Moscow Guide
The Kitay-gorod
Nikolskaya ulitsa
Running off from Red Square either side of GUM are the two main thoroughfares of the Kitay-gorod, Nikolskaya ulitsa and ulitsa Ilinka. Named after the St Nicholas Gate of the Kremlin, facing the end of the street, Nikolskaya ulitsa bustles with shoppers emerging from GUM, yet despite its prime location and fetching pre-Revolutionary buildings, its tone is set by cheap eateries such as Drova and far-from-glamorous shops, with a handful of historic monuments and a clandestine subculture of its own.
On the left-hand side, the iron gateway of no. 9 leads into a shadowy courtyard harbouring the remains of the Zaikonspasskiy Monastery. Founded in 1600, the monastery supported itself by selling icons on the street outside – hence its name, "Behind the Icon of the Saviour". In 1687, its seminary was converted into Russia's first institution of higher education, the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy, where the "Russian Leonardo", Mikhail Lomonosov, later studied. Now slowly being restored, the monastery's cathedral has a red-and-white octagonal belltower crowned by a gilded finial, linked to the adjacent monks' quarters by an overhead arcade.
It's indicative of how many monasteries there were in Moscow that just up the road and around the corner is the Monastery of the Epiphany. Its hulking Epiphany Cathedral (Bogoyavlenskiy sobor) is decorated with crested nalichniki and an intricate cornice, while the crimson-and-white belltower is inset with mosaic portraits of saints, and topped by a gilded dome. Although the cathedral was constructed in the 1690s, the monastery itself was founded by Prince Daniil in the thirteenth century, making it the second oldest in Moscow. Now fully restored, the cathedral not only holds services, but also occasional bell-ringing concerts.