Patriarch’s Ponds is one of the most famous places in Moscow, not least because this is where the beginning of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is set. Bulgakov began writing “a novel about the devil” in 1928 and worked on it until his death in 1940. During these 12 years, the plot and structure changed, characters appeared and disappeared.
But there were certain places and plot twists in “The Master and Margarita” that remained unchanged. Mikhail Afanasyevich had no doubt that the novel should begin with a conversation between two Muscovites about Christ and a meeting with the devil on Patriarch’s Ponds. And one of these Muscovites was to die under the wheels of a streetcar. This scene with “Annushka” who “spilled the oil” became one of the most famous in the novel.
Bulgakov lived on Patriarch’s Ponds for almost three years — he knew the neighborhood well and loved it. Mikhail Afanasyevich gave a detailed description of Patriarch’s Ponds of those years, but nevertheless, even now there is a debate about whether the streetcar, which Bulgakov describes in his novel, ran along Malaya Bronnaya street. On the one hand, as the experts in Bulgakov’s works have found out, the Moscow maps of those years do not show streetcar tracks on Patriarch’s Ponds. Tatyana Lappa, Mikhail Bulgakov’s first wife, who lived with him on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, claims that there was no streetcar on Malaya Bronnaya Street. On the other hand, Boris Myagkov, a specialist in Bulgakov’s work, found a newspaper article from 1929, which announced the upcoming streetcar line on Malaya Bronnaya and Spiridonovka streets. However, it is not known whether this line was actually laid. According to another version, there were streetcar tracks on Malaya Bronnaya, but they were used for cargo transportation. Therefore, they were not marked on maps.
Patriarch’s Ponds of those years inspired not only
Bulgakov, but also his literary friends who visited him at his home at 10
Bolshaya Sadovaya Street. The writer Valentin Kataev, who was in love with
Bulgakov’s sister Lyolya, wrote the story “In Winter”, which is set on
Patriarch’s Ponds,