Moscow Guide
The Beliy Gorod
Tverskaya ulitsa
As its name suggests, Tverskaya ulitsa originated as the road leading to the old town of Tver, continuing to Novgorod and (after 1713) on to St Petersburg. Inns and smithies soon grew up alongside, until they were displaced during the sixteenth century by the stone palaces of the boyars and merchants. The road was surfaced with logs and varied in width from 8m to 15m along its zigzag course. As Moscow's main thoroughfare from the seventeenth century onwards, it boasted two monasteries and four churches, past which the tsars proceeded on arrival from St Petersburg; for victory parades, Tverskaya was bedecked with carpets, flowers and icons. During the nineteenth century it became more commercial, as the point of departure for stagecoaches to St Petersburg, and notable for being the first street in Moscow to be lit by lampposts and feature billboards.
Its present form is due to a massive reconstruction programme in the mid-1930s, when Tverskaya was also renamed in honour of the writer Maxim Gorky (it reverted to its old name in 1990). To straighten and widen the street, rows of houses were demolished, while other buildings were moved back to create a new avenue 40 to 60m wide, lined with gargantuan buildings. Despite their scale, the variety of ornamentation and the older, often charming side streets that are visible through their huge archways give the avenue a distinctive character. At night, Tverskaya is thronged with window-shoppers and theatre-goers; sushi bars and cyber cafés are packed; and festive illuminations enhance the buzz of Moscow's Fifth Avenue.
The initial, uphill, stretch is best covered on the eastern side of the avenue, where a huge archway leads to Georgievskiy pereulok, where the fence behind the State Duma building allows a glimpse of the modestly sized Troyekurov Palace, a rare surviving example of a seventeenth-century boyar's townhouse.