10 facts about Gorky Park, Moscow’s most famous park

Alexandra Guzeva

Aug 11 2023

10 facts about Gorky Park, Moscow’s most famous park — Legion Media

This is a beloved place for walks and sports, incredibly crowded both on weekdays and weekends; a place full of cafes, food courts, museums and young positive-minded Muscovites.

1. Occupies almost 220 hectares on the bank of Moskva River

Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure – that’s what this public space is officially called, with people simply calling it ‘Gorky Park’.

It’s located to the southwest of the center, stretching along the bend of the Moskva River.

The modern Gorky Park sprawls across almost 220 hectares of land, including large green spaces - Neskuchny Sad (‘Not Boring Garden’) and Vorobyovy Gory (‘Sparrow Hills’), as well as the Muzeon park of arts.

2. Began its history before the revolution

The history of Gorky Park began from Neskuchny Sad. In the 18th century, the country estates of noble Russian families were located there, along the right bank of the Moskva River – the Golitsyns, the Orlovs and the Trubetskoys. The estate of the latter was called ‘Neskuchnoye’.

It hosted grand gardens, where the capital’s nobility loved to take walks; different entertainment venues were made for them there. One after another, these estates were bought out by Nicholas I; in the 1820s-1830s, he created Neskuchny Sad and built a summer theater.

3. A ‘shop front’ for Soviet authorities

After the revolution, Neskuchny Sad was nationalized and opened for visitors. In 1923, it hosted the first large agriculture and craftsmanship exhibition, long before a separate park was built for it, presently known as VDNKh.

The ‘Machines and Tools’ pavilion, erected for the exhibition, survives to our day – a Constructivist building in the shape of a hexagon. Currently, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is undergoing a reconstruction (read about this museum below).

The planning of the future park was headed by avant-garde architect Konstantin Melnikov; other prominent innovating architects – El Lissitzky, Alexey Shchusev and Alexander Vlasov – also took part in the construction.

And the famous main entrance arch was designed by Georgy Shchyuko in the 1950s.

4. Designed not just for leisure but also for culture

On August 12, 1928, one of the first Soviet parks of culture and leisure was opened here. Cafes, dance and fitness grounds, hammocks – all the conditions for leisure were created for the working masses. Apart from that, they were supposed to spend their time there culturally.

Here, ‘spoken’ newspapers with the latest news were read to the proletariat; propaganda brigades delivered speeches, as well.

In 1934, the Green Theater under the open sky with a capacity of 20,000 people was opened, where musical, theater and circus performances were held.

5. Bears the name of the main Soviet author

In 1932, the park was renamed after main Soviet author Maxim Gorky – and this was uncharacteristically done during his lifetime.

On a side note, the still-living writer also didn’t appreciate the renaming of his native city Nizhny Novgorod to Gorky. During these years, Soviet authorities created a whole cult of personality around the name of Gorky, so other cities of the USSR saw streets, parks, as well as squares renamed with his last name.

6. The first parachute tower operated here

In the 1930s, the USSR saw a whole boom of parachuting; a unique building appeared in Gorky Park – a parachute tower. It was quite a popular attraction; anyone could descend from it with a parachute or in a spiraling chute, sitting on a special rug.

In the 1950s, the tower was disassembled, because it was deemed too hazardous; ironically, before that, such attractions had been promoted across the entire USSR and in other neighboring countries.

7. In the 1990s, an amusement park was opened here

For the first generation of children who were born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gorky Park was associated with cotton candy, donuts and – most importantly – with rides.

In the Soviet era, there were just simple carousels, but, from the 1990s and until the beginning of the 2010s, dozens of rides operated in the park – basically like a sort of local “Disneyland”.

A rollercoaster, a haunted mansion, the ‘Niagara’ water slide, flying cars, trampolines, scary towers with spinning gondolas, a bungee over a pond and much more. There were also two Ferris wheels in Gorky Park – one smaller and one larger.

8. Renovated in the 2010s

By the beginning of the 2000s, the majority of the rides were removed, the Soviet pavilions had fallen into disarray and the park was quite a sorry sight. From May 2011, a massive renovation began, over the course of which the park became one of the most trendy and modern places in the capital.

Landscape design, bike lanes, sports grounds, new cafes, the first co-working spaces and one of the first free public Wi-Fi zones appeared there.

9. The main Moscow skating rink

During winter, the park’s pathways were covered with ice for ice skating back in Soviet times, as well. But, in 2011, the largest skating rink in Europe with artificial ice (at the time) was constructed in the park. For the first time, people could ice skate without having to wait for negative temperatures; hence, the ice skating season lasted until the middle of March.

The total area of tracks and ice surface amounted to 15,000 square meters. Music, tents with tea and mulled wine, warm changing rooms and skate rentals supplemented the rink.

10. The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

In 2012, one of the most trendy and influential cultural institutions – the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, founded by Darya Zhukova and Roman Abramovich in 2008 – moved to Gorky Park. In many ways, it is this museum that is responsible for the “cultural leisure” Muscovites now experience in the park, conducting a broad number of exhibitions and lecture programs.

The museum is located in the former building of the ‘Seasons’ restaurant, which was built in 1968. It was renovated for the Garage Museum by famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his OMA office. He turned the practically ruined Soviet building into a modern museum, taking into great consideration the surviving details, incorporating them successfully into the new design. And an old Soviet mosaic mural became one of the features of the new museum.

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