Nikitsky Gate Square

Nikitsky Gate Square, Nikitsky Gate (name from the 18th century), is a square in the Presnensky district in the Central Administrative District of Moscow. The square is located at the Boulevard Ring and Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street intersection.

The name of the square, as well as the adjacent boulevard and streets, comes from the Nikitsky Gate, one of the 11 gates of the White City. In turn, the Nikitsky Gate got its name from the Nikitsky Monastery.

The Nikitsky Gates was once the center of the Latin Quarter of Moscow, so named because of the nearby Moscow University, where, before the reforms of M.M. Kheraskov, teaching was conducted mainly in Latin (or in German) and only at the end of the 18th century switched to Russian language. The territory of the Nikitskaya Student Sloboda, where students of many generations lived and studied, stretched from the university buildings on Mokhovaya Street to Nikitsky Gates, Malaya Bronnaya Street, Patriarch Ponds and Kozikhinsky Lane, where there were inexpensive tenement houses.

Adjoining streets

Bolshaya Nikitskaya street. It connects Manezhnaya Square with Kudrinskaya Square, passing through Nikitsky Gate Square from east to west. The length is about 1.8 km.

Malaya Nikitskaya street. It connects the Nikitsky Gate Square with the Garden Ring. The length is about 0.8 km.

Tverskoy boulevard. It was the first boulevard of the ring, following the contour of the walls of the White (Tsarev) city. It connects Nikitsky Gate Square with Pushkinskaya Square. The length is about 0.9 km.

Nikitsky boulevard. It is part of the Boulevard Ring. It connects the Nikitsky Gate Square with the Arbatskaya Square. The length is about 0.5 km. It was laid around 1820 on the site of the former wall of the White City.

Notable buildings

Church of the Ascension, also known as the “Big Ascension” (Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 36), was built on a site that has long been used for Orthodox worship.

Rotunda Fountain “Natalia and Alexander. On June 6, 1999, on the day of the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin, the Natalya and Alexander Rotunda fountain was opened in memory of his wedding with N. N. Goncharova.

The Temple of St. Theodore the Studite is located just south of the square (Nikitsky Boulevard, 25a / Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 29).

Theater “At the Nikitsky Gate.” The house on the corner of Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street and Nikitsky Boulevard (Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 23/9) was built around 1820.

The building of TASS (Information Telegraph Agency of Russia) on Leontievsky Lane, 1, was built in 1977 according to the project of architects V. S. Egerev, A. A. Shaikhet, Z. F. Abramova, and G. N. Sirota.

The monument to the Russian natural scientist Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev was erected in 1923 as part of Lenin’s plan for monumental propaganda. The authors of the monument are the sculptor S. D. Merkurov and the architect D. P. Osipov.