The Neglinka River (Neglinaya) was first mentioned in the annals of 1401 as the Neglimna River. Over the years, it has had a number of names, including Neglinna, Neglimna and even Samoteka. There are several versions of the origin of this toponym.

One of them says that the name comes from the many swamps and swamps that were in its channel. "Neglinkok" in ancient times meant a swampy place with springs or just a swamp.

The next assumption, which was made by philologists, in particular, Galina Petrovna Smolitskaya, the name comes from the hydrological component of the river - its sandy and "non-clay" bed.

The toponym "Neglimna" is associated with the northern term, which sounds like "megla" (also - "negla" and "negla") and means "larch". In this case, a definition is given to the river, which is overgrown with larch.

Photo 1. Artificial bed of the Neglinnaya River in the city of Moscow

The famous philologist Vladimir Nikolaevich Toporov in 1972 put forward another hypothesis and connected the name of the Neglinna/Neglimna river with Baltic roots, breaking it into syllables - Ne-glim-in-. It is the root "gilm" in Lithuanian that means "depth". Thus, in the end we get a "shallow river".

Another name for Neglinnaya (Neglinka) - Samoteka - is associated with rivers that flowed from flowing ponds, i.e. flowed by itself. This toponym was applied to the river in its middle course in the region of the present and. Based on other sources, this was the name of the part of the river, starting from its upper reaches and up to the confluence with another river - the Naprudnaya.

Photo 2. The former bed of the Neglinka near Manezhnaya Square was dressed in granite

The Neglinnaya River in antiquity

It is hard to believe today, but in ancient times the Neglinnaya (Neglinka) was a full-flowing river, which was used not only for fishing, damming watermills and as a means of communication, but also as an important fortification that protected from the western and northwestern direction.

The total length of the river channel was about 7.5 kilometers. The source was located in the area of ​​​​the current Maryina Grove. During floods, the width of the river reached one and a half kilometers and a depth of up to 25 meters.

In the area of ​​the current Samotechny Boulevard, the Naprudnaya River flowed into Neglinnaya, which originated in the area and Trifonovskaya Street. The toponym is associated with the grand ducal settlement of Naprudnoe, which has been mentioned since the time of Ivan Kalita.

Neglinka in the 15th-17th centuries

The waters of this same Samotyok through a stone pipe once arranged fell straight into the Earthen City and then overflowed again in its course.

The next obstacle in the way of the river was an opening in the fortress wall, which was equipped with a grate. This gap was called the "Pipe" and was located in the area of ​​​​the current Trubnaya Square.

Further, before confluence with the Moscow River, bridges were thrown across the bed of the Neglinnaya (Neglinka): Kuznetsky, Petrovsky (discovered during the reconstruction of the building of the Maly Theater), Voskresensky (near the former Kitai-Gorod) and Troitsky (still located between the Kremlin towers - Troitskaya and Kutafya).

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the waters of the Neglinka filled the moat, which stretched along the Kremlin walls. During this period, there were six ponds along the entire course, some of which were drained in the middle of the 18th century.

In the spring flood, the Neglinnaya flooded the entire low-lying valley. To imagine this, we list the areas that were flooded - these are the neighborhoods around, the area from Rakhmanovsky lane to, the area between and the building of the State Duma.

River in the 18th century

The Northern War, which lasted from 1700 to 1721, made its mark on the history of Neglinnaya (Neglinka). So, by order of Peter the Great, to protect the Kremlin walls, only along the riverbed were erected 5 bolters - defensive structures, which in plan were a triangle. This construction was associated with the diversion of the natural channel a little to the west of the former place, for which even the Swan Pond was lowered, located at.

The Swedes did not reach Moscow and in the period from 1821 to 1823 the bolters were dismantled.

In the 80s of the XVIII century, in the area of ​​the Upper Neglinny Pond that existed then, an embankment was built, which was decorated using iron bars and wild stone. The project was made by engineer Ivan Kondratievich Gerard. Muscovites liked the place and became "a pleasant amusement park for all hunters to walk around."

It is worth noting that the waters of the Neglinnaya (Neglinka), as well as the Naprudnaya River with Samotechny Ponds, were clean and suitable for fishing. Ecological cleanliness, as they say today, was monitored by a special division of the Police Office: the townsfolk were forbidden to bathe horses and rinse clothes here. The Neglinensky ponds were rented out to merchants for fish breeding. During the winter, local ice was in demand because of its purity and it was harvested for the then "refrigerators" - glaciers.

True, the lower course of the river could not boast of such. Because of the heavy pollution, the dams in these places were called "nasty".

Written by me for the digger's Wikipedia. It focuses on the history of the underground sewer system.

The first mention of Neglinnaya (Neglim) refers to the period of Ivan Kalita. It started from the swamps near Maryina Roshcha and flowed from north to south, flowing into the Moscow River near the Kremlin. There were several ponds in the upper reaches. Then the river was full-flowing and clean, and in its lower reaches it was also navigable. But the rapid growth of the population of Moscow led to the fact that by the end of the 18th century Neglinnaya was so polluted with sewage flowing from the streets that its water was considered hazardous to health. According to the plan of Catherine II in 1775, they were supposed to conclude the Neglinnaya River in an open channel, arrange boulevards for walking along the banks, and lay a water pipe with fountains from Mytishchi to the Kuznetsky Bridge along the eastern bank of the river.

