An Image of the Oprichniki from Pavel Lungin's "Tsar"
While life since the fall of Communism in 1991 has gotten more complicated for many Russians, it has gotten easier for visitors to Moscow. Amenities (like supermarkets and washers and dryers and even sponges, mops and other cleaning supplies) that weren’t so readily available just a decade ago are now everywhere. On the down side, it is many times more expensive. By some accounts, Moscow is among the most expensive cities in the world.
I can’t complain about my own apartment, which is quite comfortable and situated on a quiet historic street in between Prechistenka and the Arbat. The neighborhood, which is just beyond the Kremlin Walls, was set aside by the rulers of Muscovy in the 14th and 15th centuries for free citizens (Russians who were neither slaves, serfs nor nobles), who worked as servants and lower level functionaries at court (including stable hands, smiths, guards, coachmen, porters). They were joined in the sixteenth century by the violent and widely feared henchmen of Ivan the Terrible, the so-called “oprichniki.”
Residence of Alexander Herzen on Systev Vrazhek
After a fire in the early 17th century destroyed the neighborhood, its character changed. It became a favorite location for Russian nobleman. In general, they made their living from agriculture and lived most of the year on their estates (usad’by) in the country but came to the city to conduct business and to participate in the social “season”. Their presence in large numbers in small urban “estates” was established permanently following the Napoeonic invasion of 1812, in which Moscow was burnt to the ground and subsequently redeveloped. Many of Russia’s most important nineteenth and early twentieth century writers came from this milieu and lived within a few hundred yards of my apartment. Consequently, I have some interesting neighbors.
Plaque Marking the Herzen Residence
Lev Tolstoy's Residence
Alexander Pushkin Slept Here