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Arbat street |
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Duration: approx 2 hours
| Price per person: |
persons |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
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€ |
100 |
55 |
40 |
35 |
Price includes: English speaking guide
Special offer: Book 2 tours per day and get a 20% discount for both
Book 3 tours per day and get a 30% discount for all
Book Arbat street tour now!
Among Moscow streets that are full of legends and riddles there is Arbat street. Becoming a symbol of Old Moscow long ago this street is immortalized in prose, poems, songs and films. Many consider it to be a long pedestrian street but in fact Arbat street is a historical district of Moscow that celebrated its 500th anniversary in 1993.
Arbat street is one of the oldest streets of the capital of Russia. Its exotic name comes from the Arabic word “arbad” (“rabad”), heaving the meaning of “suburb, outskirts”. The word was probably introduced to Moscow by Crimean Tatars or Arabic merchants in the 15th century. In the 17th century there was a trial to change the name for Smolenskaya, but a new name was disliked by public.
 First Arbat street attracted craftsmen and merchants to live on but at the end of the 18th century they were ousted by noblemen. In the 19th century there began a boom of Arbat street: it was fashionable and prestigious to live on Arbat and its lanes. Tolstoy, Rastipchin, Gagrin, Dolgoruky, Kropotkin – all these names going down in history are connected with Arbat street. Arbat was a quiet family district: small cottages in Empire style and wooden houses surrounded by gardens were being built here; there were almost no shops on Arbat street. Doctors, writers and lawyers moved into this district. Such famous people as Alexandr Pushkin, Sergey Rahmaninov, Alexandr Skryabin, Nikolay Gogol, Lev Tolstoy, Mikhail Saltikov-Shedrin, Anton Chehov, Alexandr Block lived on Arbat street at different times. The life of the director Evgeny Vachtangov and the history of his theatre are inseparably linked with Arbat.
 By the end of the 19th century the look of Arbat street became close to what we see now. There appeared 3-stoor-houses, grew the number of shops, the construction of multistory apartment houses started up.
At the beginning of 1960th there was Kalinin avenue laid, later renamed into New Arbat street. As a result several relics and monuments were destroyed. Moscovites called the new street “dentures”.
In 1974-1986 on Arbat street there was created a pedestrian area with lots of small shops and cafes. Here you can see working street artists, singers and buy typical Russian souvenirs. Arbat enjoys wide popularity especially among the tourists.
On Arbat street there are situated museum-flat of Alexandr Pushkin, house-museum of Marina Zvetaeva, house-museum of Mikhail Lermontov. Old cottages decorated with moldings are of special interest. On Arbat you can have dinner in a famous, beloved and quite expensive restaurant Prague which was found in 1872. You can even order a granite star for yourself and enrich the collection of those that are on the asphalt of Arbat street.
 New Arbat street is very different in comparison to Old Arbat street. If the last one transfers you to the time of those noble and talented people who didn’t no and couldn’t even imagine what computers and high technologies are New Arbat is a street with tall modern buildings, fashionable restaurants and brand shops. Both of the streets are different, both of them are beautiful, both of them bear the name of Arbat street, the name which you will associate with history, architecture, talents, paintings, romance and Moscow.
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