According to legend, St. Sergius of Radonezh, glorified by N.M. Karamzin (Poor Liza drowned herself in this pond), buried in the 1920s.

From the newspaper "Moskvichka":

“Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost the whole of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to your eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheater... Below are lush, densely green, flowering meadows...”

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, the author of the story “Poor Liza,” presumably stood at the western wall of the Simonov Monastery, facing the Moscow River: only from here the panorama of Moscow opens to the right (“on the right side”), and only from here the Moskvorets floodplain could then be seen a carpet of dense green flowering meadows spreading under your feet.
From the Simonov Monastery, a once powerful fortress on the distant approaches to Moscow, alas! - only half of the southern wall, part of the western and several buildings. By the way, the southern wall is exactly what we will need in our search for Lizin’s pond.

Let's read Karamzin's lines again and take a look at the modern panorama - two centuries later...

There were many ponds in old Moscow. In 1872 there were about two hundred of them within the city limits, and a hundred years before that, presumably, even more. But a modest pond near the monastery walls in the southern suburbs of Moscow suddenly became the most famous pond, a place of mass pilgrimage for readers for many years.
“Several generations cried over the fate of poor Liza,” Karamzin’s biographer M.P. Pogodin wrote about this truly phenomenal phenomenon, “and she became dear to them.
The pond was called Saint, or Sergius, because, according to monastic tradition, it was dug by Sergius of Radonezh himself, the founder and first abbot of the Trinity Monastery on the Yaroslavl Road, which became the famous Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
The Simonov monks bred some special fish in the pond - size and taste - and treated it to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich when he, on his way to Kolomenskoye, stopped to rest in the chambers of the local abbot... A story was published about an unfortunate girl, a simple peasant woman, who ended her life not at all in a Christian way - with an ungodly suicide, and the Muscovites - for all their piety - immediately renamed the Holy Pond to Lizin Pond, and soon only the old inhabitants of the Simonov Monastery remembered the former name.

The author himself was surprised by the success of the story. “...I composed there (near the walls of the Simonov Monastery - A. Sh.) a very simple fairy tale,” he once remarked, “but so happy for the young author that thousands of curious people went and went there to look for traces of the Lisins.”

Alas! In the twenties of the last century, the pond became very shallow, overgrown, and became like a swamp. In the early thirties, during the construction of a stadium for workers of the Dynamo plant, the pond was filled in and trees were planted in this place...

Now the administrative building of the Dynamo plant rises above the former Liza Pond.
Having taken the metro to the Avtozavodskaya station, go up the escalator, cross the square via an underground passage, and you will find yourself right on the “shore” of Liza Pond - near the walls of the new factory building...”

July 4th, 2016 , 03:39 pm

The street in the factory industrial district has retained its doubly archaic name (sloboda is an outdated word, and even Leninskaya), but the street looks quite modern - everything that could be of local historical interest has been demolished or rebuilt. In ancient times, Simonovskaya Sloboda was a picturesque outskirts of Moscow, in late XIX centuries, a railway line reached here and factory workshops grew, and today the industrial component has given way to business centers and luxury housing.

Lysin Pond. 1913: https://pastvu.com/p/12263

Remembering the rural past of Simonova Sloboda, it is necessary to mention Lizin Pond - a small reservoir not far from the monastery. In 1792, Nikolai Karamzin described the beauty of these places in his story “Poor Liza”: “Go on Sunday... to the Simonov Monastery... there are many people walking everywhere... Not so long ago I wandered alone through the picturesque outskirts of Moscow and thought with regret : “What places! and no one enjoys them!”, and now I find society everywhere.” At the whim of the writer, the heroine of the story drowned herself in this pond, and soon a pilgrimage of literature lovers began to its shores. People who came here for a walk recognized the pond from the description in the story; it became famous and known as Lizin, and only monks and residents of the surrounding villages remembered its ancient origin (according to church tradition, the pond was dug by Sergius of Radonezh and the first monks of the monastery). On the “Plan of the Capital City of Moscow” of 1843 there is a double name for the reservoir - Sergievsky Pond Lizin, and later it was not called anything other than Lizin Pond. Its water was once considered healing, but residents of the growing Simonovskaya Sloboda polluted the pond so much that it became impossible to swim in it.