Neglinnaya in an open channel on the map of Moscow in 1739

In 1791-92. according to the project of engineer I. Gerard, a canal about 2 m wide was laid to the east of the old riverbed, which was then covered with earth. Under Trubnaya Square, the river flowed in an underground tunnel ("pipe"). After the fire of 1812, the Commission for the construction of the city of Moscow decided: "an open canal with pools along an insufficient flow of water in it from the accumulated sewage that produces trouble in the air, blocked with arches, fall asleep." This was carried out in 1817-19. Work on the construction of the underground bed was carried out by a surveyor, urban planner, military engineer E. G. Cheliev. The earth for backfilling the pipe was taken from the earthen fortifications of the Kremlin wall, which at that time were demolished as unnecessary. Since then, part of Neglinnaya from Samotechnaya Street to the mouth has been flowing underground, and the banks of the former canal have turned into Neglinnaya Street.

"Bast bargaining on the Pipe", A. Vasnetsov.

In the second half of the 19th century, the Neglinnaya collector could no longer cope with the flow. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the owners of the nearby houses arranged unauthorized tie-ins, through which sewage was dumped into the river. In 1886-87. under the guidance of engineer N. M. Levachev, a major overhaul and reconstruction of the pipe was carried out along its entire length. The tunnel was divided into three sections, on each of which the vault of the collector and the pavement were opened in 12 places. Water from the tunnel with the help of pumps was diverted into wooden trays lined with iron, suspended at a height of 1.5 arshins above the bottom of the canal. During the reconstruction, the tunnel was cleared, the walls were plastered, the bottom was deepened and made in the form of an inverted vault, the tray was lined with tarusa stone.

In 1906, from Samotechnaya Square to Sushchevsky Val, part of the Neglinnaya in the upper reaches and its tributary, the Naprudnaya River, were buried underground. In 1910-14. sections that were in disrepair were again subjected to a major overhaul. Then, according to the project of engineer MP Shchekotov, a section of parabolic section 117 m long was built next to the Metropol Hotel and the Maly Theater. Its height is 3.6 meters, width - 5.75 meters. For its time, it was a brilliant engineering project, in terms of hydraulic properties not inferior to modern standards. According to this model, it was planned to rebuild the entire Neglinnaya collector, but the First World War prevented the work from being done. This section of the collector now bears the unspoken name "Shchekotovsky Tunnel".

The old collector of Neglinnaya, despite the reconstruction of some sections, could not cope with the flow intensifying during heavy rains. So, the showers that took place on July 14 and 25, 1965 caused flooding of the central part of the city over an area of ​​more than 25 hectares. Therefore, in 1966, a new collector near Zaryadye was built using the shield method, ending with a new water outlet. The old channel under the Alexander Garden became a duplicate. Flooding of the territory has significantly decreased, but has not stopped.

Flood on Neglinnaya in the 60s.

After floods caused by heavy rains on July 7 and August 9, 1973, the Moscow authorities decided to build a new collector for the Neglinnaya River. It was built in stages from 1974 to 1989 from Durova Street to the Metropol Hotel, using the original "semi-panel" method. At the same time, the duplicating old riverbed from Theater Square to the Moskva River was strengthened with the help of a reinforced concrete jacket. The old section from Samotechnaya Square to Trubnaya has practically not been used since then, and the tunnel from Trubnaya Square to Teatralnaya has been converted into a cable and thermal collector.

Construction of a new collector from precast concrete elements. 1974-75

Formally, the name of the Neglinka is also associated with the project implemented in 1996 on Manezhnaya Square, where the supposedly old section of the river was brought out. In fact, this is an artificial reservoir of a closed cycle, the flow in which is maintained artificially. The old site is located in the same place under the Alexander Garden.

Neglinka and Gilyarovsky

The well-known Moscow reporter and writer Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky was very interested in underground Moscow. When, in the early 1880s, preparations were made for the reconstruction of the Neglinka collector, Gilyarovsky was a member of the commission, which was created to inspect the dilapidated old channel. In the report "Underground works in Moscow" he published the report of the commission:

The vault of the chimney is quite well preserved, but in some places there are longitudinal cracks in it, especially large ones under Theater passage and near the Sandunovsky fountain, for 60 sazhens. In some places the vault sank and narrowed the canal. The channel is also narrowed by a network of gas and water pipes crossing it. The channel has meanders and sharp turns along its course, especially frequent on the way from the Maly Theater to the Theater Basin. The walls of the canal are 4 bricks thick, and the vault is 2 bricks. The floor consists of a double row of boards laid along the canal. The walls of the channel lie with their foundation on three rows of piles, and the floor is reinforced on transverse logs embedded
end into these piles. The floor was rotten in places; its boards are torn off by the current and clutter up the channel. Channel height is not the same. In some places, a tall man could walk freely along the bottom of the canal, but in some places, thanks to sediment, it was almost impossible to crawl lying down.

In his famous book "Moscow and Muscovites", published in 1926, Gilyarovsky devoted a separate chapter to Neglinka. It was called "Secrets of the Neglinka", and in it the author described how, in the early seventies of the 19th century, he descended into the Neglinka collector.

