Patriarshy Ponds
Coordinates: 55°45′50″N 37°35′32″E / 55.763883°N 37.592120°E
Patriarshiye Ponds (Patriarch's Ponds, Russian: Патриаршие пруды), also known in common language as Patriks Russian: Патрики), is an affluent residential area in downtown Presnensky District of Moscow, Russia. For the last 200 years, there has been only one pond, although, as the name of Tryokhprudny Pereulok (Трёхпрудный переулок, lit. Three-Pond Lane) suggests, there used to be more. The area of the existing pond is 9,900 square metres (107,000 sq ft); the depth is about two meters. Because of the area's proximity to Tverskaya Street business district, the area is popular with expatriates.
The Ponds area is accessible via the Moscow Metro Mayakovskaya (eastern exit) and Pushkinskaya stations.
The area is named after the seventeenth century Patriarch's Goat Sloboda (Патриаршая Козья слобода) located on the Goat Marsh (Козье болото). This marsh was once connected by a brook to the Presnya River west; by 1739, when the first topographic map was compiled, the brook disappeared and the marsh separated from Presnya. People considered the swamp as an anomalous zone; apparently this caused a proverb "Фома поспешил, да людей насмешил – увяз на Патриарших" ("Thomas has hastened, but made people laugh - he stuck in Patriarshy").
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