Friendship Park at the river station is one of the most beautiful places in the capital. Friendship Park Festival flower what do birds mean

29.09.2019

Today we will go to the very north of the capital, to the area of the River Station and get acquainted with the sights of Friendship Park and the park surrounding the River Station itself.

These parks are a single forest-park zone on the eastern bank of the Khimki reservoir, divided into two parts by the Leningrad highway

These parks are a single forest-park zone on the eastern bank of the Khimki reservoir, divided into two parts by the Leningradskoye Highway.

Our walk starts from the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station on the Zamoskvoretskaya line. Leaving the train car, we follow the signs and look for the “Exit to the River Station and Friendship Park” we need.

Once on the surface, go forward a little and turn left. We follow the sidewalk past the small Inter-Service Shopping Center, and then along Festivalnaya Street to the Leningradskoye Shosse.

Behind the cast-iron fence, which we pass by, is Friendship Park, we will go there in the second part of our walk, our first goal is the River Station and the park surrounding it, located on the opposite side of Leningradka. You can cross this highway, which is busy at any time of the day, only through an underpass. The nearest of them is located on our left, about fifty meters from the intersection of Festivalnaya Street and Leningradskoye Highway.

Let's turn left, reach the crossing and go to the opposite side. Coming out of the transition, we find ourselves at the main entrance to the park of the River Station. It is decorated with a white stone sculpture - a woman holding a sailing ship in her arms raised above her head. This is the “Waterway” by the sculptor Julia Kun.

On the right and left sides of the entrance, cast-iron anchors are installed on granite pedestals. The fence of the park itself, the same age as the River Station, built in 1937, is also of architectural value.

We enter the park along the central alley. The spire of the Northern River Station building is visible ahead.

The left part of the park is given over to children's attractions. Here in abundance - carousels, inflatable trampolines, shooting galleries and other entertainment. Most of them are surrounded by tall trees, which is important on hot summer days, children will be protected from the scorching sun.

On one of the alleys there is a small fountain, which brings additional freshness to the atmosphere.

If you came for a walk without small children, then you can lower the left side of the park and head along the central alley directly to the River Station.

The alley ends with a car park for cars meeting and seeing off cruise boats.

There are also ticket offices, temporarily located in a separate pavilion, since the station building is closed for reconstruction.

So, we came to the main attraction of the park, the building of the Northern River Station. Sometimes it is called Khimki Station after the name of the reservoir on which it is located.

The station was built simultaneously with the opening of the Moscow Canal, in 1937. We are informed about this by an inscription on the facade of the building.

There are also bas-reliefs on the "water" theme, the roof of the building is decorated with sculptures of Soviet citizens, traditional for the architecture of the 1930s (similar sculptures adorn, for example, some of the famous Stalinist heights), a clock visible from afar is installed on the spire, and crowns it , of course, a five-pointed star.

We go around the station on the left side through a small gate in the fence. We find ourselves at the pier of the Khimki reservoir.

Cruise ships depart from the Khimki Reservoir through the Moscow Canal. Most of them follow east along the Volga. However, there are also those who take tourists to the north-west: through the Rybinsk Reservoir and White Lake to Karelia, to the famous monument of wooden architecture Kizhi, Petrozavodsk and further across Lake Ladoga to St. Petersburg.

The variety of ships is impressive. Here you can see both small pleasure boats and massive three-four-deck liners.

View of the building of the North Station from the pier:

As we have already noted, the building is under restoration. However, even in this form, it looks decent. When the repair work is over, the River Station will no doubt return to the list of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow of the 20th century.

Let's walk along the pier from the south wing of the station to the north. Here, near the northern wing, there is a monument to the outstanding Russian shipbuilder, academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov.

Once in the park, on the left hand we will see the sculptural composition "Basketball Players".

We move along a small asphalt alley towards the exit from the park. As already mentioned, the trees in the park are quite tall and grow quite close to each other, so even on the sunniest day it does not get hot here. And if it rains, the crowns of the trees will cover the passers-by. You can just take a walk in the park, enjoying the fresh air or go rollerblading or cycling.

Returning to the main entrance, through the underpass we go to the other side of the Leningrad highway. Our next goal is Friendship Park.

One of the main entrances to the park is right in front of us. However, in order not to get confused and not to miss a single sight, we will first walk along Leningradka to the right (south). The sculpture of a rider, which is clearly visible from Leningradka, will serve as a reference point for the turn. Here we will turn into the green zone of the park.

The rider, upon closer examination, turns out to be a monument to Manas the Magnanimous, the hero of the Kyrgyz epic. This is a gift to the city of Moscow from the friendly republic of Kyrgyzstan. It was installed relatively recently, in 2012.

Let's go down from the elevation on which the monument is located, and proceed deep into the park, keeping a little to the right. Here, surrounded by neatly cut shrubs, we will see a red granite stone. The inscription on it reads: . Thus, next to the gift from the Kyrgyz people, another one from the Kazakh people should soon appear.

Returning to the sculpture of Manas, we will follow the alley of the park, which runs parallel to Leningradka.

Not having passed even twenty meters, we will see another sculpture. This is Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish writer, author of the immortal novel Don Quixote.

This monument is another gift to Moscow, this time from Spain, the birthplace of Cervantes. Since this is the third such attraction, it is worth stopping for a couple of minutes and taking a short digression into the history of the creation of Friendship Park.

The park was founded in 1957 during the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow. The festival has become a significant event in international relations, because not only socialist countries friendly to the Soviet Union, but also representatives of the "enemy" capitalist camp took part in it.

