Moscow’s Gorky Park Turns 85

This summer, downtown Moscow’s Gorky Park celebrates its 85th anniversary. Built in 1928 to designs by architect Konstantin Melnikov, the park stretches along the capital’s Krymskaya Embankment, and is a favored spot for Muscovites and visitors to the Russian capital to kick back and chill.
Couples on Gorky Park's Ferris wheel would kiss as the wheel reached the highest point on its ascent.

Gorky Park, pictured here in the 1980s, was built in the spirit of Soviet urban planning, but, with its lawns, flowerbeds and fountains, has remained a popular leisure spot after the Soviet Union collapsed. It has been extensively redesigned in recent years, but the principle that entry should be free, remains.

In fall 1941, several dozen artillery batteries were deployed in Gorky Park to repulse Nazi bombing raids on Moscow.

Children playing on a statue in Gorky Park, 1963.

In the 1960s, Gorky Park was a popular exhibition venue. Here, members of a visiting delegation of women from Mexico water plants at an exhibition in 1963.

Spinning teacups at Gorky Park.

Gorky Park also regularly hosted circus and theater festivals, such as this one in 1938, drawing tens of thousands of spectators.

Crowds of people waiting in line to get tickets for a festival of amusement park attractions held at Gorky Park in 1971.

Children playing table hockey in Gorky Park, 1963.

In 2011, Gorky Park underwent a radical revamp and now offers free wifi, yoga classes and outdoor film screenings, all of which are proving popular – especially with the capital’s hipsters. This installation for paratrooper day on August 2, however, was less successful – it was taken down after complaints it resembled a lynching.

Built in 2003, Gorky Park's riverside dance floor has hosted national dance championships.

Gorky Park now also has areas for extreme sports and, in winter, Europe’s largest outdoor skating rink. Here – a mime artist depicts a statue of a girl with an oar that once stood at the entrance to Gorky Park.