Old Arbat, Moscow

Old Arbat is one of the oldest historic streets in the city, with its name first recorded in 1493. Over the centuries, the area changed from a district associated with craftsmen, merchants, and trade into a fashionable residential quarter inhabited by noble families and, later, by writers, artists, actors, and musicians. In 1986, Arbat became a fully pedestrian street, one of the earliest major pedestrian zones of its kind in the country.

Much of Arbat’s character comes from its mixture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century buildings and its associations with Russian cultural figures. Alexander Pushkin rented rooms here in 1831 and brought his wife, Natalia Goncharova, to the house after their wedding; they spent the first months of their married life there. The building now houses the Pushkin Memorial Apartment. Poet and songwriter Bulat Okudzhava also had strong personal and literary ties to the Arbat, which appeared repeatedly in his work. A monument unveiled in 2002 near the house where he spent part of his childhood depicts him within a stylized Arbat courtyard. Today, the pedestrian street contains cafés, restaurants, souvenir shops, cultural venues, small museums, and street performers. Among its best-known landmarks are the Vakhtangov Theatre, whose history at its Arbat building dates to 1921, the Pushkin Memorial Apartment, and the Okudzhava Monument.

Together with the varied historic façades and public sculptures, these sites make the Arbat a compact area for exploring several layers of literary, theatrical, and urban history.