In 1930, the Proletarsky District Council ordered to fill up the pond, which was done, but not immediately, but over several years. The local newspaper Motor published an article in defense of the pond: “Since this pond is a flowing pond, they have been filling it up for three years, but they can’t fill it up. Now the pond is completely filled with clean water, clear water, even overflowing its banks. The pond has water-bearing springs, from which cold, completely drinkable water flows continuously, so it is impossible to fill it up. If you preserve it, you can breed fish and swim in it. I propose to preserve Lizin Pond by turning it into a swimming place. To do this, the following measures should be taken: clean the dirt and strengthen the banks. The initiators of this work should be the students of our factory, because the building of the factory is located on the shore of the pond, and it will be primarily used by factory students.” The authorities did not listen to the opinion of the working class, and later the administrative building of the Dynamo plant grew up on this site. You can learn more about the history of the pond on the website: http://moskva-yug.ucoz.ru/publ/2-1-0-79

Somewhere here was Lizin's pond

Based on the name of the pond, the Lizin deadlock, Lizin Slobodka, Lizin Square and the Lizinskaya railway line with the Lizino freight station appeared in the vicinity. Who would have thought that a railway station would be named after a poor girl from a sentimental novel? But this was one of the oldest industrial railway lines, opening in 1894.

Moving the Lizinskaya branch near the old Velozavodsky market. 1954: https://pastvu.com/p/111036 The warehouses of the former Eastern Joint Stock Company turned into the Velozavodsky collective farm market. In the background are houses on Avtozavodskaya Street.

The Lizino freight station, built in 1915, has survived to this day. It can be assumed that there was once a passenger service here, otherwise why build this two-story red brick building? Decades passed, the surrounding area was quickly built up with high-rise buildings and the Lizino station closed in 1957. Its buildings at the very beginning of Leninskaya Sloboda Street today house Women's Consultation No. 16, a branch of the City clinical hospital named after S.S. Yudin and an ambulance substation. The architect of the station is unknown; in the appearance of the façade, experts find similarities with the works of Pomerantsev and Shekhtel.

According to local residents, until recently, other historical buildings were preserved here - presumably stables. They were demolished in the spring of 2016 for the construction of an ambulance substation.

1956: https://pastvu.com/p/7785 The tracks ended at these warehouses - warehouses built in 1909. In the foreground is the old building of the current Masterkova Street, named in 1970 in honor of the fighter pilot Alexander Masterkov.

This site is now occupied by a multi-storey residential building.

The Lizinskaya branch has been dismantled, but the section between the Simonovo-Boinya freight stations has not yet been dismantled. The railway tracks lead from the gates of the Moscow oil depot on the very bank of the Moscow River to Simonovsky Val and further towards Dubrovka. Here you can see rusted arrows and service buildings.

Accident at the crossing. 1979-1980: https://pastvu.com/p/41364

Let's not stray so far from the main topic, a few words about residential development of the Soviet period. Leninskaya Sloboda, No. 4 - residential building.

Leninskaya Sloboda, No. 7, the house was built in 1924, the managers and employees of the Lenin oil depot lived here.

These gates have now been demolished to expand parking space.

Leninskaya Sloboda, No. 9 - a former school building, now the Financial and Treasury Department of the Southern Administrative District.

In 1897, the Central Electric Society was founded in Moscow, which produced electrical equipment in a semi-handicraft manner according to foreign standards. technical documentation. Later, the Moscow Electrical Machine-Building Plant “Dynamo” named after S.M. Kirov grew on its production base. This is one of the largest and oldest electrical machine-building enterprises in Russia, producing electrical equipment for the metro, trams and trolleybuses, equipment for lifting mechanisms and cranes, electric motors for the needs of the chemical, oil and gas industries, consumer goods.

The Church of the Nativity was located on the territory of the Dynamo plant Holy Mother of God in Stary Simonovo. Once upon a time, the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo, monks Alexander Peresvet and Rodion Oslyabya, were buried here. In the 18th century, while dismantling an old bell tower, builders came across a brick crypt, the floor of which was completely covered with tombstones without inscriptions, which meant that monks or warriors were buried under them. The sarcophagi of Peresvet and Oslyabi were discovered under the tombstones. In 1928, the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was closed by the Bolsheviks, and the cast-iron tombstone of the heroes of bygone times was sent for melting down.

