Night indoor skating rink "Morozovo". New League Ice Rink: At the Arc de Triomphe

At the end of November, almost 200 skating rinks will open in Moscow artificial ice and more than a thousand skating rinks with natural ice. Soon many Muscovites will be asking the question: Where to go ice skating in Moscow? Or where are the best skating rinks in Moscow?

Muscovites have been entertaining themselves in this way in winter for several centuries. Let's remember the very first Moscow skating rinks, see where people skated before the revolution and in Soviet times —>

Like many other innovations, skates appeared in Russia thanks to Peter I. While in Holland, the Russian Tsar learned to skate. It was he who brought this “Dutch fun” home. It is believed that it was he who improved skates, having come up with the idea of screwing the blades directly to the shoes.

In the 18th century, small skating rinks were poured into the estates of the St. Petersburg and Moscow nobility to entertain guests. The first one public skating rink, as the story goes, appeared in the capital only in the mid-19th century.
It was the skating rink on Petrovka, 26/9

Skating rink on Petrovka 1901-1903.

Since the 1860s, there has been, as contemporaries wrote, the best skating rink in Moscow, where members of the first sports organization in Moscow, the Imperial River Yacht Club, practiced figure skating.
In 1889, the first speed skating championship in Russia was held at the skating rink. During the 20th century the skating rink also remained popular place recreation for city residents.

Skating rink on Petrovka, 1905

Skating rink on Petrovka, 1908

In pre-revolutionary Moscow, skating rinks were considered the same commercial establishments as, say, taverns. The income received from them was a four-digit figure and reached 7,000 rubles a year.
The city authorities rented out traditional skiing areas. Tenants, at their discretion, appointed high prices for entrance tickets, advertised skating rinks, and attracted the public in every possible way.

The skating rink of the Zoological Garden was famous. The strongest Moscow speed skaters trained there, and at the beginning of the 20th century, speed skating competitions began to be held regularly.

Skating rink in the zoological garden, 1911

Speed skating competition at the skating rink in the Zoological Garden, 1908.

The skating rink on the Patriarch's Ponds was especially popular among students and young people.

Skating rink on the Patriarch's Ponds, 1909
The Central State Historical Archive of Moscow also stores such an interesting document - the report of the commission on the benefits and needs of the public to the City Duma dated October 2, 1895. It addresses the issue of providing benefits to students when using city skating rinks.

At Chistye Prudy, entrepreneurs invited Muscovites to “go skating in the capital’s and European style.” A tea room was built near the skating rink during the winter, and in holidays Entire performances were staged on a specially built stage on the shore of the pond.

Ice skating rink Chistye Prudy. 1900-1910

The first hockey tournaments for the Moscow championship were also held here.

1913

In the first decades of Soviet power, together with the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, skates (and skating rinks) became an integral part of leisure activities in the winter.

New Year's card 1939.

Skating rinks opened in all parks of the capital

Skating rink in Sokolniki, 1935

Skating rink in the park of the Central House of the Red Army, 1939 (now Catherine Square)

Well, the main skating rink in Moscow became the skating rink in Gorky Park.
Interesting fact: even before the opening of the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky, in the 1920s, on the ice of the Pionersky Pond (then the pond was called Maly) the legendary bass Fyodor Chaliapin and the Soviet film star actor Igor Ilyinsky loved to skate.