Why Novy Arbat was built through the old lanes

Novy Arbat was laid out north of Stary Arbat as a broad route west out of the city centre. The older street, lined with substantial buildings, was considered difficult to widen, while traffic heading west was increasing. The route was proposed in the 1935 General Plan, but the avenue itself was built mainly in the 1960s. It cut through existing blocks and replaced some of the lanes and Sobachya Ploshchadka.

The records allow us to trace the sequence of planning, road construction and losses, but it cannot be reduced to a single date or a single figure for demolished houses. The disappearance of Sobachya Ploshchadka, the construction of the bridge and the development along the river took place at different stages.

What was the site of Novy Arbat like before the avenue was built?

Between the Arbat Gates and the Garden Ring, there was no empty corridor for a new avenue. North of Stary Arbat stood estates, rental properties, gardens and public buildings along narrow streets. Published on the Moscow city portal, an expert study describes a network of small blocks with predominantly low-rise buildings.

An article in «Moscow Heritage» lists the streets that led to Sobachya Ploshchadka: Krechetnikovsky, Durnovsky, Borisoglebsky, Sobachy, Bolshoy Nikolopetrovsky and Maly Nikolopetrovsky lanes, and Bolshaya Molchanovka. The square already appears on a map from 1818, although researchers differ on when it was established. The map confirms that the square existed by then, but does not establish the date of its founding.

Sobachya Ploshchadka linked several lanes. The avenue replaced it, cutting off the old routes between neighbouring blocks.

On the western side, the historical picture was more varied. Near Novinsky Boulevard stood early 20th-century apartment buildings, Prince Sergei Shcherbatov’s house and the Church of the Nine Martyrs of Cyzicus, alongside buildings from different periods. Historical and cultural expert assessment report shows that some of these buildings survived, some had additional storeys added, and property boundaries became difficult to distinguish after the avenue was built. The claim that “the whole of Arbat was demolished” is mistaken: the original street remained in place, while most of the losses were in the blocks to its north.

What do the map and photograph of Sobachya Ploshchadka show?

‘Moscow Heritage’ publishes a 1914 photograph by E. V. Gautier-Dufayer from the Moscow City Heritage Department’s documentary archive. It shows low-rise houses and the open space of Sobachya Ploshchadka before the area’s major redevelopment. The photograph confirms that the square existed and shows what its buildings were like at that time; it does not show the full routes of all the adjoining lanes. For that, it must be compared with a street map.

An archaeological assessment of the site near 11 Novy Arbat also points to the area’s longer history. Maps from the 18th century already show its main streets and lanes; in the 19th century, large aristocratic estates were subdivided, their gardens shrank, and their courtyards became more densely built up. By the early 20th century, apartment buildings with ground-floor shops stood alongside the old mansions. The blocks crossed by the avenue therefore reflected several periods of development, rather than a uniform “old Moscow”.

Are there any traces of the former neighbourhood beneath Novy Arbat?

Some historical evidence lies beneath the level of today’s façades. In the 2018 assessment report the site between Arbat, Novy Arbat, Serebryany Lane and Arbatsky Lane is classified as an area containing archaeological layers from the 17th-century palace settlements and the 16th–17th-century Zemlyanoy Gorod. This is the legal and archaeological status of a specific site; it does not mean that an entire former block survives beneath every building along the avenue.

The same report also gives the results of investigations nearby: during work in 1933–1934, cultural deposits measuring 0.75 to 1.2 metres deep were recorded in Serebryany Lane, and deposits of 2 to 2.5 metres on Arbatskaya Square. These measurements apply to those specific locations and help explain why modern construction projects require a separate archaeological assessment. They cannot be applied to the footprint of the vanished Sobachya Ploshchadka without excavations there.

Why did planners decide to build a new street instead of widening Old Arbat?

Documents from 1934 help explain why Novy Arbat was laid through the old lanes: planners sought a broad route westwards because the narrow roadway and substantial buildings made it difficult to widen the existing radial route. In an article by Alexei Meshkov, traffic and pedestrian counts are also provided. The main flows could then be diverted to a parallel route north of the existing street.