Monument to Marat. 1919: https://pastvu.com/p/13576
Instead of Peresvet and Oslyabi, the Soviet government offered the townspeople new heroes and in 1919 erected a monument to Jean-Paul Marat, a talented journalist, publisher of the newspaper “Friend of the People”, one of the leaders of the Jacobins during the Great Patriotic War. french revolution. This sculpture was created by lawyer Mark Imkhanitsky, who was not a professional sculptor. By 1936, the monument had fallen into disrepair and was dismantled. The space in front of the old factory building was called Renaissance Square for some time, but the pretentious name was dissonant with the surrounding proletarian reality and did not take root.

"The Story of Perekop". 1934: https://pastvu.com/p/37884
Another decoration of the square was sculptural composition Innokenty Zhukov "The Story of Perekop". The front-line soldier in Budenovka had something to tell the pioneers: although General Wrangel’s army in the Crimea was inferior in number to the advancing Red Army troops under the command of Mikhail Frunze, the White Guards were in well-fortified positions and desperately resisted. In November 1920, at the cost of heavy losses, the Red Army broke into Crimea, Wrangel's troops retreated to the ports in order to leave their homeland forever on ships. The assault on Perekop became the last battle Civil War. Later, in the film “Two Comrades Served,” Oleg Yankovsky, Vladimir Vysotsky, Rolan Bykov will present a view of these events from both the Reds and the Whites.

Presumably, this sculptural composition was located here. As for the monuments to the leader of the proletariat, they simply could not help but be on Leninskaya Sloboda, but they have not survived to this day. For example, the bust of Lenin in the park of the medical unit of the Dynamo plant was either toppled or stolen.

Leninskaya Sloboda, No. 17. Former factory kitchen of the Dynamo plant, built in the 1930s.

Leninskaya Sloboda, No. 19 (photo above - 2007). The building was built before the revolution as a canteen for workers, during the First World War it was converted into an infirmary for the wounded, and then became the House of Culture of the Dynamo plant. Since 2003, the premises have been occupied by the Zona nightclub (art club Zona Versal). “On this territory, everything is possible: crazy and unrestrained dancing until you lose all connection with reality, sincere enjoyment of the vibrations of music in time with the pulsation of the bass beat, new amazing acquaintances for one night and for life,” says the club’s website. However, rave parties are specific gatherings for electronic music lovers and are not of interest to everyone. The establishment “has a strict dress code and strict face control.”

The industrialist Bari was one of the first to develop the lands of Simonova Sloboda, founding in 1893 the Forge and Boiler and Copper Foundry Mechanical Plant, which was renamed after the revolution into the State Boiler Plant "Parostroy". Alexander Bari was born in Russia, but had US citizenship. He founded the company “Technical Office of Engineer A.V. Bari”, where he invited him to the position of chief engineer and technical director his friend Vladimir Shukhov. The office provided technical services from drafting a project to its construction and soon became known in Russian Empire and abroad.

A few years later, the company produced the first sample of a new steam boiler designed by engineer Vladimir Shukhov. To establish mass production of effective steam plants, it was decided to build the A.V.Bari Boiler Plant enterprise. To build his Moscow plant, Bari leased three acres of Tyufeleva Dacha land from Pavel von Derviz, and later bought this plot. By 1894, the workshops were ready and production of riveted products, tanks, and boilers began.

Steam boilers Bari were in demand in Russia, but the company was not limited only to boilers and participated in many innovative projects of that time - the construction of oil pipelines and oil tanks, grain elevators, railway bridges, hyperboloid mesh towers. With the participation of the Construction Office of Engineer Bari, the Volga Oil Fleet was created, the Mytishchi water supply system was reconstructed, and construction of the Mytishchi Carriage Plant began.

At the A.V. Bari Boiler Plant, the owner introduced a “completely new system of working life”: wages were on average 10% higher than at other factories, while the working day was shorter, cabbage soup, porridge and bread were provided for lunch the owner's account, a paramedic was on duty at the enterprise, and workers from all over the area came to evening training courses. Despite liberal working conditions, proletarians took part in both the strikes of 1905 and the revolutionary events of 1917.

The buildings have been reconstructed and are used as a business center.

