Garden Ring

The Garden Ring, also known as the "B" Ring (Russian: Садо́вое кольцо́, кольцо́ "Б"; transliteration: Sadovoye Koltso), is a circular ring road avenue around central Moscow, its course corresponding to what used to be the city ramparts surrounding Zemlyanoy Gorod in the 17th century.

The Ring consists of seventeen individually named streets and fifteen squares. It has a circumference of sixteen kilometres. At its narrowest point, Krymsky Bridge, the Ring has six lanes; at its widest, Zubovskaya Square, it has eighteen lanes. The Ring emerged in the 1820s, replacing fortifications, in the form of ramparts, that were no longer of military value.

Garden Ring is a direct descendant of the Skorodom (Скородом, literally Quick Building) and Earth Rampart (Земляной Вал, Zemlyanoy Val) fortifications, erected in the reign of Feodor I of Russia after a disastrous raid by Ğazı II Giray (1591). Although Boris Godunov, de facto regent of Russia, prevented Crimeans from taking the city north of Moskva River, he anticipated future raids and arranged construction of another defence ring.

When the Time of troubles ended, instead of rebuilding Skorodom, Mikhail Romanov government replaced it with a new, taller rampart known as Zemlyanoy Val (Земляной Вал, Earth Rampart), completed in 1630-1638. Its name survives in present-day Zemlyanoy Val Street (former Chkalov Street) in the south-eastern segment of Garden Ring.

Instead of towers, the Rampart had 34 gates for passage. As a defense measure, Streltsy slobodas were located next to these gates, especially in southern Yakimanka and Zamoskvorechye Districts. Effective against Tatar raiders, Streltsy were politically unstable. After Streltsy Uprising of 1698, Peter I arranged mass executions of Streltsy on the Earth Rampart, hanging 36 soldiers at each of Zamoskoverchye gates and 56 at Taganka gates; the remainder of Streltsy troops were disbanded by the end of Peter's reign. In 1683-1718, the Rampart served as Moscow customs border; traders, evading taxation, set numerous markets right outside of city gates; the last of these, Zatsepa Market, was closed in the 1970s. Eventually, Peter I lifted this taxation in 1722, but it resumed in the 1730s at the new city border, Kamer-Kollezhsky Val.

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