In the 1935 General Plan, what would become Novy Arbat formed part of the western radial road network. The decree was dated 10 July; a later historical and cultural assessment describes the proposed route from the Kremlin along Vozdvizhenka, through the Arbat lanes, to Mozhayskoye Highway. The plan included a bridge across the Moskva River and a route extending well beyond the section between the Boulevard and Garden Rings.

The route through the lanes was chosen because of the width required for the new road. The planned thoroughfare could not simply follow the bends and narrow widths of the old street network: a direct route westwards meant cutting across properties and established block boundaries. This conclusion comes from comparing the route shown in the documents with a plan of the buildings that stood there at the time. It does not rule out other possible designs, but it explains why the route ultimately chosen was so destructive to the neighbourhood.

What figures did the planners themselves give in 1934?

The Moscow Soviet’s planning office justified a new westward route on the grounds that Arbat lacked sufficient capacity. In his article “Reconstruction of the Arbat Radial Route” architect Alexei Meshkov noted that the carriageway of the existing Arbat radial route varied from 14 to 20 metres wide, while the total width of its streets ranged from 20 to 32 metres. In some narrow stretches, the tram tracks left room for just one lane of traffic. The new corridor was planned to have a width of 45 to 80 metres in different sections.

Meshkov described more than just the cars. In his survey, the pavements of Old Arbat varied from 2 to 6 metres in width, while numerous junctions with side streets slowed traffic. This matters when assessing the project: its authors argued that a parallel route was needed because of the combined demands of motor, tram and pedestrian traffic, rather than simply a desire to create a straight, imposing thoroughfare.

At peak hour, a 1934 survey recorded the following on both sides of Arbat Street: 582 vehicles and 8,480 pedestrians. The author included trams, buses, cars and lorries in the vehicle count. These figures cannot be used as statistics for New Arbat after it was built: they describe traffic on the old route in a particular historical survey and were cited by the planners as an argument for a new route.

For comparison, 564 vehicles and 5,040 pedestrians were recorded during the same hour on Kominterna Street, now Vozdvizhenka. Vehicle traffic was similar, but pedestrian numbers were considerably higher on Arbat. These measurements cover only two stretches of road at one time of day; they do not represent the entire western radial route. The difference explains why Meshkov paid attention to narrow pavements and frequent junctions, as well as vehicle traffic.

At the end of the same article, the author estimated the material value of the buildings to be demolished along the two thoroughfares at 20% of the cost of the proposed new construction. This was a calculation for the economic case made in 1934, not an independent assessment of the buildings’ historical value. He expected the construction of the metro to ease surface traffic, yet retained a separate radial route in the plan. These arguments reveal the planners’ reasoning; they do not measure the outcome after the avenue was built. Assessing that would require comparable traffic observations after it opened.

The published plan called for widening neighbouring Kominterna Street to 40 metres and Old Arbat to 32 metres, while giving New Arbat its own, wider cross-section. In Meshkov’s view, this would not solve the capacity problem: he proposed directing the main traffic flows onto a parallel route. The reasoning is clear: a partial reconstruction of the existing radial route was planned alongside the construction of a parallel one. All dimensions are given in the 1934 article and remain proposed figures.

Who proposed the route before the 1935 General Plan?

Plans for New Arbat predated the approved General Plan. Meshkov’s article was published in 1934; the caption to its design drawing names Alexei Meshkov, Ya. Doditsa and A. Tizenberg. The designers traced a new route from Arbatskaya Square through residential blocks, Sobachya Ploshchadka and Krechetnikovsky Lane to Bolshoy Novinsky Lane, then across a bridge still on the drawing board to Dorogomilovskaya Square. The digitised issue of the journal Architecture of the USSR allows this sequence to be checked against the designers’ own account.

Meshkov considered more than traffic capacity. His article envisaged buildings along the new thoroughfare that would be predominantly six to eight storeys high, 143,000 square metres of new housing along the route of New Arbat, and a square by the river measuring 140 by 200 metres. These were the specifications of the 1934 proposal; the later book-shaped office buildings and residential towers were not built to them.

