynka was inhabited by wealthy merchants.Zamoskvorechye merchant became a catchword for an ultraconservative, bearded, piousarchetype, the subject ofAleksandr Ostrovsky's plays. Even the wealthiest of them lived in country-style single-story houses on spacious lots, a few of which remain today. The areas on the edge of the city, where Peter hanged his soldiers, were taken over by grain warehouses and market squares, commemorated in the names of Zhitnaya ("wheat") and Mytnaya ("tax") streets.
Yakimanka was established as an administrative district in 1782, whenCatherine II divided Moscow into 20 police districts. In particular, Zamoskvorechye was divided between the Yakimanka and Pyatnitzkaya police precincts.
A different development began at the end of the century on theKaluga road outside the Garden Ring (which at that time was a city rampart, not a garden or a street). The present-day territory of Gorky Park and Neskuchny Sad, between the Kaluga road and the Moskva River, was home to the country houses of theGolitsyn,Demidov,Trubetskoy,Stroganov and laterOrlov families. In 1793,Prince Dmitry Golitsyn bequeathed 900,000 roubles to build Moscow's first free public hospital. The project, supported by the dowager EmpressMaria Feodorovna, was completed in 1796–1802 byMatvey Kazakov. Although the Golitsyn family owned lands nearby, the hospital was set onStroganov family land. Hospital construction continued on Kaluga Road throughout the next century. Today, these hospitals belong to Yakimanka District and are known asFirst City (Первая Градская).
TheFire of 1812 swept the entire area except for a few blocks in the southern end of Bolshaya Yakimanka and Kazakov's hospital (which took care of both Russian and French troops). The construction of theBabiegorodskaya Dam and the clearing of theVodootvodny Canal in the 1830s reduced the flood hazard, but the land remained cheap. This led to the steady industrialization of Zamoskvorechye. For example,Gustav List set up his first metalworking factory in Boloto, directly across from the Kremlin (his mansion, also in Boloto, would later house theBritish embassy).[8]
While most of Yakimanka remained a traditional, low-rise merchant neighborhood, a cluster of large five- to seven-story factory buildings emerged in Golutvin and Bersenevka (Golutvin was the birthplace ofPavel Ryabushinsky). Most of these are now converted to office space, whileKrasny Oktyabr chocolate factory (originally Einem) is scheduled for conversion soon. Hotels catering to businesspeople were built nearby in Boloto and Balchug Street.
In 1896, the city built an electrical power plant inZamoskvorechye District (MOGES-1, the oldest existing power plant). Thesecond power plant, built specifically for thetram network, emerged in Yakimanka District, also in Bersenevka, and operates today. Since that time, electrical and oiling offices are major tenants on theBalchug island.
The late nineteenth century was also a time of charity and social experiments. TheTretyakov Gallery, which started asPavel Tretyakov's private collection in the 1850s, opened to the public in 1892. The existing building, with a facade designed byApollinary Vasnetsov, was completed in 1899–1904. Pavel Tretyakov also financed the construction and operation of the free housing for widows and children of Russian artists, located north from the Gallery.
Morozov Hospital, the city's first surgical hospital for children, started in 1896 as a two-room Red Cross clinic. The Morozov family financed construction of the two-story existing building in Bolshaya Polyanka. Another free hospital was operated by theMarfo-Mariinsky Convent. Finally, the city and private philanthropists also provided cheap or free housing; the largest public housing projects were launched in the 1890s in Boloto. The best known of these projects, Bakhrushin Free Apartments (1898-1900, Sofiyskaya Embankment, 26),[9] now housesRosneft headquarters.
In 1922,Bolshevik authorities closed and looted 22 churches in Zamoskvorechye, including the churches of St. Joachim and St. Anne, St.Maron, St.Gregory of Nyssa, and others; theChurch of St. John the Warrior remained the only functioning church in Yakimanka. St. Joachim and St. Anne was torn down in 1933.[10] However, compared to other districts, theJoseph Stalin era brought very little damage to Yakimanka; the area seemed to be neglected.
In the 1920s, the old Wine and Salt Court in Bersenevka was replaced by theHouse on Embankment; further south, Moscow's firstcooperative apartment building was completed in 1926. Gorky Park development began in 1923 with the first All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition; in 1928, the fairgrounds were reopened as a public park. The existingStalin-style entrance arch was added later, in 1950s.
The 1935 Moscow Master Plan called for completing theBoulevard Ring through Zamoskvorechye, which was not done. The only trace of this project is the 1937 Writers' Apartments building facing the Tretyakov building (expanded in the 1950s and 2000s); it housed elite writers like Yevgeny Petrov ofIlf and Petrov fame,Boris Pasternak, andKonstantin Paustovsky.[11] Similar grand Stalinist buildings were planned all along the new route, but were cancelled.
The most important outcome of Stalin's projects came with completion of the 1932–1938Moscow Canal: floods were no longer a threat for the Yakimanka lowlands. River banks that formerly shifted every season were firmly set in granite; all downtownMoscow river and Vodootvodny Canal bridges were rebuilt to six- to eight-lane capacity.
Major destruction of Yakimanka took place inLeonid Brezhnev's time. The western side of Bolshaya Yakimanka was rebuilt in the high-rise style typical of the time. Similar structures appeared in Polyanka Street, both as infills and as block-wide projects. This was followed byfacadist "reconstruction" of the 1990s-2000s and new high-rises like the 15-storyCopernicus building. The city, however, rejected construction of the avant-garde towers designed byErick van Egeraat.[12]
TheInterstate Aviation Committee (IAC or MAK), the aviation accident technical investigation body of theCommonwealth of Independent States, has its head office in the district.[13]
TheFederal Penitentiary Service has its head office in Yakimanka District.[14]
55°43′53″N37°36′14″E / 55.73139°N 37.60389°E /55.73139; 37.60389