... On a hot July day, we raised the iron grate of the drain well in front of Malyushin's house, near Samoteka, and lowered a ladder there. No one paid attention to our operation - everything was done very quickly: they raised the grate, lowered the ladder. Foul steam billowed from the hole. Fedya the plumber climbed first; the hole, damp and dirty, was narrow, the ladder stood vertically, the back shuffled against the wall. There was a splash of water and a voice, as if from a crypt:
- Climb, or something!
I pulled up my hunting boots, buttoned up my leather jacket, and began to descend. Elbows and shoulders touched the walls of the pipe. Hands had to hold on tightly to the dirty steps of a sheer, swaying staircase, supported, however, by the worker who remained at the top. With each step down, the stench grew stronger and stronger. It was getting creepy. Finally, the sound of water and squelching was heard. I looked up. I could only see the square of a blue, bright sky and the face of the worker holding the ladder. Cold, bone-piercing dampness seized me...

Illustrations

Her story is an endless series of love dramas, betrayals and betrayals. The ghosts of offended, abandoned, humiliated lovers have been frightening random passers-by at night for centuries... People felt that sooner or later the river, which had accumulated black energy, would begin to return it. Two hundred years ago, trying to protect themselves from the evil fate of the Neglinka, they hid the river underground. But imprisoned in stone, Neglinka continues to remind of its existence today ...

The Petrovsky bridge across the Neglinka, opposite the Cannon Yard, was first mentioned in the annals under 1488.

Mysterious find
In the mid-seventies of the last century, a powerful flood in the center of Moscow carried a corpse out of the collector of the Neglinnaya River. The criminologists who arrived at the scene were puzzled: in the pocket of the unknown man's shabby jacket, they found an antique ring with a diamond. Doubly strange was the fact that the jewel, for which any collector would give a fortune, as it turned out, did not pass through the police reports. And this means that the ring was not stolen - at least in recent years ...
There were no versions of what happened until the investigator Yegor Sobolev, studying the circumstances of the death and the mysterious find in the Moscow dungeon, found in the archive one criminal case from the time of Tsarist Russia - and, surprisingly, also directly related to Neglinka.
Neglinka originates near Maryina Roshcha and descends to the very heart of Moscow - the Kremlin. Its channel runs along the streets of Streletskaya, Novosushchevskaya, Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Trubnaya Square, Neglinnaya Street, Theater Square, under the Alexander Garden and along the Kremlin wall.
The names themselves - Neglinnaya, Samotechnaya, Trubnaya - are reminiscent of the long and unhappy history of the river.

During the time of Ivan Kalita, millstones were spinning on the banks of the Neglinka, forges and pottery workshops were working. Residents of the ancient capital of the Moscow principality caught crayfish and white fish in the purest water.

But in the 18th century everything changed: a new fashion appeared - it became prestigious to live on the Neglinka. Mansions of the Moscow nobility are being erected on its banks.
Sewage poured into the clear river water, rubbish rained down. Neglinka began to shallow, gradually overgrown with mud and reeds...

Neglinnaya (Neglimna, Neglinna, Neglinka) is a river in the central part of Moscow, the left tributary of the Moscow River. Length 7.5 km. Appolinary Vasnetsov "Public baths on the Neglinnaya River in the 17th century" 1917 watercolor.

Ashes of deformity
In Catherine's time, not far from the Kuznetsk bridge, thrown across the Neglinka, there was a Secret Expedition - an institution that investigated state crimes. It was led by Stepan Sheshkovsky. He was a man of small stature and frail build. But the most terrible legends circulated about his atrocities.
Sheshkovsky created a system of interrogation with prejudice. The torture room was equipped with devices, the mere sight of which instilled mortal horror in the defendant.
Sheshkovsky's cruelty knew no limits - here, in a house on the banks of the Neglinka, he personally spotted at least two thousand people half to death.

Kuznetsky Most, Neglinka River, in the background the first building of the Bolshoi (Petrovsky) Theater, built in 1780

Next to the Secret Expedition were the possessions of one of the most sinister women in the history of Russia - the landowner Daria Saltykova. With the help of witchcraft, the bloodthirsty Saltychikha tried to get rid of the flaws in her appearance. On her conscience of the life of 139 people, mostly serf girls and women. The reason for the bloody atrocities of Saltykova was the secret passion of the landowner, which is rarely remembered. Daria harbored a fierce hatred for women who were prettier than her. One look at the portrait of the landowner is enough to make it clear: any woman could become a victim of Saltychikha.
Daria believed in the legend that the waters of the Neglinka have life-giving power.
Every Sunday, exactly at midnight, Saltychikha put on a long white shirt and went down to the river, stopped at the very edge of the bank and whispered a prayer. After that, the landowner scooped up night water and washed her face. By order of the mistress, the servant made a fire, threw a damp towel into it, with which she dried herself, and then scattered the ashes over Neglinka.
Saltychikha believed: along with the towel, her ugliness burned down in the fire ...
Saltykova was subjected to civil execution, and in her sentence it was written "a freak of the human race."