The festival took place at the very height of the so-called “Khrushchev thaw”, Muscovites freely communicated with foreigners, this was not forbidden by anyone, as it was before and as it became again later. The park founded by the participants of the festival was called the "Park of Friendship", where the word "friendship" meant precisely friendship between peoples. In some sources, the unofficial name "Park of Friendship of Peoples" is sometimes found in some sources. Therefore, many sculptures that are a gift from other states , are installed here.Looking ahead, let's say that Cervantes is far from the last monument from this series.

Immediately behind the monument to Cervantes, in the depths of the park, there is another sculptural composition. Let's go to her. Three sculptures, two women, one of which holds a baby and a man in her arms, these are “Children of the World”.

The monument, confirming the above, is a gift from the capital of Finland, the city of Helsinki. It appeared in Moscow in 1990, at the same time a monument to the Soviet sculptor Y. Kiryukhin "World Peace" was erected in Helsinki at the same time.

Let's return to the monument to Cervantes and proceed further along the Leningrad highway. Ahead we see a crossroads, and before reaching it, to our left is a sculpture: a man and a woman are holding a huge basket of fruit in their hands.

This allegorical composition is called Fertility. Its author is the Soviet sculptor V.I. Mukhina, the creator of the world-famous monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". The sculpture that we see in front of us is an enlarged copy of the original, created after Mukhina's death by her students.

Looking ahead, let's say that Fertility is part of an ensemble consisting of two sculptural groups. The second group, called "Bread", we will see a little later.

Behind Fertility, closer to Leningradskoye Highway, between two symmetrically planted birch trees, there is a small granite stele.

The inscription is made in Spanish, there are no explanations in Russian, so we will give its literal translation: "Carlos Fonseca Amador. Founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua. Planted a Tree of Friendship here during the VI World Youth Festival of Students in Moscow."

We move on. We come to the intersection of the alley that runs along the Leningrad highway, with the alley going deep into the park. It is worth stopping here and looking around. To our left, behind Leningradka, you can see the spire of the River Station.

In the depths of the park, behind the trees, you can see a pedestal made of yellow stone.

The monument itself is not visible, we will definitely approach it, but a little later.

First, let's pay attention to the sculpture, located right in the direction of travel, to the left of us. This is the same sculptural group "Bread", mentioned above.

It depicts two women holding a sheaf of wheat. Sculptures "Bread" and "Fertility" are made in a similar manner, even to a layman ignorant of the intricacies of sculptural craftsmanship, it is clear that they are part of a single ensemble.

Let's walk a little more along Leningradka and stop at a monument depicting a man with a long beard, dressed to the heels and obviously not European pointed shoes. This is a monument to Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian writer and thinker.

It is easy to guess that the monument is a gift to Moscow from India.

We will return to the crossroads and proceed deep into the park, to where we saw another monument. When the foliage parted, our eyes will see a ten-meter stele of yellow stone, located on a cylindrical elevation. The bas-relief adorning the stela depicts two women releasing doves into the sky. This is the Monument to the Hungarian-Soviet Friendship.

The monument was presented to Moscow in 1975, in honor of the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Hungary from Nazi invaders. It is an exact copy of the monument installed in the Friendship Park of the city of Budapest. The choice of material is also symbolic: the stele is made of pyrogranite. This ceramic material is made in only one place on Earth, the Hungarian city of Pécs.

We follow the alley that goes deep into the park. After walking about 30 meters, we will see a tiled path going to the left. Let's turn to her.

Walking along it, we will see on the right hand a small obelisk, which depicts a girl planting flowers. The inscription under the image reads: "Danish gratitude to the feat of the Soviet Union."

Nearby, a small slab with the inscription is mounted in the ground: "The commemorative stele is a gift from the Danish association of invalids of the struggle for freedom as a token of gratitude to the Soviet people for their decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi fascism. Installed on May 9, 1986. Author-sculptor E. Frederiksen."

And on the other side of the path you can see a chestnut growing separately from other trees.

At its foot is a small stone and a tablet.

Coming closer, we will read the inscription on it: “Tree of the World. Planted on May 9, 1993 in honor of the World Peace Run, which carries the ideals of Peace, Unity, Concord and Harmony. Included as a monument of peace in the UN International Peacekeeping Non-Governmental Program "Sri Chinmoy's Peace Inflorescences". Sri Chinmoy is an Indian public figure, the creator of his own movement, the main principles of which are peace and the unity of peoples.

Let's go back to the alley and follow it further. Soon we will come to a vast open space, located in a depression, well below the general level of the ground in the park.

Long before the creation of Friendship Park, there was a sand quarry of a brick factory here. Later, when the quarry was closed, part of it naturally filled with water, forming the Festival Ponds (we will get to them soon), and the non-flooded part was equipped for sports grounds. Here they play volleyball, rugby, and the largest territory is given over to such an exotic sport for Russia as baseball.

It depicts two figures, a girl and a young man, releasing doves into the sky. The monument was erected in 1985, when the World Festival of Youth and Students, the twelfth in a row, was also held in Moscow.

From the site on which the monument is located, along the shore of the northernmost of the Festival Ponds, a small alley leads back to the exit from the park.

The alley is planted with rowan trees, at its beginning (or at the end, depending on which side you look from) there is an interesting stone. The inscription on it says that this alley is named after Alisa Selezneva, a girl from the future, the heroine of Kir Bulychev's children's books and the film Guest from the Future, adored by Soviet children. The tablet depicts Alice herself and the fantastic bird Talker - her true friend.

The alley was founded in 2001 by grown-up admirers of Bulychev's work. In the fall, they come here for ripe mountain ash and make a special tincture from it, which they call Alisovka.

After walking down the alley, we will return to the baseball field. Let's go around it on the right side. In cloudless weather, you can see the spire of the Ostankino Tower in the distance.

