Aquarium Garden

On Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, next to Triumfalnaya Square, lies Aquarium Garden — a compact corner of Moscow steeped in theatrical history, home today to the Mossovet Theatre. Few city gardens can boast such a succession of companies, impresarios, and legendary performances on a single small plot.

The land on which the garden was laid out originally belonged to the Novodevichy Convent, and in 1875 it was transferred to entrepreneur Pyotr Gubonin. In 1893, the plot was leased by impresario Mikhail Lentovsky, who set up a pleasure garden called “Chicago” — in honor of the World’s Fair being held there at the time — with a wooden theatre seating 720 for opera productions. By the autumn of that same year, Lentovsky had gone bankrupt, and ballerina Lidia Geiten took over the venture, adapting the stage for a winter repertoire. In 1898, the garden was leased by resourceful French entrepreneur Charles Aumont, who gave the place its current name, “Aquarium,” borrowing it from the pleasure garden of the same name in St. Petersburg.

In its heyday, an orchestra played in the garden, “evenings of fire” firework displays were staged, and there was a large fountain with a waterfall and a lacy tower with festive illumination. In the winter of 1909, an ice sculpture festival was held here featuring a replica of the fairy-tale castle of Chernomor, while in summer an acrobatic “Flying Ballet” performed. That same year, circus impresario Akim Nikitin built a circus with a water pool and a convertible arena nearby — the Satire Theatre later opened on this site. In 1910, the garden’s main entrance was rebuilt to a design by architect Alexander Novikov.

After the revolution, the garden’s theatrical life did not stop: in 1928, an Operetta Theatre began operating in the winter building, and in 1959, on the site of the dilapidated pre-revolutionary theatre, a new 1,300-seat building was constructed to a design by architect Mark Zhirov, housing the Mossovet Theatre — it operates here to this day, making the garden part of its official history.

In 2000–2001, the garden underwent a major reconstruction: the pathways were renovated, new fountains — “Apollo,” “Stream,” and “Satyr” — were installed, and the old stone grotto was given a second life. Despite its modest size, the garden remains one of the most atmospheric green oases in this part of the Garden Ring — a quiet space between the bustling Triumfalnaya Square and Patriarch’s Ponds.

Aquarium Garden is a rare example of a late-19th-century Moscow pleasure garden that not only survived the change of eras, but remained an active theatrical venue for more than 130 years. Its history is, in essence, a miniature history of Moscow’s performing arts: from fairground booths and circus attractions to the academic stage of a modern drama theatre.