Quote:
Originally Posted by Fabb
Moscow looks like a vast city (which it certainly is).
Where are the narrow, medieval streets typical of old, european capitals ?
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There are some not very wide old streets left but they are not as narrow as in medieval Western Europe towns where you sometimes can barely fit one car between the walls. At least three reasons.
1) Even in oldest times they have never been particularly narrow. Perhaps it was due to the fact most of the city was wooden (narrow streets more fire prone), perhaps Russians never felt limited by space.
2) Prior to 1812 fire a lot of Moscow was wooden. After the fire, stone buildings went up and streets have been opened up.
3.) Many major streets were much narrower before reconstructions of 1930s and 1950s. Typically, one side of a street would be knocked down completely, one or more rows of houses were removed, and that side of the street was rebuilt with what is known today as "stalinist" architechture. As a result you will sometimes find streets with one side built in XIX century (lower) and the other in 1930s-50s (taller).
Look at Garden ring (Sadovoe kolco) or Tverskaja street as examples.
one of typical Moscow streets, not sure it is Tverskaja, but Tverskaja was about this wide before reconstruction:
check pics of Tverskaja reconstruction here
http://moskva.kotoroy.net/photos/4.html
Tverskaja after reconstruction - 10 lanes (4 lanes before)
from
http://valkorn.livejournal.com/230644.html
Stalin's plans of Moscow reconstruction, only partially realised
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQHVS_IWKRQ
significant part of the center city has been knocked down (2/3 of churches gone), curved streets straitened out, large squares created in place of small ones, etc.