View of the Stone Bridge in Moscow with a wooden bridge near the Vodovzvodnaya Tower. Beginning 1800s Engraving by G. Lari based on a drawing by J. Delabarthe in 1796. In the foreground, the mouth of the Neglinka

Mascot
In 1817 Muscovites decided to get rid of Neglinka.
The special commission decided: “The open canal with pools, due to the insufficient flow of water in it from the accumulated sewage, which produces trouble in the air, should be covered with arches and covered with arches.”
With his own hands, man turned the once purest, living river into a fetid, polluted waste, poisoned by witchcraft and the blood of the tortured. Neglinka has become a source of evil. And the townspeople felt its influence on themselves.
The founders of the Sandunovsky baths, Liza Uranova and her husband Sila Sandunov, were the first - the meeting with the Neglinnaya River became disastrous for their family and for themselves.
The bad fame of Neglinka did not bother Sandunov's strength. He firmly decided to buy land in the area of ​​the Kuznetsk bridge.
But his wife was alerted by rumors about the local devilry. Elizabeth decided to go to the famous fortuneteller - the old gypsy Zoya, who lived here, in the area of ​​Trubnaya Square.
The slender hands of a gypsy laid out Tarot cards. On the magic cloth were already "Lovers", "Wheel of Fate", "Judgment" ...

Zoya shook her head - this alignment does not bode well. Finally, the gypsy turned over the last card and looked straight at Lisa: “Blood runs under this earth. You will not be happy in the house built here... But the cards also say that powerful forces have given you protection. You have a charm - a talisman that can protect you from the curse of this place.
Returning home, Lisa told her husband about the ominous prophecy. In response, Sila only smiled and continued to fuss about buying land.
A mansion on the banks of the Neglinnaya, already partially hidden in a pipe, was built. But the rich interiors did not reassure Elizabeth: she still felt uncomfortable here, and Sila Sandunov decided to build baths on Neglinka.
The land on the Kuznetsky Most was very expensive, and the newlyweds had to pawn almost all the jewelry they had. The last was a ring, presented to Lisa by Empress Catherine II as a sign of special favor. Elizabeth persuaded her husband not to sell it, recalled the prophecy of a gypsy. But Sila Nikolayevich only laughed in response. The ring lay on the usurer's table.
Lisa's body was then found lifeless on the river bank. The Kuznetsk bridge, where the Sandunovs lived, went underground along with the river.

University of Moscow. Neglinka.
Ghosts of Neglinka

When the legendary Sanduny appeared on Neglinnaya, they decided to take water for baths from the Moskva River, and drain the dirty water into Neglinka. At the same time, a market appeared on Trubnaya Square, which got its name from the pipe into which Neglinka was removed, where stolen goods were sold. The surroundings were appropriate - slums, thieves' dens and prostitutes. On the corner of Trubnaya there were famous taverns "Hell" and "Crimea". The tavern "Crimea" occupied two floors. On one walked cheaters and swindlers. The second was decorated brightly, with a claim to chic; merchants and visitors feasted here.
And below, deep in the basement, there was another inn. This place was called briefly and ominously - "Hell". It was here that the entire criminal world of Moscow flocked. According to contemporaries, there were so many corpses thrown into Neglinka at that time that the stone channel of the river was clogged and the water stopped flowing.
The mistress of Savva Morozov, the French woman Zhuzhu, worked as a fashion model in one of the capital's fashion houses. Her carriage was driving along the Kuznetsky bridge when a newspaper boy shouted: “Savva Morozov committed suicide in Nice! Savva Morozov committed suicide in Nice!” Juju ordered the cab driver to stop to buy a newspaper. She barely had time to jump off the footboard ...
Zhuzha did not notice the carriage rushing towards her. The coachman did not have time to restrain the horses ... The girl was taken to the hospital. The doctors fought for her life for a long time, but they could not save her ... And after sunset, in the gateway near the Kuznetsk bridge, a passer-by stumbled upon the body of a boy who sold newspapers in the morning. The passer-by peered into his face...
The boy was dead. A silk stocking squeezed his neck with superhuman strength. That same night, a police examination established that the stocking belonged to a Frenchwoman, whose body had already been lying in the morgue for several hours by the time the newsboy's boy died...

Hotel "Metropol". Moscow.

The fame of Neglinka did not embarrass patron Savva Mamontov. A successful manufacturer begins the construction of the Metropol, the best hotel in Moscow, right above the Neglinka. His new project is striking in its boldness and scope. In the midst of construction, Mamontov was arrested and put on trial. He was accused of abuse and embezzlement.
After a painful trial, the jury acquitted Mamontov, but by this time, through the efforts of officials, he was completely ruined and deprived of the opportunity to carry out his grandiose project. A year later, the hotel was nevertheless erected, but just a few months after the opening, a terrible tragedy occurred.

The hotel was built, and part of the room stock was already used - guests settled here, but suddenly a fire breaks out and for unknown reasons the building burns out completely in just a few hours. After that, the authorities began repair work in the Neglinka underground pipe. Some sections of the pipe have been restored. But this did not stop the river - 40 years ago, in the mid-60s, it broke out of the stone banks and flooded the center of Moscow. Eight years later, on August 9, 1973, history repeated itself.