In 1934, Meshkov described most of the buildings on Old Arbat itself as being of little value, while also identifying substantial buildings at its narrowest point as an obstacle to widening the street. A 2024 historical and cultural heritage assessment counts dozens of valuable historic buildings among the losses caused by the area’s redevelopment. The architect assessed the buildings to make the case for a future project, while the experts assessed the consequences of work already carried out; they were also examining different sites. These assessments establish neither the value nor the total number of buildings lost along the avenue’s route.

How did the 1930s scheme become a 1960s avenue?

The approved concept went through several stages before the familiar avenue took shape. A visually different design was prepared for the future route in 1940: a study on Moscow’s portal describes monumental buildings and a width of up to 80 metres for the section in question. This was not the ensemble of book-shaped buildings that was constructed later.

Construction at the western end of the future avenue began in the early 1930s, before Moscow’s General Plan was approved. A report on the block by Novinsky Boulevard dates the demolition of the Novinsky Monastery buildings and the construction of the Institute of Balneology on their site to this period. Architects A. Samoilov and S. Kharitonov positioned the building along the proposed route; it was later assigned the address 32 New Arbat. A heritage assessment of Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky Lane cites another example of advance planning: a studio school and a residential building for actors of the Vakhtangov Theatre, built in 1933–1935 to a design by Nikolai Kruglov, were positioned along a previously established building line. The school building was completed in early 1937, so work on a plan conceived before the General Plan continued after its approval. The Institute of Balneology has not survived. Thus, some plans had taken shape on the ground before the 1935 decree, although the completed avenue did not yet exist.

The Novoarbatsky Bridge was completed in 1957. The expert assessment report dates the start of work on the western thoroughfare to around that time, and its completion to 1972. An expert assessment of the block near Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky Lane dates the construction of high-rise buildings in the central section to 1962–1968. The different dates refer to different boundaries of the project.

This gap in time matters when interpreting the architecture. The interwar plan envisaged a grand, monumental setting, while the ensemble built in the 1960s relied on repeated large-scale forms, open façades and a long strip of services. The transport objective and the route remained the same, but the architectural language changed. An image of the 1935 plan should therefore not be presented as an exact blueprint for the buildings erected later.

How did plans for the avenue change before the book-shaped buildings were built?

Several distinct architectural schemes were proposed along the route. A 1940 design envisaged a monumental setting for the future avenue; a study by architectural historian Alexander Zmeul cites a critical discussion of plans for Novo-Arbatskaya Square in the contemporary journal Architecture of the USSR. The discussion concerned how the area by the bridge should welcome traffic arriving from Dorogomilovo. This design should not be taken as a depiction of the façades built in the 1960s.

Even after the bridge opened, the western road junction did not immediately take its final form. In 1957–1958, a Mosproekt design studio, with Mikhail Posokhin and Ashot Mndoyants among its architects, developed plans for housing on Novo-Arbatskaya Square. According to Zmeul’s research, one proposal featured nine-storey buildings based on a modified section of the II-32 five-storey housing design, with shops on the ground floor. The archival models and magazine illustrations he published show a different, more enclosed perimeter for the site.

The report on Kutuzovsky Prospekt records the administrative sequence: in 1957, Bolshoy Novinsky Lane and the Novoarbatsky Bridge formed part of Kutuzovsky Prospekt. In late 1963, the stretch between the Garden Ring and the Moskva River was incorporated into the new western thoroughfare; the central section between the Boulevard Ring and the Garden Ring, with its book-shaped buildings, took shape later. Therefore, the year the bridge opened does not mark the completion of the architectural ensemble.

Meshkov referred to Novy Arbat in his 1934 plan; the name “Novoarbatsky Prospekt” appeared in 1962, the thoroughfare became Kalinin Prospekt in 1963, and the name “Novy Arbat Street” was established in 1994, as shown by the historical background in the report on Building No. 2. When comparing these names with the address of the present-day building, first establish the date of the document and the boundaries of the section it refers to. A change of place name does not, in itself, mean that another street was built.

By 1963, when the main section of the avenue was being designed, planners were considering a loose arrangement of large buildings near Novo-Arbatskaya Square in place of a continuous frontage of residential buildings. A plan published at the time in the journal “Construction and Architecture of Moscow” already shows the buildings along the thoroughfare and the site of a future landmark building by the river. A comparison of the plans in Zmeul’s study helps explain the change without speculating about any one architect’s personal taste: the design of the western junction itself had changed.