The heroine of Nikolai Karamzin’s novel “Poor Liza”

It is believed that it was in these places that the heroine of Karamzin’s novel “Poor Liza” once drowned herself. The pond was filled in long ago, and now the Avtozavodskaya metro station is located here. What did this shrine look like before the tragic 1930s?

The meadows were blooming

Until the beginning of the 20th century, on the site of residential areas and factories there were flooded meadows and forests, where the nobility loved to hunt. This is how Nikolai Karamzin described this area in his story “Poor Liza”: “But the most pleasant place for me is the place where the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Si...nova monastery rise. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost the whole of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to the eye in the form of a majestic amphitheater: a magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays glow on countless golden domes, on countless crosses ascending to the sky! Below are lush, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, along the yellow sands, flows a light river, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats.”

A lot of time has passed since then - on the site of the famous Liza Pond there is now one of the exits of the Avtozavodskaya metro station, where Tyufelev Grove was noisy, now there are ZIL buildings, and the meadows have turned into streets...

On the approaches to Moscow

According to legend, the monastery was founded in 1370 by the nephew of Sergius of Radonezh, Fedor, who in monasticism was named Simon (hence the name). In those days, here, a few kilometers from Moscow, there were impenetrable forests, which, however, soon turned into arable land. The new monastery entered the ring of defensive monasteries on the approaches to the capital. Their main task was to pull enemy forces away from the main fortress - the Kremlin. Over the years, the monastery was burned and destroyed more than once, and in Time of Troubles destroyed almost to the ground. However, each time the shrine was revived largely thanks to the help of influential nobles, as well as representatives of the royal family. Fyodor Alekseevich, co-ruler of Peter I, especially loved the Simonov monastery. He made large monetary deposits and even had his own cell there, where he spent time in prayer and fasting.

Decline and rebirth

However, over time, the significance of the monastery fell somewhat, and in 1771, by decree of Catherine II, the monastery was abolished and, in fact, abandoned. During the epidemic, a plague isolation ward was placed there. The same Karamzin describes this “vale of sorrow” as follows: “The winds howl terribly within the walls of the deserted monastery, between the tombs overgrown with tall grass, and in the dark passages of the cells. There, leaning on the ruins of tombstones, I listen to the dull groan of times, swallowed up by the abyss of the past - a groan from which my heart shudders and trembles. Sometimes I enter cells and imagine those who lived in them - sad pictures! Here I see a gray-haired old man, kneeling before the crucifix and praying for a quick release from his earthly shackles, for all the pleasures in life had disappeared for him, all his feelings had died, except for the feeling of illness and weakness.” But already in 1795 the monastery was revived, and life returned to it again.

In the Land of Soviets

The monastery was abolished for the second time in 1920, and a museum was opened in the monastery buildings. In exchange for the services of watchmen and cleaners, the church community was allowed to hold services in the desecrated cathedral. The buildings were even restored. However, in 1930, a special commission decided that most of the buildings of the former monastery were of no architectural value and should be urgently demolished. On the night of January 21, an explosion occurred - almost all the buildings turned to dust - the building materials were subsequently used to build residential buildings. The monastery cemetery was also wiped off the face of the earth - some workers did not hesitate to dig up graves and look for valuables, after which the bones were simply thrown away. But earlier, due to its high status, the necropolis served as the last refuge for eminent citizens. The poet Venevitinov, writers Sergei and Konstantin Aksakov, composer Alyabyev, collector Bakhrushin, associate of Peter I Fyodor Golovin, as well as representatives of ancient families - Zagryazhskys, Olenins, Durasovs, Vadbolskys, Soimonovs, Muravyovs, Islenevs, Tatishchevs, Naryshkins, Shakhovskys, Mstislavsky. Only the remains of Aksakov and Venevitinov were saved - now they rest in the Novodevichy cemetery.

Today's day

Only a few buildings of the Simonov Monastery have survived to this day. A piece of wall, two refectories, a drying room, a cell and one temple. The buildings are being gradually restored, but the tower is missing. We will try to remember what was in the monastery at the time of destruction.

Fedor Dyadichev,

photo by Oleg Serebryansky

Sergius Pond of Simonov Monastery

A lot has been written about Karamzin’s Lizin Pond. However, the early history of this reservoir was usually not considered, and there were many inaccuracies in its description.

