It was created by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (father of Peter the Great), a keen hunter who loved to go falconing in the area.

Today Sokolniki is a typical Russian park, with an aging funfair and other amusements for children, and numerous fast food stalls all clustered near the main entrance.

In summer the central alleyways are a mass of brightly colored formal flowerbeds, while the depths of the park are a wilderness home to pines and spruces, birches and oaks, limes and maples - all trees native to the Moscow region - as well as a number of non-indigenous trees, such as larches, cedars, walnut, red oaks, etc.

The park, with an area of six square kilometers, is also the most Western extension of a larger Losiny Ostrov natural reserve that spans from the Eastern edge of Sokolniki to MKAD ring road and beyond.

During the 1959 US-USSR expo, exhibition matches were held for the eyes of the US delegation, headed by then-Vice President Richard Nixon.

During the opening ceremony, Alexander Kibovsky, the head of Moscow's Department of Culture, donated family photographs to the museum's collection, which were related to the post-war restoration of Sokolniki Park.