A small obelisk made of black granite, near which you can always see fresh flowers, candles and other memorable symbols, contrasts sharply with the previous one with a comic childish stone.

Along the path lined with paving stones, and after some distance turning into asphalt, we are heading to the exit from the park.

At the end of the path we see a modern yellow building.

This is the rear facade of the Rechnoy Shopping Center. Having rounded it on the left side, we find ourselves at the starting and at the same time the end point of our route, at the lobby of the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station.

This concludes our walk.

In 1957, from July 28 to August 11, the World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow, the sixth in a row. The traditional event and celebration of all five previous youth festivals was the planting of trees in the parks of the cities where the festivals were held, in memory of these unforgettable meetings. Individual trees were planted in Prague, Budapest, Bucharest and Berlin - symbolically from each continent of the world or a delegation. In Warsaw, at the V World Festival of Youth and Students, the Alley of Friendship was planted. And here in Moscow they decided to lay a whole park - Friendship Park!
This idea captivated us - Galina Yezhova, Anatoly Savin and me, Valentin Ivanov, young architects who only graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in July 1956 and worked in the Department of the Chief Artist of the Soviet Preparatory Committee for the Festival ... it turned out that the place of the future park had not yet been determined. The drawing, which was shown to us as a possible option, was made on Poklonnaya Gora on Mozhaisk Highway ... There are two more sites in other parts of the city in mind. We agreed to go all together, with our main artist B.G. Knoblok, see Poklonnaya Gora, and sites in the area of the future Profsoyuzny Prospekt and on the Leningrad Highway, where there are old worked-out quarries of the Nikolsky brick factory opposite the park of the Khimki River Station.
After getting acquainted with the potential sites, everyone unanimously came to the conclusion that there is no better place for the future park than quarries filled with the purest water, separated by picturesque isthmuses and surrounded by hilly relief formed by overburden during their development, cannot be found ...
We agree that the emblem of the Moscow festival - the festival chamomile with five multi-colored petals, symbolizing the 5 continents of the world, must certainly be reflected in the layout of the park and in its various spatial forms. Therefore, along the rhombus formed by two alleys running from the main square, we place 5 round areas, united by a tie of narrow walking paths - again symbols of the five continents, whose representatives should take part in the celebration of laying the park during the days of the festival. We dream that subsequently, on each platform, sculptural compositions should appear, in terms of the nature of their artistic solution and content, consonant with each continent. Unfortunately, even today, after almost 50 years, this remains a dream, although more and more new sculptures and commemorative signs, unforeseen then by our project, constantly appear on the territory of the park ...
At our construction site, only one team of landscapers from the Moszelenstroy trust of the then Moscow Landscaping Department, numbering ten people, headed by foreman Vitaly Ivanovich Shilov, worked, and from the equipment there was only one old, constantly breaking bulldozer. Of course, there were not enough forces to clean up the territory from debris, for simple planning work on arranging lawns and for preparing seats for future commemorative plantings. Therefore, A.N. Shelepin instructed the Moscow Komsomol to take part in the preparation of the territory for the future holiday. And now, for almost two months, every working day, at about sixteen hours, a string of buses brought six hundred to eight hundred Komsomol members to our construction site. Our task was to prepare the next front of work for them, with which we, architects and builders, coped quite successfully. The boys and girls worked for three hours with rakes and shovels, and then they went swimming in orderly rows in the ponds of the future park. And everyone was very pleased with the accomplished deeds ...
The park laying ceremony took place on August 1, 1957 in the afternoon and attracted almost 5,000 delegates, festival guests and numerous residents of the surrounding areas, although we had previously expected no more than a thousand. For many of them, especially representatives of the southern continents, our firs and birches were exotic plants. They planted them with great pleasure in the places prepared by us. The Moscow pioneers gave them a solemn obligation to take care of the planted plants, and the participants of the action left their names and addresses in plastic bags in the form of tree leaves.

When Friendship Park was created, there was no Livoberezhny district and metro in these places. Construction began here only a few years after the opening of the park. Now there are many monuments here.

From the estate to the palace and park ensemble: an architectural and historical cheat sheet

The central one - "Festival Flower" - appeared in 1985. On it, bronze four-meter figures of a young man and a girl release doves into the sky. The sculpture symbolizes a happy youth and a peaceful future.

At the main entrance to the park there is a monument to the Hungarian-Soviet friendship by sculptors E.V. Vuchetich, Zh.K. Strobl. It was presented to Moscow by the inhabitants of Budapest in 1976. This is a paired monument - its twin brother is located in Budapest.

In 1957, the Nicaraguan revolutionary Carlos Fonseca Amador visited the festival of youth and students in Moscow. A memorial sign was erected in his honor with an inscription in Spanish: Carlos Fonseca Amador. Founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua. He planted a tree of friendship here during the VI World Youth Festival of Students in Moscow.

Also in the Friendship Park there is a sculpture "Children of the World", a monument to the writer and poet Rabindranath Tagore, a monument to the hero of the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas the Magnanimous, a memorial plaque "To the Warriors who fell in Afghanistan", sculptures "Bread" and "Fertility", created according to sketches by Vera Mukhina after her death. In 1981, a copy of the Madrid monument to Cervantes by A. Sol came here, and a copy of the monument to Pushkin by O. Komov went to Madrid. Cervantes' sword turned out to be a weak point - in 2000 it was stolen. The monument was restored several times, but each time it ended with the loss of the sword. Therefore, we decided to leave it as is.

And the most favorite attraction of the Friendship Park guests is Alisa Selezneva Alley. It was opened by a group of enthusiasts on October 6, 2001. The ceremony was also attended by the author of the book "Alice's Adventures" Kir Bulychev and actress Natalya Guseva, who played the main role in the film "Guest from the Future".