The pond was located behind the Kamer-Kollezhsky Val, on the road leading to the village of Kozhukhovo, on a flat, elevated and sandy place, was surrounded by a rampart and lined with birch trees, and never dried out. It was about 300 meters in circumference, and the depth in the middle reached 4 meters. According to church tradition, which we have no reason not to trust, the pond was excavated by the hands of the first monks of the Simonov Monastery. The latter was originally founded in 1370 on the site of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Stary Simonovo by the nephew of Sergius of Radonezh, Theodore. According to legend, the Holy Elder, during his stay in Moscow, stayed in Simonovo. On one of his visits, together with Theodore (who is mentioned as the creator of the reservoir along with the Reverend) and the monks of the monastery, he dug a pond not far from the monastery (200 meters south of Old Simonov). In memory of this, the pond was called Sergievsky, sometimes - Saint. In the 19th century, the legend about the healing power of its waters was still fresh. Since ancient times, on the day of the Midsummer, the abbot of the monastery came here every year with a procession of the cross, in front of a gathering of people, to bless the water according to the general charter.

Probably, as a monastery pond since ancient times, the pond was left behind by Simonov after the secularization of the monastery lands in 1764. Archimandrite Gabriel reported to the Ecclesiastical Consistory in 1770 that near the pond in which fish are bred there is a monastery compound, fenced with a fence, with buildings and a cell for a watchman. People have been going to Sergiev Pond for healing for a hundred years before this time and more.

In 1797, Sergiev Pond was designated as unsuitable for fishing.

In 1792, having arrived from abroad and having gained “freethinking” there, N.M. Karamzin wrote the story “Poor Liza”. He was the first to point out the beauty of these places and open them to the public: “Go on Sunday... to the Simonov Monastery... there are many people walking everywhere... Not so long ago I wandered alone through the picturesque outskirts of Moscow and thought with regret: “What places! and no one enjoys them!”, and now I find society everywhere.”

From Karamzin’s story it turned out that Lisa lived in Simonova Sloboda (70 fathoms from the monastery, near a birch grove, in the middle of a green meadow) and drowned herself in a pond 80 fathoms from her hut. This pond was deep, clean, “fossilized in ancient times,” it was located on the road, it was surrounded by oak trees.

The birch forest is mentioned in the notes to the General Land Survey plans in the Simonova Sloboda dacha; birch trees also grew around the pond. Perhaps Karamzin had in mind Tyufelev Grove, which along the edge could consist of birch trees; it was located half a kilometer from the settlement. The green meadow near Simonova Sloboda is shown on plans throughout the 19th century.

N.D. Ivanchin-Pisarev wrote about the reception of Karamzin’s story: “not a single Writer, if we exclude Rousseau, has produced such strong action in the Public. In his leisure hours, having written a fairy tale, he turned the entire Capital to the environs of the Simonov Monastery. All the secular people of that time went to look for Lisa’s grave.” They recognized the description as a pond near the road. So Sergius Pond became Lizin’s, and only monks, pilgrims and residents of the surrounding villages began to remember its holiness.

Sergiev Pond. Drawing by K.I. Rabusa

Whether the quiet Elder was offended by Karamzin, great fame came to the writer, which, sometimes, he was not happy about. Someone even managed to get close to her: everywhere, when mentioning “Poor Lisa” and her perception by the public, they cite an inscription on one of the trees near the pond by an unknown author (in all sorts of variations):

Here Lisa drowned, Erast’s bride!

Drown yourself girls in the pond, there will be room for everyone!

Sergiev Pond. Early 20th century

To justify the fact that Karamzin “did not present the history of the monastery with enough respect,” Ivanchin-Pisarev said that at that time the historiographer was still young and dreamy and knew nothing about the sanctity of the pond. Ivanchin-Pisarev also cited another name for the reservoir - Lisiy (one history buff told him about this).

Over time, they began to forget about “Poor Lisa”. In 1830, the monk told one old admirer of Karamzin, already on the secluded shore of the pond, that once all of Moscow came here, looked for a collapsed hut and asked where Liza lived.

