7 iconic literary places in Moscow worth visiting

1. Patriarch's Ponds: The meeting place with the Devil

This is where the mystical plot of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel ‘The Master and Margarita’ begins. Two Soviet writers encounter a strange “foreigner” named Woland, who turns out to be the Devil himself.

Today, the area around Patriarch's Ponds is a super fashionable neighborhood with lots of cafes and restaurants, but, for a long time, there was a humorous road sign there saying: “No talking to strangers”, reminding visitors of the iconic novel.

2. The ‘Bad Apartment’ on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street

In the 1920s, Mikhail Bulgakov actually lived in communal apartment No. 50 at 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street. The writer was so uncomfortable there that he immortalized this nasty place in his novel ‘The Master and Margarita’. This is where Woland and his entourage settle, after which all sorts of devilry begins to happen there and people begin to disappear without a trace.

Now, the apartment houses a museum dedicated to Bulgakov. At the building entrance, guests are greeted by a statue of Behemoth the cat, while the walls of the entranceway are covered with quotes from the novel.

3. House on Povarskaya Street: The Rostov Estate

“It was St. Natalia’s day and the name day of two of the Rostovs – the mother and the youngest daughter – both named Nataly. Ever since the morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova’s big house on the Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow,” is how Leo Tolstoy describes the Rostovs' Moscow house in his novel ‘War and Peace’.

And, indeed, such a mansion still stands on Povarskaya Street. Tolstoy himself visited this house at No. 53 many times and was even related to its owners, the Bode-Kolychev family. By the way, the house remains within the literary fold: Today, it houses the Association of Unions of Writers and Publishers of Russia.

4. Prince Bolkonsky's house on Vozdvizhenka Street

The Bolkonsky family in ‘War and Peace’ lived in “the gloomy old house on the Vozdvizhenka”. This house actually belonged to Tolstoy's own grandfather, Prince Nikolai Volkonsky, who served as the prototype for the old Prince Bolkonsky in the novel.

Moreover, Tolstoy himself met Praskovya Shcherbatova in this house; she is considered the inspiration for Kitty Shcherbatskaya in the novel ‘Anna Karenina’.

Today, the building is leased out for offices, cafes and serves as the headquarters of a number of public organizations.

5. Gogolevsky Boulevard

This is considered to be the most literary boulevard in Moscow. Ivan Turgenev lived there, Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol took walks there and the boulevard was renamed in Gogol's honor in 1924 (previously it had been called Prechistensky Boulevard). At the end of the street rises a monument to Gogol, while, in the middle of the boulevard, stands a monument to Mikhail Sholokhov featuring an entire sculptural composition of the heads of swimming horses, a reference to ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’ and the Civil War. The writer lived nearby, in the side streets.

Gogolevsky Boulevard also appears in the fantastic works of Kir Bulychev and in the poems of Silver Age poets.

6. Arbat Street

This is the iconic pedestrian street of Moscow. In one of its oldest buildings is the Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin Memorial Apartment (the poet did not live in the city for long, but he brought his young wife to this very house after their wedding). Arbat Street became the hero of Anatoly Rybakov's novel ‘Children of the Arbat’ about the Soviet 1930s. Arbat has been celebrated in the songs of Soviet bard Bulat Okudzhava and it’s also home to the famous ‘Tsoi Wall’, where fans of rock legend Viktor Tsoi regularly gather.

7. Peredelkino writers' village

The idea of establishing a writers' residence outside Moscow (which, ironically, is now within the city limits) belonged to Maxim Gorky. It was supported by Stalin himself, who ordered the construction of an entire writers' town, where they could live with their families and create without any distractions.

Boris Pasternak, Ilya Ehrenburg, Korney Chukovsky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and many other writers lived in the village of Peredelkino for many years. Today, there are several house-museums there, along with a restored House of Creativity, which has become a gathering place where cultural events are held.