Moscow River Hills to Zvenigorod

The strongest compact west-Moscow escape, combining wooded river bends and historic stops.

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Why this ride

The strongest compact west-Moscow escape, combining wooded river bends and historic stops. The road: A106 and Moscow River local roads. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Moscow start

   Moscow does not do small. It has more than ten million people, a ring road, the MKAD, that encloses a space bigger than many countries' capitals, and a centre that is arranged in concentric circles like the rings of a tree. At the middle is the Kremlin, the red-brick fortress on the Moskva river, with its golden-domed cathedrals and its walls, and beside it Red Square, with the colourful domes of St Basil's. The city was first mentioned in the chronicles in 1147, and grew from a modest wooden stockade into the capital of a vast empire.

   To ride in Moscow is to be reminded of its scale. The Garden Ring and the Third Ring carry huge flows of traffic, drivers are fast and aggressive, and motorcycles filter between lanes at speed. The best time to explore on two wheels is a summer evening, when the light lasts until late, the traffic eases, and the bridges over the river are lit. The skyscrapers known as the Seven Sisters, built under Stalin, rise from the skyline, and from Sparrow Hills, the high ground near the university, you can see the whole city spread out in a haze. The metro stations, designed as underground palaces, are worth leaving the bike for.

   From the city, a favourite day trip leads north-east to Sergiev Posad, about seventy kilometres away, where the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius, the most important Russian Orthodox monastery, stands inside white walls with blue and gold domes. The road passes through forest and farmland, and pilgrims fill the monastery on holidays. It is a good outing for a long day, with plenty of cafes in the town and stalls selling painted wooden toys, a local craft.

   Fuel is found everywhere in the city and along the main roads, and the cafes range from cheap canteens to fancy restaurants. Summers are warm and can be thunderous, while winters are long, dark and very cold, with snow from November to March. Before planning any trip, check the current travel and entry conditions carefully, as they change often and can affect insurance, border crossings and the practicality of riding in Russia.

2. Arkhangelskoye stop
3. Zvenigorod finish

   Zvenigorod is one of the old towns of the Moscow region, set on a high bluff above the Moskva River about fifty kilometres west of the capital, and it has long been a favourite place for city people to escape to. Its Russian nickname, the Russian Switzerland, is generous, but the wooded hills, the river bends and the onion domes among the birches do make a gentle, harmonious landscape. About sixteen thousand people live here today, and the place has fuel, shops, cafés and a quiet, provincial air.

   The town's story begins in the fourteenth century, when it was the seat of a princely appanage, and a fortress stood on the hill called Gorodok. The Dormition Cathedral there, built around 1399, is one of the oldest surviving stone churches in the region and contains remnants of medieval frescoes attributed to the school of Andrei Rublev. A few kilometres away, the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, founded in 1398 by the monk Savva at the invitation of Prince Yuri, is a handsome walled complex with white-stone churches, bright towers and a long role in the history of Russia's tsars, who favoured it as a retreat.

   In the nineteenth century, Zvenigorod became a summer resort, and artists and writers came to stay. The painter Isaac Levitan worked here in the 1880s and left landscapes that made the hills famous, and Anton Chekhov served as a district doctor in 1884 and 1885, treating local people while he wrote. Their names are still tied to the town, with memorial museums and walks.

   For a rider, the roads in the area are gentle and scenic, with smooth country lanes winding through birch forest and meadow, fields of rye and small villages with wooden houses. Mozhaisk Highway is busy, particularly at weekends when Muscovites head for their dachas, so go early. Summer is warm and green, autumn is golden, and winter is cold and snowy, and the surface can be icy. Fill up before you go, enjoy a plate of pelmeni or a bowl of soup in a café, and walk the monastery walls in the evening.

Where this sits

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