In 1833, in the Telescope, an anonymous author related legends told to him by a hundred-year-old old woman (there is a lot of truth in them), probably dating back to the end of the 17th - 18th centuries. In her memory, the old people said that near the pond there was a monastery hotel for wanderers, with a cross above the door, pilgrims stayed there for free, there were tall oak trees near the pond (matches Karamzin’s description), and near the wall of the monastery there was a cherry orchard (the garden is shown on the General Land Survey plan ). “Planted, tagged” fish were allowed into the pond (fish were actually bred there in the 18th century). The banks of the pond were fenced with rails; there was a passage across the pond on stilts, all covered with glass frames. The author argued that even today the surrounding villagers point to the healing power of the waters of the pond and one can often meet a sick woman on the shore who has come to swim. “I must not forget the old woman’s superstitious story,” he wrote, “about the purity of its waters and its woeful horror, that the shrine was desecrated by the villainous comedians with a fable about a murderer. This is how the poet’s inventions are reflected dramatically among the people!” The author found a pond still full of water, a dried oak tree and several birch trees, mutilated with inscriptions. Behind the pond are the remains of a “hotel”, which many took for Lisa’s hut. Here he found Peter's money. “The nest of greenery, nurtured by the quiet labor of the monks, was abandoned to the plunder of both people and time,” he summed up.

The remains of Lisa's supposed hut are mentioned in other memoirs. They were obviously the remains of a destroyed courtyard for the guards at the pond.

As for the luxurious passage, it could have existed during the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The latter stayed at the monastery several times and lived there during fasting periods. There is also a legend that fish were specially bred for him in the Sergievsky Pond.

M.N. Zagoskin in 1848 wrote about Lizin’s pond, which still had birch trees with barely noticeable inscriptions that it looked more like a rainy puddle.

In 1871, Archimandrite Eustathius asserted that the Simonov Monastery sacredly honors traditions and every year on the day of Midsummer the abbot marches with a procession to Sergius Pond, and on recent years with a large icon of Sergius of Radonezh. The pond is always clean and local residents They don’t dump garbage there, but take water from it; there are crucian carp in the pond.

In the 19th century, the land near Sergius Pond (130 fathoms) was leased to surrounding peasants for vegetable gardens, with the condition that the owners would not interfere with the religious procession taking place on the day of Midsummer. At the beginning of the 20th century, this land became the object of housing construction for the expanding Simonova Sloboda (the resulting settlement was called Malaya Simonova Slobodka). The surrounding residents polluted the pond so much that it was no longer suitable for swimming.

“The temple itself and the fossil Ave. Sergius Pond, they get lost behind awkward houses, the builders of which had one goal, to get as much benefit as possible from the poor factory workers...” wrote the priest of the church on Stary Simonovo.

View of Simonova Sloboda. Until 1893. Lizin Pond is visible in the upper left corner

Time has changed, and history has changed. According to the recollections of the workers of Simonovka, on the pond, which shone like a mirror in winter, and where children skated, the famous “walls” began: residents of Simonova Sloboda met with residents of Lizina Sloboda (Cat) on fist fight, after which the ice was stained with blood.

Lizin Pond, from a place of pilgrimage for Karamzin’s fans, became a place of workers’ gatherings (and the underground workers lived right next door), which were held here in 1895 and 1905.

After the revolution, Lizin Pond, apparently, was a pitiful sight. S.D. Krzhizhanovsky wrote: “I boarded tram number 28 and soon stood next to a black, fetid puddle, pressed into a round spot on its slanting banks. This is Lizin Pond. Five, six wooden houses, turning their backs to the pond, dirty things right into it, filling it with sewage. I turned my back abruptly and went: no, no, quickly back to the land of the Nets.”

The pond, according to an old-timer, was filled up in the early 30s of the 20th century; at the end of the 1970s, the administrative building of the Dynamo plant began to be erected in its place. We managed to find new facts. It turns out that the reservoir existed back in 1932, when the FZU building already stood on its shore. At this time, the water in it was clean, the springs fed it, and it was difficult to fall asleep. So the worker S. Bondarev put forward a proposal to preserve Lizin Pond. “All residents of Leninskaya Sloboda know Lizin Pond well,” he wrote in the Motor newspaper, “which was recently good source. The guys swam in it and came to it to breathe fresh air. In 1930, the Proletarsky District Council ordered the final filling of Lizin Pond. But since this pond is flowing, they have been filling it up for three years, but they can’t fill it up. Now the pond is completely filled with clean, clear water, even overflowing its banks. The pond has water-bearing springs, from which cold, completely drinkable water flows continuously, so it is impossible to fill it up. If you save it, you can breed fish and swim in it. I propose to preserve Lizin Pond by turning it into a swimming place. To do this, the following measures should be taken: clean the dirt and strengthen the banks. The initiators of this work should be the students of our factory, because the building of the factory is located on the shore of the pond, and it will be primarily used by factory students.” What kind of reaction there was to the article is unknown. The pond was finally filled in.

