Patriarch Ponds

Patriarch's Ponds is an artificial pond of roughly 10,000 square metres and two metres deep in the historic centre of Moscow, lending its name to the surrounding district near Tverskaya and Mayakovskaya metro. Of three original ponds only one survives; in the 17th century the Patriarch of Moscow stocked them with fish for monastic kitchens. The site became famous through Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita", whose opening scene unfolds on this very bank - the Devil meets two literary men here. Today the quarter is one of Moscow's quietest and most expensive addresses, ringed by cafes, bistros and bookshops. In winter the pond freezes into a public skating rink.