BELIYAGOROD "WHITE TOWN"

Micha Jelisavcic
John Sloan

Outside the Kremlin and Kitai Gorod was the Beliya Gorod or White City. To protect the people who lived in the White Town, the name given to the section of Moscow outside of the Kremlin and the Kitai Gorod from foreign invaders, during the reigns of Fedor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov, another fortified stone wall with 28 towers was built around the entire area. Moscow continued to grow, and the wall became obsolete. A good part of it was demolished during the reign of Elizabeth I. Catherine II ordered its complete elimination, and turned the space where the wall had stood into new avenues. This semi-circular ring is now known as the Boulevard ring. Not knowing what to do with the bricks and stones of the remains of the old wall, the governor of Moscow, Zakhar Grigorevich Chernishev, decided to build himself a mansion. It was erected in 1782 and though it is not certain, the design for it was ascribed to Kazakov. A few years later Chernishev sold the mansion to the government, and it has since become the official residence of Moscow governors. The residence has since been remodeled and enlarged several times. After the revolution the residence became the city hall, and with the increase in bureaucracy an annex was built behind it in the thirties; finally, in 1945, it received another floor. So very little, if anything, is left from Kazakov's time. The outer wall of this horseshoe shaped section is now converted into the Boulevard Ring from the Moscow River near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior around to the Yauza River. Among the ancient structures in this part of Moscow is the 14th century Rozhdestvensky convent whose wall is at the Boulevard ring. At Telegrafniya Pereulok is the Church of the Archangel Gabriel, built by Ivan Zarudny in 1704-7. Peter's right-hand-man, Alexander Menshikov, wanted to make the tower of this church the tallest in Moscow. He put a spire on it. Peter said he liked it so much he took it off and sent it to top the Admiralty building in St Petersburg. Nevertheless the Menshikov tower remained the second highest building in Moscow.
Among the oldest established monasteries in Moscow was the Vysoko-Petrovsky, founded by Dmitri Donskoi in the then village of Vysoko as one of the fortresses ringing the city. It was rebuilt by Vasilii Ivanovich who added three churches. It was the family church of the Naryshkin's Peter's mother's family. Eventually it lay within the city as the new wall passed right by it. The main structures are in good condition now on Petrovka Street and house a literature museum.