Kitay-gorod

Kitay-gorod (Russian: Китай-город, IPA: [kʲɪˈtaj ˈɡorət]), also referred to as the Great Possad (Великий Посад) in the 16th and 17th centuries, is a cultural and historical area within the central part of Moscow in Russia, defined by the remnants of now almost entirely razed fortifications, narrow streets and very densely built cityscape.

A 17th-century Russian source states "У шапок янычары имели киты" ("U shapok yanychary imeli kity"), meaning "The Janissaries had braids hanging from their caps".

All of the towers were demolished in the 1930s by the Soviet regime as part of Stalin's grand reconstruction of Moscow, with only small portions of the wall surviving that period.

[4] Nikolskaya Street is the site of Moscow's first university, the Slavic Greek Latin Academy, housed in extant Zaikonospassky monastery (1660s).

The rest of Kitay-gorod was densely filled with offices, warehouses and hotels, to the point where real estate developers had to build streets, not buildings—like the Tretyakovsky Proyezd project by Pavel Tretyakov and Alexander Kaminsky.

Savva Mamontov launched a civic center, built around an opera hall, which was completed as the Metropol Hotel in 1907, the largest early Art Nouveau building in Moscow, containing artwork by Mikhail Vrubel, Alexander Golovin and Nikolai Andreev.

The present-day offices and clock tower of Constitutional Court of Russia were financed by the Northern Insurance Society (1910–1912) and built by Ivan Rerberg, Marian Peretiatkovich and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky.

A whole quarter of Kitay-gorod[5] adjacent to the Moskva River and known as Zaryadye was demolished in three rounds (1930s, late 1940s, 1960s) by the Soviet regime, sparing only those structures that were deemed "historic monuments" by Joseph Stalin.

Kitay-gorod's central location in Moscow
Iverskiye Gates leading to Red Square are the only extant gates of the Kitay-gorod wall; they were destroyed in 1931 by the Soviet regime and rebuilt in the 1990s.
Surviving part of the wall in Zaryadye
St. Nicholas Church on the Ilyinka (1680–1689), with its gold-starred blue domes, once dominated Kitay-gorod's skyline. It was razed in 1933 by the Soviet regime.
The church of the Trinity in Nikitniki, a masterpiece of 17th-century Russian architecture. It was destroyed in 1936, but rebuilt in the 1990s.
View of the Plevna Chapel and St Elijah's Gates to Kitay-gorod (ca. 1900). The parallel street right behind the wall is now Staraya Square . The Tower and the wall were demolished in the 1930s.
Kosmodemyanskya Gates and Naugolnaya (Corner) Tower in Zaryadye in the 1930s prior to their demolition.