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Beethoven Bicycle Promenade
During the Year of Germany, historian and musician Sergey Nikitin-Rimsky, MosCultProg group, and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom prepared a musical and architectural bicycle promenade at small courts of Sokolniki Moscow District.
Why Sokolniki?
In Sokolniki, where architectural monuments are scattered within the ribbon development, there are plenty of places associated with the names of famous Germans of XVIII-XX centuries, from friends of Peter the Great, botanist of the Alexander era, to Berlin engineers-idealists, who helped the Soviet system to launch tungsten lamp production at Electric plant in 1920-s.
Burning hearts of Moscow Germans: seven buildings, seven stories, seven melodies. Love and lamps. Gardens, brewmasters, and the kind doctor Haass!
Each stop corresponds to a certain point of Germans’ history in Russia: the building of the shelter named after doctor Haass illustrates the history of a famous German doctor, whom they called Fyodor Petrovich and even the saint doctor in Russia. This is why the project is dedicated to the 240th anniversary of the doctor.
The stop near the electric station corresponds to the history of two German architects, Alexader Meissner and Maxim Heppener, who combined Gothic and Modern styles to create a perfect item of brick industrial architecture.
Saint Vladimir’s hospital is associated with the life of German industrialist Pavel von Derwies, who built the hospital in memory of his deceased children.
Sokolniki keeps much more secrets, such as the history of a Hamburg merchant Johan-Leonard Ding, who built the first pasta factory in Moscow, and stories of many other German entrepreneurs, whose names are immediately associated with Russia at the present time.
The bicycle promenade is accompanied by live music. Themes by the famous German composer and other romanticists are plaid at the stops in a modern version by Velo-Muzyka band. This is why the Beethoven Promenade is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the great composer.
Sergey Nikitin-Rimsky and Grigory Efremov held the bicycle tour.
Sergey NIKITIN-RIMSKY is a historian of Moscow, founder of the Architectural Bicycle Night (Velonotte) international project that takes place in Moscow, Rome, St. Petersburg, Ivanovo, and Kazan. He is a senior fellow at the Moscow Museum.
Grigory EFREMOV is a culture researcher, researcher of Soviet theater of 1920-30-s, and producer of the Architectural Bicycle Night.
