To your right is Leningradsky Prospekt and the constant roar of the traffic, but on Ulitsa Shishkina all you can hear is a few birds and a distant hum. That has always been the charm of the artists' village at Sokol. When it was built in 1923, the only way to get there from the center was on a horse and cart. And today, it still feels a vast distance and an age away from the bustle of modern Moscow. Built on the site of a medieval monastery, Sokol village was the quintessential Soviet experiment, a self-sufficient oasis for the intelligentsia.
Among them was Alexei Shchusev, the great Soviet architect who designed Lenin's tomb. Instead of simply sticking to the traditional design of a Russian village house, 116 different styles mushroomed. Each house is different, so that you can look at a Moroccan town house on Maly Peschany Pereulok and nearby find an American town house or a rugged wooden log cabin next door. Trees and vegetation were carefully chosen and the 10 streets were designed to fan out from the village's central square, narrowing as they go on in a trompe l'oeil style.
The village has faced numerous attempts to destroy it in its history. A plan to knock it all down was thwarted in 1938, and in the 1980s there were attempts to build tower blocks on the village.
During perestroika, the village became autonomous of the city government, but that has not stopped the developers from trying to move in. The last decade has seen the village's charm eroded -activists and residents say - by the arrival of wealthy householders who have knocked down old protected buildings and replaced them with cottages two or three times larger, complete with fences up to 3 meters high and guard dogs.
After people buy up the original houses - prices start at $500,000 - they are declared avariiny, or in disrepair, and knocked down to make way for new castle-like cottages. Residents freely admit that many of the original village houses have gone decades without being repaired and are in a really poor state, but some question whether that means they should be condemned.
"They are ruining the village," said one local resident who has wandered around its streets for the last 20 years.
The Village Council at 1/8 Ulitsa Shishkina contains a small museum dedicated to the village. The museum is only open Tuesdays and Thursdays 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. and 9 a .m. to 11 a .m., respectively, although village workers will open it at other times if you ask nicely.
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