At the end of the eighties of the last century, a collector was built, but this did not save the city from the blows of the underground elements. In the center of the capital, vast areas of soil are sinking. Hydrologists say that the waters of the Neglinka are especially aggressive - they can corrode concrete, cast iron and even steel.
No, no, yes, and a random midnight passerby in the Kuznetsky Bridge area will meet the ghost of a French woman Zhuzha, a girl in a dress of bygone times or a man in an old robe drinking water from the river, and the Power of the Sanduns has recently appeared so often in their baths that it has ceased to frighten their employees. Guides Sanduny talk about it as something familiar.
Sometimes people who stay up late here can hear mysterious sounds or even see a dark silhouette that walks along the pool.
___________________________________________
Author: Natalia VAKHRAMEEVA

1. The unknown founder of Moscow chose a convenient place for the city - a narrow cape at the confluence of the Moscow and Neglinnaya rivers. For several centuries the city grew within the cape to the east. First the walls of the Kremlin advanced, then the walls of Kitay-Gorod appeared. Only in the 16th century the city stepped over the Neglinnaya, surrounding its lower reaches with the walls of the White City. Zaneglimenye, located on the site of the current Lenin Library, ceased to be a suburb. It is characteristic that at the same time the wall of the Black City crossed the Moscow River, embracing Zamoskvorechye. But if the Moscow River remained a navigable artery, the beauty of the city, then the Neglinka, which had become shallow by the 18th century, became an obstacle to its development and had to disappear from the map.

2. At the end of the 18th century, the lower course of the river went underground, then the middle sections of the channel disappeared, and finally, already in the 20th century, the source, the Pashensky swamp, was filled up. However, having disappeared by itself, the river left many traces in the relief, the layout of Moscow, in the names of streets and alleys. Let's start the journey along the river from the well-known place where it flows into the Moscow River. The old mouth is well known to Muscovites - it is an oval opening in the embankment between the Vodovzvodnaya Tower and the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge.

3. By the way, this same hole was included in the oldest known photograph of the city, a painted Lerebour daguerreotype of 1842.

4.

5. In front of the mouth there is an underground pool measuring approximately 5 by 15 meters. From here begins the section of the collector, passing north of the old channel, under Mokhovaya and Okhotny Ryad streets, as well as under the Moskva Hotel.

6. This section went into the pipe first, in 1817-19, and the Alexander Garden was laid out above it. At the Kremlin walls you can see part of the Borovitsky Hill, which flowed around the Neglinka before flowing into the Moscow River.

7. Toponymy tells us the choice of direction - Manezhnaya Street, which runs along the right bank of the river, until 1922 was called Neglinnaya. In the aforementioned year, it was decided to collect all the "Neglinnye" names near the current Neglinnaya Street.

8. The section of the channel to the north of Manezhnaya Street, or, to put it correctly, a reserve watercourse in case the main flow is blocked, is a brick vault lined with reinforced concrete, along which narrow-gauge railway tracks are laid.

9. The right tributary of the Neglinka flows here - the Uspensky Vrazhek stream. It flowed in the ravine of the same name, which took place on the site of the current Bryusov Lane and gave its name to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word on the Assumption Vrazhek.

10. The oldest surviving Moscow bridge, Troitsky, was thrown over the channel of the Neglinnaya.

11. The nine-span bridge was built in 1516 according to the project of the Italian Aleviz Fryazin, along with the main part of the structures of the modern Kremlin.

12. During the restructuring of 1901, all arches were laid in it except for the central one. The current facing brick of the bridge dates back to 2000.

13. In 1996, during the construction of a shopping center near Manezhnaya Square, a section of the river was allegedly brought to the surface in the form of a sculpture and fountain complex. Naturally, the water here is tap water, and circulates in a circle. The water of the Neglinnaya itself is classified by experts as “very dirty”.

14. In addition to imitation of the “Neglinskaya” water on Manezhnaya Square, the sculptural solution is also highly questionable.

15. Opposite the Manege in the Alexander Garden there is a decorative pedestal, from which the sound of water is clearly heard. This is a section of an old underground channel, now not communicating with the main system.

16. In addition, there are many different trellises and hatches in the garden.

17. There is a very extensive sewer system.

18. From the Corner Arsenal Tower to the Moskva River in the 16th-19th centuries, the Alevizov moat passed, which was also filled with water from the Neglinnaya. However, not completely - it was also fed by springs gushing from the bottom. Thus, the Neglinka, together with the moat and the Moscow River, formed a protective water ring around the Kremlin.

19. Alevizov moat passed between the walls of the Kremlin and the current Historical Museum. Now it is filled up, and in its place the descent from Red Square to the bank of the Neglinka is clearly visible.

20. In the section to Theater Square, Neglinka served as a moat for Kitai-gorod. At the Iberian Gates in 1601-03, a white-stone Voskresensky (Kuryatny) bridge was thrown over it. The bridge is well preserved and can be seen in the Moscow Museum of Archeology.

21. The river crosses the modern Revolution Square obliquely, leaving the building of the Maly Theater.

22. Under the theater building, she made a sharp turn, which was often clogged. It was here that Neglinka most often “overflowed its banks”. After 25 hectares of urban development were flooded in 1965, it was decided to build a backup collector from this place.

23. In 1966, this collector was built by Zaryadye. This is how the slide chamber looks like, the interface between the old and new systems.