In addition to Lizino Pond, there were: Lizin Dead End leading to the pond, Lizin Slobodka nearby, Lizinskaya railway line with the Lizino freight station, Lizin Square (to the south of Lizin Pond, between the pond and the railway line).

And here everything would seem clear. But in the second half of the 19th century, when memory began to weaken, a desire arose to change history. I wanted Sergiev Pond to not be Lizin’s. Archimandrite Eustathius, who published several brochures about the Simonov Monastery, wrote that the monastery was founded near a tract called by the chronicler (it is unknown which one) Bear Lake, or Fox Pond. This lake, according to him, was later renamed by the villagers to Postyloye as it was already swampy. Eustathius asked not to confuse Sergius Pond with Bear Lake. Based on the consonance, it turned out that the Fox Pond is Lizin.

What kind of pond was described by Karamzin, where was Sergius Pond located and what pond was called Lizin?

Lake Postyloye was located 2 km from the monastery, behind the Tyufeleva Grove; there were other lakes there. They clearly do not fit the description of Karamzin’s pond: his pond was located 80 fathoms from Liza’s hut, and was excavated in ancient times (lakes were natural reservoirs). The name Bear Lake could not be found among local toponyms. It is not clear where Eustathius got it from. Passek and Ivanchin-Pisarev, for example, say nothing about this, and the latter definitely indicated that Lisiy is the second name of Sergius Pond. Was the archimandrite mistaken? The point is that there is still end of the 14th century century, the Simonov Monastery founded a small monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior near the Bear Lakes (now located in the Shchelkovo region). Eustathius could have mistaken its name for the name of the Simonov Monastery.

In the vicinity of Simonov there was another pond, located under the mountain of the monastery (not shown on the General Land Survey plan), “dug like a round pool”; it is mentioned in the monastery documents as an object for rent. It can be seen in 19th century engravings. But this pond also does not fit Karamzin’s pond: it was not located near the road and was not surrounded by hundred-year-old oaks, or trees in general.

All that remains is Sergius Pond, which is clearly defined: it is mentioned in monastic documents of the 18th-20th centuries, indicated on the General Land Survey plan (without a name), and illustrated in the historical description of Passek.

Lizin Pond (or rather, the one that the public called Lizin) is indicated on the plans in the same place where Sergius Pond was located. In addition, such a renaming of the monastery pond was mentioned more than once by contemporaries. And the religious procession, according to the recollections of the workers, was precisely to Liza’s Pond.

And the writer himself admitted: “Near Simonov there is a pond, shaded by trees and overgrown. Twenty-five years before that, I composed Poor Liza there - a very simple fairy tale, but so happy for the young author that a thousand curious people went and went there to look for traces of the Lizas.”

1. Passek V.V. Historical description of the Moscow Simonov Monastery. M., 1843. S. 6-7, 34
2. Skvortsov N.A. Materials on Moscow and the Moscow diocese for

XVIII century. M., 1912. Issue. 2. P.457.

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On December 12, 1766, the writer and author of the eight-volume “History of the Russian State” was born. Nikolay Karamzin. It is in vain that the work of the historiographer is not usually associated with Moscow. During his writing career, Karamzin managed to give a name to an entire settlement, come up with a definition for the capital's residents, and make a good joke about the results of urban planning policy.

In addition to the well-known “future” and “catastrophe,” Nikolai Karamzin introduced another, now almost forgotten, term “Muscovite.” The historiographer did not hesitate to use the definition in his “Letters of a Russian Traveler.” It is as a Muscovite that Nikolai Karamzin, a native of the Kazan province, introduces himself on the Königsberg train and in Dresden shops. The term received widespread in metropolitan circles thanks to one of Karamzin’s main admirers, the historian Mikhail Pogodin, and the educational magazine Moskvityanin, which he published from 1841 to 1856.

