Patriarshiye Ponds (Patriarch's Ponds, русский. Патриаршие пруды), nicknamed Patriki (Шаблон:Lang), is an affluent residential area in downtown Presnensky District of Moscow, Russia. For the last 200 years, there has been only one pond, although, as the name of Tryokhprudny Pereulok (Шаблон:Lang, lit. Three-Pond Lane) suggests, there used to be more. The area of the existing pond is Шаблон:M2 to ft2; the depth is about two meters. Because of the area's proximity to Tverskaya Street business district, the area is popular with expatriates.Шаблон:Fact
The area is named after the seventeenth century Patriarch's Goat Sloboda (Патриаршая Козья слобода) located on the Goat Marsh (Козье болото). This marsh once connected by a brook to the Presnya River west; by 1739, when the first topographic map was compiled, the brook disappeared and the marsh separated from Presnya. People considered the swamp as an anomalous zone; apparently this caused a proverb "Фома поспешил, да людей насмешил – увяз на Патриарших" ("Thomas has hastened, but made people laugh - he sticked in Patriarshy").
The pond acquired its present shape and was cleaned up in 1830-1831, a part of a plan to rebuild Moscow after the Fire of 1812. The buildings around the pond were wooden; stone construction proceeded slowly through the second part of nineteenth century. In winters, the Russian Gymnastic Society operated a skating rink on the frozen pond.
At the turn of the century, cheap rental buildings around the pond were occupied by the University students. During the December 1905, the area was held by left-wing student militia and became a war zone. The Ponds also housed Moscow's first hospital for children (the Filatov Hospital, which later relocated to nearby Garden Ring).
Mikhail Bulgakov and his wife lived in this area in the 1930s.
From the later 1930s to the 1950s, the lowrise buildings were
torn down. The two most important Soviet-era buildings constructed
were , a luxurious residence for Red Army Marshals (1945, designed
by Zholtovsky workshop) and the 1935 , a yellow postconstructivist
high-rise by Vladimir Vladimirov (the building, conceived by
Panteleimon Golosov, was completed in part. See
original design). The boathouse on the ponds was built in wood
in 1946. It was not until the 1980s that it was rebuilt in
stone.
In 2000-2002, the controversial
Patriarch Apartments were built (design by Sergei Tkachenko);
this 13-story building, crowned with a 1/50 scale model of Tatlin's
Tower is also known as Alla Pugacheva home.
The Pond is one of the main settings of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. Monuments to Bulgakov and to Ivan Krylov have been erected near the pond. The Master and Margarita begins with a tram accident by the pond. Although there was never any regular tram service or permanent tram tracks around the pond, for a short time in 1930s, there was a temporary service track used for night storage.