24. A new collector was built in a shield way under the quarters of Kitay-Gorod.

25. Approximately in the middle, a powerful spillway flows into it, the water falls vertically from a height of about five meters.

26. Before flowing into the Moscow River, the collector breaks into three and goes out into a small hall with a balcony.

27. This is how the new mouth of the Neglinka looks like from the opposite bank of the Moscow River.

28. From the corner of the Maly Theater, Neglinnaya Street begins. From here begins the most famous section of the underground river, called "Chickotovka".

29. In 1910-14, according to the project of engineer M.P. Shchekotov built a parabolic section 117 meters long and 3.6 by 5.8 meters in size. For its time, it was a brilliant engineering project, in terms of hydraulic properties not inferior even to modern standards. According to this model, it was planned to rebuild the entire Neglinnaya collector, but the First World War prevented the work from being done. V.A. went down here twice. Gilyarovsky, however, his most famous walk, described in detail in the book "Moscow and Muscovites", took place much to the north, under Trubnaya Square. Despite this, the Shchekotovsky tunnel is often called the "Gilyarovsky Path".

30. The tunnel was laid directly under the buildings of the Maly Theater and the Central Department Store. Because of this, the walls of the theater from the side of Neglinnaya Street are supported by beams.

31. Until 1922, Manezhnaya Street bore the name of Neglinnaya, and the section of Neglinnaya Street from the Maly Theater to Rakhmanovsky Lane was called Neglinny Proyezd. It runs in a lowland, all perpendicular streets and lanes descend to it, for example, Cannon Street.

32. Unsolid floodplain soil greatly affects the pavement.

33. Crossing the Neglinnaya street Kuznetsky Most says that we are on the right track.

34. The last of a series of successive bridges, built in 1754-61 by Semyon Yakovlev according to the project of architect D.V. Ukhtomsky three-span white-stone bridge has survived to this day. After being enclosed in a river pipe in 1818-19, it was filled up, and is now stored under the pavement. The bridge was 16 meters wide and about 30 meters long. Perhaps someday it will again appear before the eyes of Muscovites, but only when the center of Moscow ceases to be a commercial and administrative cesspool, that is, not very soon.

35. At the corner of the Kuznetsky bridge there is an unremarkable, but well-known building. Here, in 1826, the Frenchman Tranquil Yard, the famous restaurant of French cuisine "Yar". Pushkin dedicated the lines of one of his poems to the restaurant: “How long will I, in the anguish of a hungry fast, keep an involuntary fast and commemorate Yar’s cold veal truffle?”

36. "Petrovsky Passage", built on the former bank of the Neglinka at the beginning of the 20th century.

37. Thermometer on the building of the Central Bank opposite.

38. The huge building of the five-star hotel "Peter I" a little further.

39. Behind the descending Sandunovsky Lane, a whole block is occupied by the famous Sandunovsky baths. The old building of the baths was built at the beginning of the 19th century on the banks of the open channel of the Neglinka. They were arranged by the then owner of the site, the Georgian actor Sila Nikolaevich Sandunov.

40. In 1804, the husband of the owner of the baths, Vera Ivanovna Firsanova, Alexei Ganetsky, ordered the architect B.V. Freidenberg to build a new building for baths. A quarrel with the customer forced Freudenberg to abandon the project halfway through and leave Moscow. The front building of the Sanduny was completed by the architect Kalugin and opened to the public on February 14, 1896. Bath water was taken through a special water supply line from the Moskva River, from the Babiegorod dam, and from a 700-foot artesian well. The drain was carried out, of course, in Neglinka.

41. At the intersection with Zvonarsky and Rakhmanovsky lanes, Neglinnaya Street expands significantly.

42. These are the floods that happened here in the 1960s.

43. At the corner of Rakhmanovsky Lane stands the tallest building in Neglinnaya Street. It was built for almost 20 years, from 1915 to 1934. During this period, wars, revolutions, changes in architectural styles took place, but one of the most important obstacles was the swampy soils of the banks of the former river.

44. Until 1922, the section from here to Trubnaya Square was called Neglinny Boulevard.

45. This is really a full-fledged boulevard, with a walking area in the middle. On the right side stretches a row of rebuilt tenement houses, united in a forged administrative-residential complex with the eclectic name "Neglinnaya Plaza".

46. ​​Steeply descends to the boulevard Nizhny Kiselny lane. It was named after Kiselnaya Sloboda, which was located here in the 17th-18th centuries, where funeral kissels were cooked. For sixty years, until 1993, he bore the name of the 3rd Neglinny.

47. Neglinnaya Street ends at Trubnaya Square. This name is also a trace of a disappeared river. In the 16th century, the wall of the White City was built along the line of the modern boulevard ring. A hole was made in the wall at the intersection with Neglinka, covered with a grate, called a "pipe". The subsequent construction of an underground tunnel only strengthened this name. Here, a stream flowed into the river, starting from the Daeva pond, and serving in the lower reaches as a bypass channel of the medieval fortress.