In addition, there are many ponds and bridges in the Friendship Park, there is a rugby and baseball field, where there are always a lot of foreign guests. And on weekends, fans of aircraft modeling gather in the park and arrange competitions.

They say that...... admirers of Kir Bulychev's creativity annually harvest rowan berries and make a tincture called "Alisovka" from them.

Friendship Park in photographs of different years:

Can you tell something else about Friendship Park?

May 5th, 2016 09:13 am

The creation of the Friendship Park with an area of about 50 hectares was timed to coincide with the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow. Until 1957, on the Leningradskoye highway opposite the Northern River Station, there was a wasteland with the remains of rural buildings on the site of the village of Aksinino, with a wood warehouse and railway lines to the asphalt concrete and Nikolsky brick factories.

After the end of the Second World War, a world conference of youth for peace was held in London, at which it was decided to hold international festivals under the slogan "For Peace and Friendship!". The program included political seminars and discussions, concerts, sports competitions, and festivals opened with a colorful procession of participants. The Dove of Peace, painted by Pablo Picasso, became the symbol of the youth forum.

The main youth forum of the planet came to the capital of the USSR after Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Berlin, Warsaw, and in each of the cities that hosted the World Festival of Youth and Students, the delegates planted trees in parks and squares. Moscow has supported the festival tradition by greening the northwestern outskirts of the city.

Plan of Friendship Park. 1957: https://pastvu.com/p/13102

The project of the park was developed by a team of young architects, recent graduates of the Moscow Architectural Institute. For Valentin Ivanov, Galina Ezhova, Anatoly Savin, this was the first independent work done with the tactful participation of Vitaly Dolganov, who headed the design workshop for the landscaping of Moscow. In particular, according to the project of Dolganov, an observation deck was built on the Lenin Hills, and his merits were awarded the Order of Lenin. The professional advice of the master was useful to young people, who were given complete freedom of action.

The creators of the park also collaborated with the architect Karo Halabyan, who at that time was developing a detailed layout of the new streets, which in 1964 received the names Festivalnaya and Flotskaya. On December 31 of the same year, the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, built according to a standard project, was opened for passengers on the territory of Friendship Park.

Friendship Park and Festival Street. 1965-1967: https://pastvu.com/p/22315

Well, in the spring of 1957, young architects punched through their project in the authorities. The architectural and planning solution differed from the neighboring park of the Northern River Station, located on a flat terrain.

Ivanov, Yezhova and Savin advocated the preservation of a picturesque landscape with hills and reservoirs. It was only in April that the executive committee of the Moscow City Council approved the plan, and a team of landscapers from the Moszelenstroy trust set to work with the support of hundreds of Komsomol members with shovels and rakes brought to the site by buses.

Paths and squares were laid out in Friendship Park, benches were installed, bridges were thrown across the canals, 500 birches, lindens, maples, larches, chestnuts and coniferous trees from nurseries were planted. Five fifty-year-old lindens symbolized five continents, and in the center stood an eighty-year-old oak tree from the Khimki forest park. The main decoration of the park was a flower bed - the emblem of the World Festival of Youth and Students - a chamomile with five multi-colored petals.
Let me remind you that at that time the vicinity of the River Station was a village mixed with an industrial zone, and in order to retouch the unsightly reality, the organizers painted blank fences with images of young people of different nations walking towards the park with seedlings, watering cans and shovels in their hands. It was probably the first domestic graffiti, and legal.

The opening ceremony of the park took place on August 1, 1957 with a huge gathering of people. About a thousand trees were reserved for planting, but there were five times more people wishing to participate in landscaping. The delegates left notes with their names on the seedlings and, after completing the honorary mission, were treated to wine and fruits, which were carried by young men and women in national costumes of the peoples of the republics of the USSR. But the performance of amateur performances did not take place due to heavy rain, which forced the delegates of the festival to scatter in their buses.

Planting trees in the park. August 1, 1957: https://pastvu.com/p/13104

Soviet youth, just freed from the Stalin cap, for the first time got the opportunity to freely exchange opinions with guests from capitalist countries, hence the fashion for jeans, stylish hairstyles, rock and roll, and individual Komsomol members could not resist even more informal communication with the envoys of others continents, which led to the emergence of the phraseological unit "children of the festival".

Another Moscow festival was held in 1985 at a high ideological level and did not become such an enchanting event. By the beginning of this festival, the landscape composition "Festival Flower" was opened in Friendship Park. The tradition of holding youth forums has been preserved to this day, the XIX World Festival of Youth and Students is planned to be held in September-October 2017 in Sochi.

Well, all the planted trees have taken root and Friendship Park is still a favorite place for walking local residents. In 1957, the Moscow pioneers solemnly promised to take care of the plantings, but with the abolition of the pioneer organization, this responsibility was shifted to public utilities.

The flowerbed-chamomile was destroyed in 1977, in its place a monument of Hungarian-Soviet friendship was erected on the idea of the Soviet sculptor Vuchetich and the Hungarian Storbl (sculptor B. Buza, architects I. Zilakhi, I. Fedorov). Since then, a lot of chaotically installed sculptures and memorial signs have appeared on the territory of the Friendship Park, which are not directly related to the youth festival movement.

The sculptural compositions "Bread" and "Fertility" were created according to sketches by Vera Mukhina

Monument "Friendship" - the central part of the composition "Festival Flower"

Memorial sign to the Nicaraguan revolutionary Carlos Fonseca Amador, who died in 1976

Danish gratitude to the feat of the Soviet Union (1986)

Commemorative plate of the monument to the soldiers who died in Afghanistan

Monument to the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1990)

Monument to the Spanish writer Cervantes (1981, copy of the 1835 sculpture by Antonio Sol). Vandals regularly take away the sword from Cervantes.

