Moscow Guide
Krasnaya Presnya, Fili and the southwest
Beyond the Garden Ring, Moscow seems an undifferentiated sprawl of blocks and avenues, attesting to its phenomenal growth in Soviet times. Yet on closer inspection, each arc of the city contains a scattering of monuments and institutions that deserve attention. This is particularly true of Krasnaya Presnya, Fili and the southwest – a swathe of the city defined by the loops of the Moskva River and the approaches to the Sparrow Hills.
Krasnaya Presnya is chiefly notable for the ex-Parliament building known as the White House – whose role in the crises of the 1990s invested it with symbolic potency – but also harbours the lovely Vagankov Cemetery. Over the river, a showpiece avenue that epitomizes Stalinist planning forges out past the Borodino Panorama Museum and Victory Park which commemorates the USSR's triumphs and sacrifices during World War II. The lovely Church of the Intercession at Fili is a sole reminder of the estates and villages that once flanked Moscow's western approaches, where Napoleon marched into the city in 1812, and the Red Army advanced to confront the Nazis in 1941. An earlier vestige of military history is the reconstructed medieval fortress of Setunskiy Stan.
Closer to the centre, a peninsula defined by the oxbow Moskva River boasts Tolstoy's House and the fairytale Church of St Nicholas of the Weavers in the Khamovniki district, while further out lies the Novodevichie Convent and Cemetery, the grandest of Moscow's monastic complexes. Further south, across the river, a magnificent view of the city is afforded by the Sparrow Hills, dominated by the titanic Stalin skyscraper of Moscow State University (MGU).