St. Basil's Cathedral

Kuskovo Palace

The Kuskovo Estate, nicknamed the Moscow Versailles due to its formal French gardens, is a perfect example of an 18th century Muscovite country residence. The history of the estate dates back to 1715, when Tsar Peter the Great awarded the village of Kuskovo to Boris Sheremetev, a Russian general who excelled at the battle of Poltava and who decided to build a summer residence there. The Sheremetyevs were one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Russia and the estate was used by several generations of the family

The estate comprises the central palace and a number of smaller buildings and architectural follies dotted throughout an extensive landscape park, which includes formal French gardens, ponds, lakes and Russian and Italian sculptures. These buildings were designed and built by both French and Russian architects and took over 40 years to complete.

Kuskovo is an extensive estate, or manor, of the Counts Sheremetev, originally situated several miles to the east of Moscow but now forming a part of the East District of that city. It is a favourite place of recreation for Muscovites, and one of the few 18th-century suburban residences preserved in the Russian capital.

Kuskovo passed to the Sheremetev family in the 17th century, and was chosen as a summer residence by Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, the premier Russian Field Marshal and Count. The earliest surviving structure is the Saviour church, built in 1737-39 in a Petrine baroque style and formerly decorated with marble statues. The neoclassical bell-tower was added much later, in 1792.

The park and palace were visited by many prominent persons, such as king Stanislaus II of Poland and Empress Catherine the Great. The Sheremetevs marked each visit of the monarch by a marble obelisk or a column, still visible before the palace.

Red Square, Kremlin

First impressions

Finally in Moscow!!!!!!!
Our first city tour took place around the RGGU campus which is around the metro Novoslobodskaya. It is considered downtown, since it is inside of the Sadovoe Koltso (borders of downtown that trace back to historic wall). Right away what amazed me the most was the different styles of architecure thus the layers of history..

Buildings that are 400 hundreds years old stand next to modern buildings. The contrast between architectural charactersitics of different epochs in Russian history makes one think of the city's individual hisory.

The main styles of buildings ranged from Pre-revolutionary, Stalin's era, Khrushevki, late communist era of 1980's to Post-communist.
By the end of the tour it was easy for me to differentiate Soviet architecture from pre-revolutionary. The early Soviet architecure had soviet emblemes as decorations on the buildings whereas buildings of mid soviet era called Khrushevki were distincitve by their size and plain strucutre. The buildings of late 19th and early 20th centuries had more european identity, one that we saw even had pictures from Greek mythology.

The specifics of Novoslobodskaya area were the in the amount of old mills and factories it had. The name itself implies the histroy of the neighbourhood, novaya sloboda meaning new suburbans. Also sloboda-svoboda meaning freedom, meant an area where people lived freely with no tax obligations.

The 19th century police station was intersting by its tower which at first made us think of it being a fire station. It was also intersting to see how the place for carriages was covered by bricks and serves for different purpose. It is live history!!

Very close to RGGU campus there is an old Troley park that was once used for horses and carriages.

I thought this building was renovated, but in fact it was build less than 5 years ago. The style resembles to pre-revolutionary buildings. This marks a new tendency of bringing back the tsarist Russian identity and backing away from communist period. Overall I felt a slight political tendency in the city's organization that is directed towards changing history, more specifically erasing communist past.