Monument to the Kyrgyz epic hero Manas the Magnanimous - a bronze figure of a hero (2012)

sculptural composition

peace tree

Alley of Alisa Selezneva, the heroine of the television film "Guest from the Future" (2001)

The six Festival Ponds are connected by canals with footbridges across them. After the festival, this part of the park remained wild and only by 1980 acquired its present form - with asphalt paths and concreted banks. The reason for the improvement was the holding of the XXII Olympic Games in Moscow, in which the Dynamo Sports Palace was involved on Lavochkin Street, adjacent to the park.

Quarries filled with water. 1957-1958: https://pastvu.com/p/13101

Improvement of the ponds is planned for 2016, for which the surrounding area is fenced off, passages through the footbridges are blocked. The list of planned works includes cleaning of silt and deepening of ponds, reconstruction of the spillway, installation of a feeding water supply system, repair of the coastline, arrangement of the adjacent territory.

Some of the quarries of the Nikolsky brick factory were flooded with water, while others were used as rugby and baseball sports grounds. The park hosted aircraft modeling competitions and testing of hunting dogs. Once upon a time, the NKZ brick factory occupied a vast area along the Leningradskoye Highway and Konakovskiy Proyezd and worked on its own raw materials, extracting clay from quarries, which later became ponds. The excavation of clay was carried out all year round by dredging machines that moved along rails along the edge of the quarry. In the early 1980s, production began to be curtailed, building up the factory territory with housing, and legally the NKZ ceased to exist in 1998.

Friendship Park is a small quiet island in the open spaces of a bustling city. I suggest you take a walk in the park and see the local sights. Using the description, you can easily find all the steps, and if you take the navigator, you will certainly find a secret.

For more than half a century, residents of nearby microdistricts have been coming to the park to spend time in the bosom of nature and admire the numerous monuments. There are no eternal crowds here, unlike the central parks, the public is mostly calm and relaxed, people really come here to take a break from the metropolis.
It is very easy to get to the park, just get out of the last car of the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, go behind the station lobby and you are already in the park. If you are by car, it is better to park on the opposite side of the park. There are numerous parking pockets on Flotskaya Street, and there is parking next to the council (Flotskaya House 1). You can also come here by bike, and in winter, if the paths weren’t heavily cleaned, the route could also be covered on skis.

The history of the creation of the park dates back to 1957. The VI World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow from July 28 to August 11. The traditional event of the youth festivals was the planting of trees in the parks of the cities where they took place. Individual trees were planted in Prague, Budapest, Bucharest and Berlin - symbolically from each continent of the world or a delegation. In Warsaw, at the V World Festival of Youth and Students, the Alley of Friendship was planted. And in Moscow they decided to lay a whole park - Friendship Park. The authors of the project are young architects Galina Ezhova, Valentin Ivanov, Anatoly Savin under the guidance of Honored Architect Vitaly Ivanovich Dolganov. Out of 35 options, a place was chosen for the Friendship Park opposite the Northern River Station. There were old worked-out quarries of the Nikolsky brick factory, filled with the purest water, separated by picturesque isthmuses and surrounded by hilly relief formed by overburden during their development. On the territory of the future park, in addition to ponds and quarries, rural buildings continued to exist with household plots and gardens in the village of Aksinino and Petrovsky settlement and three two-story standard houses with sheds. Therefore, the work to be carried out for the festival, it was decided to carry out on a free territory, on a plot of just over 16 hectares, adjacent to the Leningrad highway. The area for priority development was not easy. Almost close to the highway there was a wood warehouse, to which there was a railway line. In the middle, the asphalt-concrete plant of the Ministry of Aviation Industry smoked. Across the site was the second railway line to the Nikolsky brick factory from the existing quarries, located a few kilometers northwest in relation to the territory of the future park. And we had to get rid of all this. Part of the work to bring the territory in order was carried out by the Komsomol members. After school, the boys and girls worked for three hours with rakes and shovels, and then, in orderly rows, they went to swim in the ponds of the future park. And everyone was very pleased with the accomplished deeds. The celebration of laying the park took place on August 1, 1957 and attracted almost five thousand delegates, festival guests and numerous residents of the surrounding areas. For many of them, especially representatives of the southern continents, our firs and birches were exotic plants. They planted them with great pleasure in prepared places. Festival delegates planted about 3,000 trees. The landing was quite successful, but by the evening the weather began to deteriorate - it started to rain, which shortened the festive program, apparently nature itself decided to take part in the holiday and poured plenty of moisture on the newly planted trees. Druzhby Park arose a few years before the start of construction of the new residential area of Khimki-Khovrino and was almost fifteen years ahead of the construction of the metro line with the Rechnoy Vokzal terminal station, the southern ground lobby of which is located right on the territory of the park. When residential buildings were built along the new Festivalnaya and Flotskaya streets, the park, along with its green spaces, was ready to receive visitors. So the first stage of the park was created. Only many years later the area of the park was expanded, ponds were built in the quarries, the banks were surrounded by monumental concrete slabs, and openwork bridges were thrown over the channels. Friendship Park is figuratively divided into two regular parts, closest to the Leningradskoye Highway with the main entrance, founded when the park was laid with numerous types of trees and cultural compositions, and a later landscape one with decorative ponds surrounded by hills and vast meadows. There is also a reserve area of the park, the furthest from the highway and still undeveloped. The basis of plantings of the park are maple and linden. There are many larches, poplars, firs, pines, birches and chestnuts, as well as many different shrubs and other vegetation. Not so long ago, groups of young lush spruces, larches and other types of trees were planted.