In September 1962, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance decided to establish its headquarters in Moscow; design work on the complex by the bridge began in March 1963. According to archival minutes published by Zmeul, the city planning council selected a design with two curved wings joined by a central block on 14 August that year. The study dates the completion of construction to December 1970. That is a separate point in the timeline, rather than the date when the entire street was laid out.

Which lanes disappeared during the construction of Novy Arbat, and what survived?

The section of the thoroughfare between the Boulevard Ring and the Garden Ring absorbed Sobachya Ploshchadka: this is stated explicitly in historical and cultural expert assessment. In his 1934 plan, Alexei Meshkov routed the future thoroughfare through this junction and Krechetnikovsky Lane; ‘Moscow Heritage’ shows it on an 1818 plan and lists the streets that led into it, including Sobachy Lane. After construction, large buildings cut off many connecting streets, as described in the assessment of the neighbouring block. The extent of what was lost in each case should be checked against historical plans and a modern map.

The neighbouring routes changed in different ways: in some places buildings disappeared, while elsewhere connections to the opposite side of the avenue were severed. A report on the block by Novinsky Boulevard describes the loss of the southern sector and the near-total disappearance of the old property boundaries. These findings apply to the area studied; they cannot be extended to the whole of Novy Arbat without comparing maps.

During the redevelopment of the site beside the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance building, Novinsky and Maly Devyatinsky Lanes were removed; both are listed in the assessment report for the block. The history of this western stretch should be distinguished from that of Sobachya Ploshchadka, between the Boulevard Ring and the Garden Ring: here, a road leading to the bridge was built at the same time as a large public complex.

In the block near the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance building, the monastery buildings did not all disappear at once. A 2024 assessment report states that the main buildings of Novinsky Monastery were dismantled in the early 1930s to make way for the Institute of Balneology, while the last remnants were demolished during construction of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance complex. Buildings from other periods survived in the same block, including the late 17th-century Church of the Nine Martyrs in Bolshoy Devyatinsky Lane. Attributing the monastery’s entire demolition to the construction of a single major road would conflate two phases of the area’s redevelopment.

Some historic buildings also survived near Novy Arbat. For example, a historical and cultural assessment published on the City of Moscow portal describes the 17th-century Church of St Simeon the Stylite on Povarskaya Street alongside buildings from other periods. The broad thoroughfare changed the church’s surroundings; it would therefore be wrong to say that the entire area was demolished.

At the western end of the avenue, a 2024 assessment report identifies two periods among the surviving buildings: estate houses from the late 18th and 19th centuries, including those at 11a, Building 1, and 17 Novinsky Boulevard, and early 20th-century apartment buildings, including those at 11 and 13 Novinsky Boulevard. The assessment also records the near-total loss of the old property boundaries. The survival of individual houses does not mean the block as a whole has been preserved: its former properties, passageways and the scale of its surroundings have changed.

What happened near Arbat Gates and Povarskaya Street?

The eastern part of the avenue shows that entire corners of historic blocks were lost, as well as individual houses. An assessment of the area near Povarskaya Street states that, during the construction of Kalinin Avenue in the 1960s, part of a property at the junction of Povarskaya Street and Merzlyakovsky Lane was cut away and a mid-18th-century pharmacy building was demolished; the southern corner of a neighbouring plot was also cut away. This changed the shape of the junction.

By the expert assessment, the Central Telephone Exchange building at 2 Novy Arbat occupied the site of two city blocks; its archway preserved a passage to Merzlyakovsky Lane. Sources differ on the year it was built: a Moscow document gives 1969, Archi.ru — 1965, while «Moskvich Mag» — 1967. By May 2022, the old House of Communications had been demolished. The company working on the site, reported in September 2025 that the through passage still led to the same street. A new archway was built into the hotel; the lane’s alignment has been preserved, but the 1960s building is gone.

Examining the block helps distinguish the different reasons streets disappeared. Chashnikov Lane, which had previously divided a plot near Povarskaya Street, was removed in 1956, before the central section of Novy Arbat was laid out; its land was later incorporated into the school site. The south-eastern corner of the same block was cut away during construction of the avenue in the 1960s. Both events are dated in the same document. Without checking this, the removal of Chashnikov Lane could mistakenly be attributed to construction work in the 1960s.

The report also notes that the old layout remains largely intact in the western part of the block studied: estate ensembles and rental building complexes from the 19th and early 20th centuries survive here. The streets bordering the block have changed little, apart from the corner that was cut away; the boundaries between individual properties have changed more substantially. To assess what has been lost, it is necessary to distinguish between the building line, the outer boundary of the area and each individual property.

Why are buildings from different eras visible at the western end of the avenue?

Near Novinsky Boulevard, a building already stood along the future route; it was later incorporated into the avenue’s streetscape. In 1948, a residential building was constructed for staff of the Ministry of Foreign Trade at what is now 30/9 Novy Arbat. The assessment report names the architects Vladimir Kurochkin and Nikolai Khokhryakov. This earlier building established the planned building line before the book-shaped towers appeared.

According to the expert assessment report, extra storeys added in the 1940s and 1950s altered the original façades of some rental apartment buildings on Novinsky Boulevard. When comparing historic photographs of this stretch, it is important to distinguish three processes: demolition to make way for the thoroughfare, early additions of extra storeys and later alterations. Similar changes to a building’s silhouette can have different causes.

How are the book-shaped buildings and residential towers arranged?

The book-shaped buildings and towers of Novy Arbat form two separate rows. On the odd-numbered side stand four high-rise administrative buildings; on the even-numbered side are residential towers, with retail and public-use structures between them. The addresses of the two rows are listed in the expert assessment report: for the book-shaped buildings, 11, 15, 19 and 21 Novy Arbat; for the towers, 10, 16, 22 and 26. The repeated forms set the rhythm of the avenue, while the gaps between them keep the side streets in view.

Mikhail Posokhin, Ashot Mndoyants, Gleb Makarevich and other architects worked on the high-rise development project. The assessment report describes how the Novy Arbat shopping and services complex replaced the old neighbourhoods and names its architects: R. Zakharyan, O. Spiridovich, I. Polyakov and M. Sherstneva. Separate buildings for shops and public facilities were placed alongside the administrative buildings and residential towers. A traffic tunnel and the Khladotsentr refrigeration centre were built on the Sredny Nikolopeskovsky Lane side; their construction required the demolition of buildings in the southern part of the block. This reveals the cost of the new service infrastructure behind the avenue.

The repetition of the book-shaped buildings and towers makes the street’s design easier to appreciate in motion. Their similar forms create a sequence, while the gaps between them reveal views of neighbouring buildings. This observation about the avenue’s composition is not a judgement on the old neighbourhoods. Replacing the fine network of lanes with large buildings changed the scale of the area and cut off some former routes, as recorded in heritage protection reports.

At the western end of the ensemble stands the former Council for Mutual Economic Assistance building. The assessment dates the complex to the 1960s and names Vladimir Svirsky, Mikhail Posokhin and Ashot Mndoyants as its architects. Its two curved wings and the circular volume of its meeting hall differ from the straight rows of buildings in the central section. Even so, the building is part of the same redevelopment of the riverside area and the changes to the network of Novinsky lanes.

What changes when we compare the 1934 scheme with the avenue that was built?

Meshkov envisaged mainly six- to eight-storey residential buildings; the scheme that was built instead included high-rise administrative buildings, residential towers and an extensive shopping complex. The idea of a separate, wide thoroughfare survived from the 1934 plan, but its architecture and mix of uses changed. Meshkov’s model therefore does not depict the street built in the 1960s.

In in Radius Tour Bureau’s published report on the mini-tours it conducted in 2020 The passage from Old Arbat through the archway of the book-shaped building to New Arbat was chosen as the route’s thematic turning point. This tells us how that particular itinerary was structured; it does not establish historical dates. It captures the spatial contrast precisely: after the intimate scale of the side streets, visitors emerge onto the long line of the avenue and can compare two ways of organising the district.

How does the Comecon Building differ from the four book-shaped buildings?

The complex by Novoarbatsky Bridge closes the vista, while the four buildings on the odd-numbered side establish its repeating rhythm. In the Comecon design, two curved wings of the high-rise section are joined by a central block; the circular volume of the meeting hall stands beside the street. Zmeul’s study of the archival designs shows that both rectangular and triangular high-rise designs were considered in 1963. The composition eventually adopted was not the only possible solution.

The same study includes records of the city planning council meeting held on 14 August 1963. The document names Ashot Mndoyants and Vladimir Svirsky as the architects who presented the design; in a later expert review report Mikhail Posokhin is also named among the complex’s architects. These sources reflect different levels of involvement in a collaborative project. For the reader, the visible result matters more: the building by the bridge is set back from the designated building line and forms a distinct focal point at the western approach.

In 1980, the city planning council discussed expanding the Comecon complex and rejected proposals that would have disrupted the composition of the high-rise building and Kalinin Prospekt. That conclusion is recorded in the archival minutes cited by Alexander Zmeul. A decade after construction was completed, the designers were already treating the ensemble as an established whole.

Can the avenue be assessed separately from the neighbourhood that was demolished?

A full assessment must take both outcomes of the construction into account. New Arbat became a coherent ensemble of Soviet modernism and connected the city centre with routes to the west; at the same time, its construction erased a square, several lanes and parts of older blocks. The first is visible in the architecture and road layout; the second is documented in records of the Department of Cultural Heritage.

An expert assessment report on the block near Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky Lane shows the scale of change at one particular site: buildings survived only on the odd-numbered side of Kompozitorskaya Street, while the lanes adjoining the new thoroughfare became dead ends. This is the documented cost of a cohesive architectural composition. Assessing the ensemble that was built and accounting for the lost street connections require different kinds of evidence.

In short, Novy Arbat was cut through the lanes to provide a separate, wide route west out of the city. The line of a pre-revolutionary street was preserved, but the network of surrounding blocks was broken up; architects of the 1960s gave the new thoroughfare a rhythm of administrative buildings and residential towers. Comparing the documents with what survives today reveals both the transport vision behind the avenue and the cost of bringing it to life.

Novy Arbat is included in sightseeing tour of Moscow by car: as you drive along it, you can compare the thoroughfare’s straight alignment and rows of book-shaped buildings and towers with the history of the lanes described here. The exact route and whether a stop is possible depend on the chosen tour programme and traffic conditions.

Sources

1. Resolution on the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow, 10 July 1935 — Electronic Library of Historical Documents
2. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report on the Novy Arbat Area — Moscow City Portal
3. ‘Moscow Heritage’, No. 3 (57), 2018 — Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage
4. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report on 8 Novy Arbat — Moscow City Portal
5. Moscow sightseeing tour by car — Radius Tour Bureau
6. A. Meshkov, ‘Reconstruction of the Arbat Radial Route’, Architecture of the USSR, No. 12, 1934 — digital copy from the N. A. Nekrasov Library
7. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report on the Blocks near Povarskaya Street and the Beginning of Novy Arbat — Moscow City Portal
8. Alexander Zmeul, ‘Farewell to Comecon’: Archival Plans for Novo-Arbatskaya Square and the Comecon Complex — Archi.ru
9. Archaeological Expert Assessment Report on the Site at 11 Novy Arbat — Moscow City Portal
10. UNIQLO Opening on Novy Arbat: A Report on the Mini Tours — Radius Tour Bureau
11. State historical and cultural assessment report for the site at 14 Kutuzovsky Prospekt — Moscow City Portal
12. State historical and cultural assessment report for 2 Novy Arbat — Moscow City Portal
13. State historical and cultural assessment report on the Boris Shchukin Theatre School: the history of the neighbourhood and the construction of Novy Arbat
14. Moscow Architectural Council: hotel proposal for the site of the House of Communications, 2 Novy Arbat — Archi.ru
15. How a Soviet telephone exchange became a hotel: the transformation on Novy Arbat — KTB Group of Companies
16. Construction begins on a hotel on Novy Arbat, for which the House of Communications was demolished — Moskvich Mag, 7 May 2022