48. In front of the wall of the White City, the river formed a flowing pond, called Trubny.

49. Lying behind the square, Tsvetnoy Boulevard enjoyed a bad reputation a hundred years ago. In the lanes to the east of it (Grachevka) there were drinking establishments of the lowest rank, brothels, and dens of criminals. Their victims were revelers and night passers-by along the boulevard. From the west, another hot spot, Malyushinka, was adjacent. The underground sewer allowed the bandits to literally hide the ends in the water. The terrible secrets of Tsvetnoy Boulevard were exposed by the king of Moscow reporters V.A. Gilyarovsky.

50. Under the boulevard, the underground channel is divided into several sections. It was here that Gilyarovsky descended to the Neglinka for the first time. Now there is no current in this abandoned tunnel.

Let's give the floor to Vladimir Alekseevich himself:
„... I decided to examine the Neglinka at all costs. It was a continuation of my constant work on the study of the Moscow slums, with which Neglinka had a connection, as I had to find out in the brothels of Grachevka and Tsvetnoy Boulevard.
It was not difficult for me to find two daredevils who decided on this journey. One of them is a licenseless plumber Fedya, who made his living by day work, and the other is a former janitor, solid and thorough. It was his duty to lower the ladder, lower us into the cesspool between Samotyok and Trubnaya Square, and then meet us at the next flight and lower the ladder for our exit. Fedi's duty is to accompany me in the dungeon and shine.
And so, on a hot July day, we raised the iron grating of the drain well in front of Malyushin's house, near Samoteka, and lowered a ladder there. No one paid attention to our operation - everything was done very quickly: they raised the grate, lowered the ladder. Foul steam billowed from the hole. Fedya the plumber climbed first; the hole, damp and dirty, was narrow, the ladder stood vertically, the back shuffled against the wall.
I pulled up my hunting boots, buttoned up my leather jacket, and began to descend. Elbows and shoulders touched the walls of the pipe. Hands had to hold on tightly to the dirty steps of a sheer, swaying staircase, supported, however, by the worker who remained at the top. With each step down, the stench grew stronger and stronger. It was getting creepy. Finally, the sound of water and squelching was heard. I looked up. I could only see the square of a blue, bright sky and the face of the worker holding the ladder. A cold, bone-piercing dampness enveloped me.
At last I went down to the last step, and as I carefully lowered my foot, I felt a jet of water rustling against the toe of my boot. I stood on the bottom, and the cold dampness of the water penetrated my hunting boots.
I was left alone in this walled-up crypt and walked knee-deep in the seething water for about ten steps. Has stopped. There was darkness all around me. The darkness is impenetrable, the complete absence of light. I turned my head in all directions, but my eyes did not distinguish anything.
I bumped my head against something, raised my hand and felt the wet, cold, warty, slimy stone vault and jerked my hand away nervously. It even became scary. It was quiet, only the water gurgled below. Every second of waiting for a worker with fire seemed like an eternity to me. I moved further forward and heard a noise like the roar of a waterfall. Indeed, just next to me, a waterfall roared, scattering millions of dirty splashes, barely illuminated by the pale yellowish light from the opening of the street pipe. It turned out to be a sewage drain from a side hole in the wall.
We went forward through deep water, sometimes avoiding the waterfalls of street runoff that hummed under our feet. Suddenly, a terrible roar, as if from collapsing buildings, made me shudder. It was a cart passing over us. I recalled a similar rumble on my journey into the artesian well tunnel, but here it was incomparably stronger. More and more often carriages thundered over my head. With the help of a light bulb, I examined the walls of the dungeon, damp, covered with thick slime. We walked for a long time, in some places plunging into deep mud or inaccessible, fetid liquid mud, in some places bending over, since the drifts of mud were so high that it was impossible to go straight - I had to bend down, and still I reached the vault with my head and shoulders. My feet sank into the mud, occasionally bumping into something hard. All this swam with liquid mud, it was impossible to see, and even before that.
A few minutes later we stumbled upon a rise under our feet. There was a heap of mud especially thick, and, apparently, something was piled under the mud. We climbed through the heap, illuminating it with a light bulb. I poked around with my foot, and something bounced under my boot. We stepped over the pile and moved on. In one of these drifts, I managed to see halfway covered with silt the corpse of a huge dog. It was especially difficult to get over the last skid before the exit to Trubnaya Square, where the stairs were waiting for us. Here the mud was especially thick, and something kept slipping underfoot. It was scary to think about it.
But Fedya nevertheless broke through:
- It is true I say: we go after people.
I said nothing. He looked up, where the blue sky shone through the iron grating. Another flight, and an already open grate and a staircase leading to freedom are waiting for us.”

51. Now the river passes under the right side of the boulevard in a new collector, which the Moscow authorities decided to build in 1973 after particularly strong floods. Under the left side are old channels, mostly abandoned. And once on this place was the Upper Neglinny Pond.

52. This is how a collector built in the 1970s from precast concrete elements looks like.

53. And here is a photo of its construction.

54. An old sewer passes directly under the green area, named Malyushenko after the owner of the local tenement houses.

55. Tsvetnoy Boulevard ends at Samotechnaya Square, through which the overpass of the Garden Ring is thrown.

56. The further direction of movement is suggested by the relief. Gravity street lies in a wide valley. And the name of the street is clearly associated with the course of the river.

57. The left bank of the Neglinnaya has a steep descent; Trinity Church stands on it.

58. Here on the river there were two Gravity Ponds, Upper and Lower. In this place, the Neglinka flowed very slowly, imposingly, for which it received the nickname Samotyok.