We will start our journey from the core - the base of the park, a clearing framed by a round walking path, the coordinates of which are given in the heading of the cache. Here passes the main axis of the park oriented to the Northern River Station. The circle was originally planted with five fifty-year-old lindens, dug out in front of the northern entrance of VDNKh, which, according to the authors, symbolized the five continents of the world, and in the center - an eighty-year-old oak, transported from the nearest Khimki forest park. Friendship Park is a place that unites the peoples of the world. The park has monuments to national heroes of different countries, steles and compositions reflecting the friendship of peoples. I propose to start with a walk along the parterre part of the park and examine the works of art of the sculptors. Before moving closer to the Leningradskoye Highway, let's take a look at the largest central monument in the park, which rises on a high embankment.

Step 1. Monument to the Hungarian-Soviet friendship. The sculptural composition, opened on September 15, 1976, is a 10-meter architectural and sculptural structure in the form of a curved stele. On the inner side of the arrow there is a bas-relief made of ceramic tiles. It consists of two female figures, personifying the friendship of two fraternal peoples: Russia and Hungary. The female image in sculptural art is most often used to personify nations, the Motherland and the relationship between peoples. The girls' hands flew up in joyful friendly outburst. Under the bas-relief there is an inscription: "Eternal Hungarian-Soviet friendship is the guarantee of our freedom and peace!" Above the girls are depicted flying doves - a symbol of peace, even higher - a five-pointed star. The friendship between Russia and Hungary is also reflected in the choice of material for the monument. The entire monument is lined with pyrogranite tiles. This ceramic material is made only in the Hungarian city of Pécs. In April 1975, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Hungary from the fascist invaders by the Red Army, Friendship Park was laid out in Budapest and a monument to Hungarian-Soviet friendship was unveiled. The idea of creating this monument and the development of a draft design belonged to E.V. Vuchetich and the Hungarian sculptor J.-K. Strobl, however, to realize his plan, none of them was destined. After their death, this was done by the Hungarians - the sculptor Barna Buza and the architect Istvan Zilakhi. On the day of the grand opening of the monument, the people of Budapest decided to donate a copy of the work to the people of Moscow. Exactly one and a half years later, the “twin” of the Hungarian monument appeared. The monument became the dominant of the park, although it does not reflect the original concept and blocks the perspective, it was decided to install it here, since the friendship between Hungary and the USSR at that time was very strong. Let's go back to the circle, go to the next step along the right path, turning on it in the middle to the Leningrad highway.

Step 2. Monument to Rabindranath Tagore. The figure was installed in the park in 1990. The creator, the famous Indian sculptor Gautam Pal, depicted the poet quite realistically. Stand in the place where the poet is looking, feel the gaze of a wise oriental person on you. Undoubtedly, the heavy monumentality of the monument fascinates. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) - Indian writer, poet, composer, artist, public figure. He was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his deeply felt, original, and beautiful poetry. Tagore began writing poetry at the age of eight. At the age of sixteen, he wrote his first short stories and dramas, published his poetic tests. Having received an upbringing saturated with humanism and love for the motherland, Tagore advocated the independence of India. He founded Vishwa Bharati University and the Institute for Agricultural Reconstruction. Tagore's poems are today the anthems of India and Bangladesh. Tagore's poetry, rich in its stylistic diversity from classical formalism to comic, dreamy and enthusiastic, has its roots in the work of Vaishnava poets of the 15th-16th centuries. Tagore wrote eight novels, many novellas and short stories. Tagore's music is inseparable from his literary works, many of which - poems or chapters of novels, short stories - were taken as the basis for songs. Tagore composed about 2,230 songs and drew extensively. Tagore is the author of about 2,500 drawings, which participated in exhibitions in India, Europe and Asia. Tagore traveled a lot. Visited more than thirty countries on five continents. Many of these trips were very important in introducing non-Indian audiences to his work and political views. Tagore gave the Indians faith in their language and in their cultural and intellectual heritage. Let's walk along the path parallel to the Leningrad highway towards the central axis of the park. Closer to the motorway is one of the most beautiful compositions.

Step 3. Sculpture "Bread". The sketch of the sculptural composition was created by the famous sculptor Vera Mukhina, the author of the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". The first composition "Bread" embodied in bronze is exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery. The sculpture depicts two girls holding a sheaf of ears of corn on their shoulders. In the beautiful figures, calm faces and smooth gestures of women, the artist will be able to achieve song rhythm. Almost fucked-up bodies, a hint of solemnity in noble poses - before the eyes of the viewer, everyday hard work will turn into a holiday. The artist deliberately avoids the specificity of the types, from the plot genre motif associated with mowing, sowing or threshing. “These two girls are not just showing off,” writes art critic Nina Dmitrieva, “holding a lush sheaf with their chiseled, flexible hands. The first girl, naked, as if passes this burden to the second and straightens herself at the same time, the second takes the sheaf on her shoulders and bows her head under its weight. The composition of the plastic masses is such that our gaze then follows downward, and another sheaf, placed obliquely between the female figures, again transfers it to the female figure, and we again feel how she straightens up. Thus, declination and straightening, effort and relief are continuously alternating, and in this the music of labor sounds, but labor is free, harmonious. Young bodies are alien to any softness and smoothness, they feel the tension of action, but at the same time the grace of freedom and ease. Many art historians consider this composition one of the best works of the sculptor. Sculptor V.I. Mukhina, as well as her students and associates N. G. Zelenskaya and A. M. Sergeev, architect I. E. Rozhin. On the other side of the axis of the park is the second composition of the same series.