Writers' House

The only surviving Moscow house of Karamzin himself is the Vyazemsky-Dolgorukov estate in Maly Znamensky Lane. Now this is one of the buildings of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The writer lived here with his second wife Ekaterina Kolyvanova, daughter of the owner of the estate Andrey Vyazemsky, from 1804 to 1811. According to legend, Karamzin asked for the girl’s hand after prophetic dream: At a time when his first wife was mortally ill, the writer dreamed of a woman stretching her arms over a dug grave. In the descriptions, the historiographer’s friends recognized Vyazemsky’s daughter. House Anastasia Pleshcheeva, where Karamzin settled later, was demolished during the reconstruction of Tverskaya Street.

Karamzin spent a lot of time at the Vyazemskys’ country estate Ostafyevo, in the village of the same name. In the first half of the 19th century, it was about “a remote village 35 versts from Moscow.” Now Ostafyevo is officially part of the Novomoskovsk district and is not much further than the Yuzhnoye Butovo district. It is believed that it was here that Karamzin worked on the “History of the Russian State.”

Lysin Pond

Karamzin’s story “Poor Liza,” published in 1792, owes its sudden fame to a pond near the Simonov Monastery on Vostochnaya Street - it was in it that the main character drowned herself. “Having written a fairy tale in his leisure hours, he turned the entire capital to the environs of the Simonov Monastery. All the secular people of that time went to look for Liza’s grave,” writes one of Karamzin’s admirers, Nikolai Ivanchin-Pisarev, in his memoirs. Muscovites quickly identified the dark pond near the road. All the surrounding trees were quickly covered with messages: “Here Liza drowned, Erast’s bride! Drown yourself girls in the pond, there will be a place for everyone!”, “In these streams, poor Lisa ended her days; If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh,” “Erast’s bride perished in these currents. Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond.”

There were also entire poems. Moscow local historians recalled the inscription on the birch tree:

Beautiful in body and soul in these currents,
She died her life in the blooming days of her youth!
But - Lisa! Who would have known that the disastrous fate
You are buried here... Who would cry a sad tear
Sprinkled your ashes...
Alas, he would have decayed like that,
That no one in the world, no one would know about him!

Gradually, the story was forgotten, and the pond left by the monks fell into disrepair: residents of surrounding houses poured sewage into the water. But the popular name has been preserved: on the official city plan of 1915, Lizin Pond, Lizin Slobodka, Lizin Square and railway station"Lizino." The city toponymy was changed by the decision of the district council to fill in the pond in 1930. The reservoir, located between the 3rd Avtozavodsky passage and Masterkova street, was liquidated in 1932, and all the established names were changed.

The action of the less dramatic work “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter” also takes place in Moscow. This time, the main character escapes from the tower in Maryina Roshcha and heads, apparently, to Tyufeleva Grove, located very close to Liza Pond, on the site of the current ZIL automobile plant.

Embankment reconstruction project

Making references to Moscow in his works, Karamzin often bypasses architectural monuments, dwelling in detail on nature and suburbs. The main metropolitan character of Karamzin’s works is the Moscow River. In his “Notes of an Old Moscow Resident,” the writer even made a proposal for improving the embankment. “Sometimes I think where we should have a park worthy of the capital - and I don’t find anything better than the banks of the Moscow River between stone and wooden bridges, if it were possible to break down the Kremlin wall there, cover the mountain to the cathedrals with turf, scatter bushes and flower beds along it, make ledges and porches for sunrise, thus connecting the Kremlin with the embankment, and plant an alley below. Then, I dare say, the Moscow gulbische would have become one of the first in Europe,” the historiographer wrote.

Karamzin proposed demolishing the wall facing the Kremlin embankment, between today’s Bolshoi Kamenny and Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridges. They were remodeled at the end of the 17th century and were popularly called simply Stone and Wooden.

In fact, the idea of ​​demolishing the Kremlin wall, apparently, was initially of a humorous nature. In “Notes of an Old Moscow Resident” one reads an allusion to the decision of Catherine II to finally demolish the wall of the White City, thanks to which a place “for promenades” according to the European model appeared in Moscow - the Boulevard Ring. “Do you know that the Moscow boulevard itself, such as it is, proves the success of our taste? You may laugh, my sirs; but I boldly assert that enlightenment alone gives rise in cities to a desire for folk festivals, which, for example, rude Asians do not think about, and for which the smart Greeks were famous,” wrote Karamzin.