Theatre District

Theatre Square, Teatralnaya metro station

The first public theater, Petrovsky Teatr, was set up in 1780 by English entrepreneur Michael Maddox and Prince Urusov in present-day Theatre Square. It burned down in October 1805 after 425 successful shows.^[9] In 1825, Joseph Bove built a new, larger Bolshoi Theatre on the same site. By this time, downtown stretch of the Neglinnaya River was contained in a tunnel; Peter's bastions of Kitai-gorod were razed, forming the Theatre Square. In the same 1825, landowner Vargin built Maly Theatre on his own adjacent lot. For the first five years, the State leased the building from Vargin; he was later convicted of fraud and the State bought out the building in 1832.^[10] Owners of the opposite land lots were obliged to build houses exactly like Maly Theatre, forming a symmetrical neoclassical square with a parade ground and water fountain. The symmetry was eventually ruined by expansions in the 1870s, which added the third theatre—originally Bronnikov private theater (now Molodyozhny Theater).

Another historical hall, the Assembly of Nobility (now the House of the Unions) stands on the corner of Bolshaya Dmitrovka and Okhotny Ryad streets since 1790. The building, designed by Matvey Kazakov, was rebuilt externally, but the Pillar Hall inside it, famous for its acoustics, remains close to Kazakov's original design. When the State lifted the ban on private theatres in 1882, tradition continued with Moscow Art Theatre in Kamergersky Lane (1902–1909),^[11] Yermolova Theatre (1925), Hermitage (1883), and Aquarium (1898) park theatres, etc. Currently, Tverskoy District has nineteen repertory theatres, the Pillar Hall, Tchaikovsky Hall (1940), and Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard (originally Salamonovsky Circus, 1880, rebuilt in 1987–1989).

Industrial expansion

1907 Communal Club for working teenagers, funded by Nikolay Krotov, designed and managed by Alexander Zelenko and Stanislav Shatsky

Unlike Presnensky or Basmanny Districts, Tverskoy has, and always had, very few industrial properties. However, its northern part, beyond Garden Ring, developed into a working-class neighborhood in line with the 19th-century industrialization. Development began in the 18th century with the Butyrka prison (rebuilt to a castle shape in 1800).^[12] For the next hundred years, the territories around the prison were filled with farms and small wooden homes. Things changed with the construction of railroads—Smolensk railroad station was built in 1870; current building, known as Belorussky Rail Terminal, was completed in 1909. Savyolovsky Rail Terminal and Moscow Ring Railroad followed in the 1900s. Territories near the railroads were used for factories, cheap housing for workers followed soon.

Miusskaya Square, located three blocks from Belorussky Terminal, was a site of unusual urban development, a new center of blue-collar social life. In the course of one decade, 1904–1914, the city and private sponsors built Abrikosova Hospital and Nursery (1906),^[13] Junior High School (1912),^[14] Shanyavsky University (1913),^[15] kindergartens, and trade schools. Development of similar social hubs in other working districts lagged behind and terminated with World War I and Russian Revolution of 1917.

Modern history

Corner of Manege Square: extant National Hotel and demolished Intourist Hotel (1970–2002)

Redevelopment of Tverskaya Street began in the late 1920s with infill buildings like Ivan Rerberg's Central Telegraph (1927), and Grigory Barkhin's Izvestia building in Pushkin Square (1927). This was followed by demolition of Okhotny Ryad and Manege Square.

Major reconstruction of Tverskaya Street began in 1937 with demolition of Strastnoy Monastery and dozens of smaller buildings. Three buildings, including Savvinskoye Podvorye, Mossovet building, and the Eye Clinic, were spared from demolition and moved to new foundations farther from the street. As a result, Savvinskoye Podvorye is now completely locked inside a 1930s stalinist block. Another building, a print shop at Pushkin Square, was moved in the 1970s to make way for Izvestia expansion.^[16]

Design of the first stretch of new Gorky Street (the name of Tverskaya since 1935) was awarded to Arkady Mordvinov, 1929 graduate in architecture known for his ultra-left public statements. Mordvinov proved himself a good project manager, successfully testing so-called flow method of fast-track construction. By 1941, most of central Gorky Street was completed; the rest was built out after World War II.

Contemporary Old Believers murals near Belorussky Terminal^[17]

In the 1970s, the street acquired Brezhnev-era boxlike buildings of 22-story Hotel Intourist (1970, demolished in 2002^[18]) and smaller Minsk Hotel (1964, demolished in 2005) and New Izvestia building; less controversial pseudo-stalinist infill buildings followed in the 1980s and late 1990s. However, outside Tverskaya, historical buildings and neighborhoods were being demolished throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Many blocks in the Novoslobodskaya station area are already rebuilt as post-2000 highrises. The City has declared plans to reconstruct Pushkin Square and Belorussky Terminal Square with multi-level tunnels, shopping space, and parking,^[19] but those plans were later abolished with mayor resignation.

Population of Tverskoy District is traditionally affluent and educated, with a substantial share of foreigners (most of them are not included in official population count). Its ethnic mix, changing rapidly since the 1980s, has high shares of Tatars, Armenians and Jews; once-strong Ukrainian community has dispersed.^[20] Like all Central Okrug population, Tverskoy residents have life expectancy of three to four years higher than other Muscovites, attributed to better education and social status.^[21]