Step 4. Sculpture "Fertility". An oriental girl and a guy with a naked torso are holding a large basket of fruit on their shoulders. The sculpture represents an allegory of the joy of satisfaction from the harvest of a generous harvest. Bread and Fertility, as well as the sketches Sea and Earth, were created by Vera Mukhina in 1938-1939 to decorate the Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin, but later they decided to abandon the idea with sculptures. The compositions were successfully exhibited at the World Exhibition in Brussels. Opposite the sculptural composition there is a memorial sign to the Nicaraguan revolutionary Carlos Fonseca Amador, who died in 1976. The founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua planted the Tree of Friendship here during the VI World Youth Festival of Students in Moscow. In Nicaragua, Carlos Fonseca is a national hero, the founder of the overthrow of the dictatorial regime of the Somoza dynasty. The mausoleum of Carlos was erected in Managua. We will continue our walk along the Leningradskoye Highway towards the city center. On the left, another masterpiece awaits us.

Step 5. Monument to Cervantes. In 1981, during the Days of Madrid, a monument to Cervantes was unveiled in Moscow. Sculptor - a copy of the monument by Antonio Sol in 1835, sent in response to the gift to Madrid of the monument to A.S. Pushkin by Oleg Komov. Cervantes is depicted in the noble ceremonial attire of a knight. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) - known as the author of one of the greatest works of world literature - the novel "The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha". Miguel's literary activity began quite late, when he was 38 years old. The first work, Galatea (1585), was followed by a large number of dramatic plays. In 1604, the first part of the novel The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha was published, which was a huge success in Spain and abroad. Since then, Cervantes' literary activity did not stop: between 1604 and 1616, the second part of Don Quixote appeared, all the short stories, many dramatic works, the poem Journey to Parnassus, and the novel Persiles and Sichismund, published after the death of the author, was written. ". Cervantes' world significance rests chiefly on his novel Don Quixote, a full, comprehensive expression of his varied genius. Conceived as a satirical chivalric novel, this work, perhaps even independently of the will of the author, turned into a deep psychological analysis of human nature, two sides of mental activity - noble idealism, but crushed by reality, and realistic practicality. Since the opening of the monument, vandals have been constantly stealing his sword, which they no longer try to restore. Look around, see the rider?! Let's go to him.

Step 6. Sculptural composition "Manas". Gift of Kyrgyzstan, opened February 24, 2012. The bronze sculpture of an oriental hero sitting on a horse was designed by a creative team led by Joomart Kadyraliev and cast in Moscow. Manas (IX century) - the national hero of Kyrgyzstan, a symbol of the unity of the Kyrgyz people, the spiritual wealth of Kyrgyzstan, the hero of the epic of the same name - the hero who united the Kyrgyz. Manas from childhood had unusual qualities, he differed from all his peers in extraordinary physical strength, mischief and generosity. His fame spread far beyond Altai. Having matured, Manas fights for the survival of his people, fighting with thousands of troops of the Kalmak hero Neskara. Having united all the neighboring peoples and tribes, Manas wins a brilliant victory. Having appreciated the merits of the young hero, seeing him as their intercessor, many Kyrgyz clans, as well as neighboring tribes of the Manchus and Kalmaks, decide to unite under his command. Manas is elected khan. After some time, Manas enters into an unequal battle with the Uighurs and wins. Manas decides to return to the people the native lands of Ala-Too, captured by the opponents of the Kyrgyz. Having gathered an army, he enters the battle and wins. The Kyrgyz decide to migrate from Altai to their ancestral lands. The world knows many more stories about the Kyrgyz hero, thanks to the epic about Manas, which has more than half a million lines of poetry and is one of the longest epics in the world. To go to the next composition, we will return to the path and go deep into the park for 80 meters.

Step 7. Sculpture "Children of the World". The gift of the city of Helsinki by sculptor Antti Neuvonen was installed in 1990 in response to the sculpture “World Peace” by Y. Kiryukhin, which we donated to the Finnish capital. The monument is part of a modified copy of the sculptural composition "Monument of Friendship of Peoples", originally called "Friends and Men of the Village", installed in Friendship Park in Helsinki in 1983 to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Finnish-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance of 1948 . The composition is a meeting of the inhabitants of a small village with the liberators, and the part presented to us personifies a Finnish family, made in the author's characteristic style. The composition is cast in bronze, the base is made of stone. Antti Nuvonen (1937 - 2011) Born in 1937 in Vyborg, a former province of Finland. Known as the author of nature-thematic images on the coins of Finland. In 1971 he was awarded the Finnish State Fine Arts Prize for a series of abstract sculptures. Member of the Association of Finnish Expert Sculptors. Winner of numerous awards and competitions. Now we have to walk a little deeper into the park. We go towards the subway. Approximately opposite the station lobby, a little to the left, if you look from the lobby, there are two more interesting places in a large clearing.

Step 8. Commemorative stele "Danish gratitude to the feat of the Soviet Union." A memorial sign, a gift from the Danes, was installed on May 9, 1986 in the depths of the park. This gift was presented to the Soviet people in memory of the feats that the Russian soldier performed during the Second World War and in honor of his immortal feat and the liberation of the world from Nazi invaders. The low-sized trapezoidal bronze stele bears reliefs that are picturesque in composition: on the facade plane there is a girl planting flowers, and below are five obelisks crowned with five-pointed stars, according to the number of years of the war. On the back side there is an eared grain field and a dove hovering over it. Typologically, the monument is very reminiscent of a tombstone, which, however, is typical of war memorials, especially of a small scale. The authors of the monument are the Danish sculptor E. Frederiksen and the Moscow architect A.F. Markin, with the participation of the artist-architect S.I. Smirnov. Not far from the stele is the "Tree of Peace". This is a free-standing young chestnut. Next to the chestnut lies a large round boulder with a commemorative inscription: "Tree of Peace." Planted on May 9, 1993 in honor of the World Peace Run, carrying the ideals of Peace, Unity, Consent and Harmony. Included as a monument of peace in the UN International Peacekeeping Program "Sri Chinmoy's Peace Inflorescence". The tree was planted by the followers of the Indian philosopher and athlete Sri Chinmoy - in addition to poetry and popular expressions, he is famous for lifting weights "in the name of harmony."

