Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street, Vladimir

Is Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street worth it?

Yes, as the spine of your day rather than a sight on its own. Nearly everything worth seeing in Vladimir sits on this street or a minute off it — the Golden Gate, Cathedral Square, the Assumption Cathedral, St Demetrius Cathedral, the History Museum and the Nativity Monastery. Walk it once, end to end, and you have seen the old town.

Be honest with yourself about what it is: a busy road with cars, trolleybuses and some narrow pavements. The classical facades are handsome, but without the cathedrals the street alone isn’t worth a trip from Moscow. The YesGo score rates it highly for what it does best — linking the city’s main sights in one easy line.

What to see along the street, west to east

• The Golden Gate — the 12th-century white-stone city gate where the street begins. See its own page.
• No. 2, Meshcheryagin House (1792) — Emperor Paul I stayed here in 1798; it later served as the post office for over a century.
• No. 19, the Trading Rows — a late-18th-century arcade, the largest building on the street, with shops and cafés under the arches.
• No. 33, the Noble Assembly (1826) — home to the city’s first public library; the poet Mayakovsky gave a reading here in 1927.
• No. 35, the boys’ gymnasium (1841) — the physicist Alexander Stoletov and the poet Konstantin Balmont studied here.
• No. 58, the Palaty (1785–1790) — the old provincial government offices, now a cultural centre of the museum-reserve.
• The Assumption Cathedral — the 12th-century cathedral with frescoes by Andrei Rublev, on Cathedral Square.
• No. 60, St Demetrius Cathedral — small, white and covered in carved stone, a UNESCO site.
• No. 64, the History Museum — a red-brick building of 1900.
• No. 66A, St Nicholas Church — an 18th-century church that has housed the city planetarium since 1962.
• No. 70, the Nativity Monastery, founded in 1191.
• No. 74, Hotel Vladimir (1956) — where Tarkovsky’s crew lived while making “Andrei Rublev”.

How long to spend, and which way to walk

About an hour for the historic stretch — from the Golden Gate to the Nativity Monastery, looking at buildings from outside. Add the two cathedrals and the History Museum and it becomes half a day.

Walk west to east. Start at the Golden Gate, pass the Trading Rows, turn onto Cathedral Square for the Assumption Cathedral and the view over the river, carry on to St Demetrius and finish at the monastery. Come back along car-free Georgievskaya Street or hop on a trolleybus.

Beyond the monastery the street turns into an ordinary city road towards Bolshaya Nizhegorodskaya Street. There’s nothing there for visitors, so stop at the monastery or at Hotel Vladimir.

A short history of the street

For centuries this was the Vladimirka — the main road from Moscow east to Nizhny Novgorod and on to Siberia. Merchants travelled it, and convicts were marched along it into exile; Isaac Levitan’s bleak painting “Vladimirka” (1892) shows the same road outside town. The name Moskovskaya simply means “towards Moscow”.

In 1781 Vladimir got a regular town plan with this street as its axis, and it filled up with two- and three-storey stone houses — the classical facades you see today. The Trading Rows went up from 1787, the government offices known as the Palaty soon after.

From 1919 to 1995 it was called III Internatsionala Street, a name you may still find on Soviet postcards. The first trolleybus ran here in 1952, and it is still the city’s main route through the old centre.

Trading Rows and the start of the street

The Trading Rows (No. 19) were begun in 1787 to designs by Nikolai von Berk, who copied the look of Gostiny Dvor in St Petersburg; originally 51 merchants’ shops surrounded an open market. Today the arcade holds shops and cafés — a good place to wait out a shower without leaving the street.

The square around the Golden Gate, where the street starts, is sometimes called Theatre Square: the city’s first theatres stood by the gate, and today’s drama theatre (1971) is just west on Dvoryanskaya Street. It is your starting point rather than a stop in its own right.

Bolshaya Moskovskaya vs Georgievskaya Street vs Cathedral Square

Bolshaya Moskovskaya gets you between the sights, Georgievskaya is for a break, Cathedral Square has the view. All three fit into one day in Vladimir.

Vladimir’s historic sights compared

Every historic place in Vladimir rated by YesGo. Tap a column heading to sort.

Nearby — add to your day

38

History Museum

Vladimir, Russia

1 h · 300 roubles, children 7–14: 150 · 3 min walk

Yes — add to my route: History Museum

49

Cathedral of Saint Demetrius

Vladimir, Russia

30 min · 300 ₽, children 7–14 150 ₽ · 3 min walk

Yes — add to my route: Cathedral of Saint Demetrius

44

Nativity Monastery

Vladimir, Russia

30 min · Free · 3 min walk

Yes — add to my route: Nativity Monastery

45

Cathedral Square

Vladimir, Russia

30 min · Free, open 24 hours · 6 min walk

Yes — add to my route: Cathedral Square

How to do it right

• One free hour: Golden Gate → Trading Rows → Cathedral Square → St Demetrius from outside → Nativity Monastery.
• Short on time? Walk just from the Golden Gate to St Demetrius Cathedral — that’s the best part.
• See the St Demetrius carvings in daylight with the sun at an angle — in the evening they look flat.
• For coffee or lunch, step onto car-free Georgievskaya Street, two minutes from Cathedral Square.
• Arriving by train? Walk straight up to the Assumption Cathedral and do the Golden Gate at the end.

Questions