59. This site went underground in the 1880s. Old-timers remember how in the 1950s, after heavy rains, when turbulent streams flowed into Samoteka from neighboring lanes, the collector overflowed and water splashed out through the manholes into the street. Floods stopped only after the aforementioned reconstruction of the collector in the 1960s and 70s.

60. Here the river flows through a small brick tunnel built in the late 19th century.

61. Quite significant administrative buildings stand along Samotechnaya Street, however, quite far from the unstable floodplain, where the square of Samotechny Boulevard is located.

62. The shape of the relief here is quite indicative. Two Volkonsky lanes descend to Samotyok.

63.

64. The massive building of Stalinist architecture once housed the 16th Directorate of the KGB, which was engaged in electronic intelligence, radio interception and decryption.

65. At the intersection with Delegatskaya Street, a fork occurs in the Neglinnaya collector. The main channel goes under the 3rd Samotechny Lane to the west, and from the east its main left tributary, the Naprudnaya River, flows into the Neglinka.

66. This place looks so picturesque underground. On the left, the Neglinka channel continues, and the Naprudnaya collector goes straight ahead. Here we will end the first part of our tour. The next parts will start from this place in two different directions, up Naprudnaya, and then along the Neglinka itself.

Used materials:
1. Book A.V. Rogachev "Outskirts of old Moscow"

Few of the residents and guests of Moscow know that they are separated from the underground river in the center of the capital only by a sewer manhole and a couple of meters of land. Neglinka originates from the Pashensky swamp near Maryina Roshcha and, crossing the central quarters of the city from north to south, flows under the streets that owe their names to it: Samotechny square, boulevard and lane, Neglinnaya street and Trubnaya square.

The Neglinka is a legendary river of its kind. Not very long and full of water, it played a significant role in the life of Moscow: Neglinnaya contributed to the emergence of a valley on the banks of which the Kremlin stands. How the Neglinnaya River turned from a completely ordinary river into underground collectors, and what is its fate in modern Moscow, we will tell in this material.

The Neglinka River was first mentioned in the annals of the early 15th century under the name Neglimny. By the way, over the past years, this river has changed many names, including Neglinaya, Neglinna and Samoteka. According to one version, the last name appeared due to the fact that the middle course of the river in the area of ​​​​the present Trubnaya Square flowed from flowing ponds, that is, it flowed by gravity.

The role of Neglinka in the life of Moscow residents

It's hard to imagine, but once the Neglinnaya was a full-flowing river with clean water, and in its lower reaches it was even navigable. At the beginning of the 16th century, water for the moat around the Kremlin wall came from Neglinnaya. Dams were built on the river, forming six interconnected ponds used for fish farming. Water from the ponds was also taken to extinguish fires that were frequent at that time.

Pollution problems

However, already in the middle of the 18th century, the waters of the Neglinnaya were heavily polluted, as they were used as a waste drain for the needs of the rapidly growing population of Moscow and the developing industry. Part of the ponds, it was decided to lower. It should be added that Neglinnaya flooded in full water and flooded neighboring streets. Therefore, by 1775, Catherine II drew up a project in which Neglinnaya was ordered to "turn into an open canal, with boulevards for walking along the banks."

Pipe construction

However, the open canal, fragrant throughout its length with sewage, did not contribute to improving the atmosphere in the capital, so it was decided to fill it up, having previously blocked it with arches. Military engineer E. Cheliev undertook the construction of the underground bed, and under his leadership, by 1819, a part of Neglinnaya from Samotechochnaya Street to the mouth was enclosed in a pipe, which was a three-kilometer brick vault. And the banks of the former canal turned into Neglinnaya Street.

First overhaul

Half a century later, the Neglinnaya collector stopped coping with the flow of water. During strong floods and heavy rains, the river made its way to the surface. The situation was complicated by the owners of the houses, who arranged makeshift tie-ins through which sewage was dumped into the river. And 1886-87. under the leadership of engineer N. Levachov, a major overhaul of the underground channel was carried out. The tunnel was divided into three sections.

Shchekotovsky tunnel

In 1910-1914. According to the project of engineer M. Shchekotov, a section of the Neglinka collector was built, located under Theater Square. This tunnel, exactly 117 meters long, runs next to the Metropol Hotel and the Maly Theatre. Now it is called in honor of its creator - "The Shchekotovsky Tunnel", and illegal excursions around the Neglinka are usually held here.

Flood problem

Despite the construction of more and more collectors, flooding did not stop - in the mid-60s of the last century, the Neglinka again broke out to the surface and flooded some streets so much that they had to travel by boat. When in the early 1970s the collector from Trubnaya Square to the Metropol Hotel was renovated and significantly expanded, the flooding finally stopped.

Neglinka at the end of the 20th century

By 1997, the workshop of the artist and sculptor Zurab Tsereteli completed a project that included the reconstruction of the Neglinka riverbed from Alexander Garden to Manezhnaya Square. This artificially maintained closed-loop reservoir is not really an attempt to bring a section of the river out of the ground, as many Muscovites believe. At the moment, the imitation of Neglinka in this place is equipped with fountains and sculptures.