In this part of the park, we examined all the significant objects, although I have no doubt that over time their number will increase, if only because not far from the monument to Monas, there is a foundation stone for the sculptural composition "Astana", and behind one of the quarries they wanted to erect a monument of memory those who died in Afghanistan, but limited themselves to a commemorative sign.
Let's go deep into the busy alley of the regular park and go out to the landscape component of the park. Here birch alleys originate. To the left is a quarry that is not filled with water, which is used as a sports ground, and for such rare sports in Moscow as rugby, as well as American football and baseball. In winter, an ice skating rink is built here with a warm locker room and skate rental, music sounds. Let's go along the alley between the quarry and the fence of the park's mechanization service and turn left at the first crossroads. After 80 meters and on the right we will see a short alley of small mountain ash.

Step 9. Alley named after Alisa Selezneva. The alley is dedicated to the heroine of Kir Bulychev's books from the "Alice's Adventures" series in the fantasy genre for children, adolescents and adults, describing the adventures of Alisa Selezneva. The books in the cycle were written by the author over several decades, starting in 1965. The action of the cycle takes place in the science fiction future of the end of the XXI century. The main character is Alisa Selezneva, "a girl from the Earth", the daughter of Igor Seleznev, professor of biology and director of the CosmoZoo zoo. Each of the stories is dedicated to some of her adventures in space, on Earth, in the past, or even in a fairy-tale world. A number of books were filmed not only in the USSR, but also abroad. Fans of books and films decided to perpetuate the "guest from the future" and create a meeting place by planting a mountain ash alley on October 6, 2001 on their own near the school where "Alisa" studied. The organizer of the action is Denis Murashkevich, the husband of Natalya Murashkevich (Guseva), who played the role of Alice in the film. The event was attended by the writer Kir Bulychev. In front of the alley there is a memorial stone, on which is fixed a metal plate with the name of the alley, the date of its foundation and a stylized drawing depicting Alice and the Govorun bird on her shoulder. Alley's birthday is celebrated on the first Saturday of October. There is a tradition that originated at the suggestion of Kir Bulychev: to harvest rowan berries annually and make a tincture called "Alisovka" from these berries. The Alisovka recipe can be found here: http://www.gib.su:8080/alisovka/. Not far from the memorial stone rises a tall sculptural composition, let's approach it.

Step 10. Landscape-Memorial Ensemble "Festival Flower". The sculpture was installed for the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1985. The composition of the ensemble - alleys converging from different parts of the park to the central round platform - expresses the unity of the youth of all countries of the world. The main element of the composition is a four-meter bronze sculpture located in the center of the round platform. Above the five-petalled flower, the symbol of the festival, a young man and a girl are hovering with branches in their hands, releasing doves. The pedestal for the sculpture is an elevation clad in granite, reminiscent of festival symbols in shape. At the base are five bronze medallions according to the number of continents of the world with the image of a flying dove on each of them. The authors of the project are the sculptor A.I. Rukavishnikov, the architects I.N. Voskresensky, Yu.V. Kalmykov, D.I. Voskresenskaya. The platform ends with an amphitheater on each side. Thus, the ensemble "Festival Flower" organized the connection between the park layout and water bodies and became the new compositional core of the park. Further, I propose to take a walk along the picturesque ponds, climb the decorative bridges, breathe in the air, noisy roads are behind and nothing else prevents you from enjoying the natural oasis, specially created for the rest of the townspeople.

Step 11 Festival Ponds Consist of seven ponds with a total area of 9 hectares. Six of them are connected by channels through which four openwork bridges are thrown. The seventh rectangular pond, apparently, was conceived as a fountain. The ponds are formed on the site of old worked-out quarries. The Nikolsky brick factory was closed only in the mid-90s, it was located between Avangardnaya Street and Leningradskoye Highway. Now there is a residential building. On one of the ponds there is a large virgin island, popularly called "Duck", you can get to it only in winter, as only a few dare to swim across the pond in summer. Despite the fact that the ponds were concreted, over time the bottom was covered with a layer of silt, which had a beneficial effect on the fauna. Now here fishermen come across rotan, crucian carp and carp. Until the 90s, the pond had a boat station and was very clean for swimming. Apparently, springs are beating in the pond, since there is a current under the bridges, and in the northern part, next to the Parus cafe, there is a drain, according to some sources, into the underground collector of the Norishki River. Shady alleys pleasantly spread their charms along the banks of the pond, it is so pleasant to walk along the beautiful banks of the reservoir, stand on openwork bridges, admire the landscape views.

Of course, the park in its current form does not fully reflect the intention of the authors. On its territory, on the opposite side of the metro, a district party palace was created, now the district council, next to the Temple of the Icon of the Mother of God, multi-storey monsters of dormitories of Moscow institutes were erected, which are now separated by a temple from the park, in the middle of green spaces a vast territory of the mechanization service is fenced, and on the reserve Hundreds of garages have been erected throughout the park. However, the spaces made it possible to accommodate: an amusement park with nostalgic carousels, a large playground and even a circus tent.

For those to whom the park seemed small, but still had strength, I suggest taking a walk through the “French” park near the River Station, the spire of which is decorated with a star that was installed on the Spasskaya Tower in 1935, until it was replaced two years later by the current ruby one.

Literature: "Northern District of Moscow" edited by E.N. Machulsky. Internet: http://wikimapia.org; http://www.liveinternet.ru/community/1861315/post69953381 ; http://ru.wikipedia.org ; Alley of Alice: