The street in the north-west of Moscow is Volokolamsk highway. Branched off from Leningradsky Prospekt, it passes through the Sokol and Schukino districts, passing from Pokrovsky-Streshnevo to Mitino. Going beyond the borders of the capital, Volokolamsk highway leads to the city of the same name.
This is one of the oldest destinations in the suburbs. The first time it was mentioned in the twelfth century, when Dmitry Dolgoruky decided to build a road to Veliky Novgorod through swamps and impassable forests . The first city to get in the way of travelers, was Volokolamsk, which gave the name to the tract. And later they called it the only road leading from the capital to the west at that time.
Almost simultaneously with the laying of the first kilometers, the Volokolamsk highway began to be actively mastered: first, several peasant farmsteads were built along it, then villages began to appear in their place. The tract and the railway, laid at the beginning of the twentieth century, were revived. Almost at the same time, the first country houses began to be built along the road.
A similar trend did not stop after the October uprising, when the young proletarians, suffering from entertainment, began to travel by rail to rest. In the thirties, a similar "uncivilized" type of recreation was streamlined, and Volokolamsk highway on both sides began to become overgrown with boarding houses and pioneer camps.
Within the capital, many interesting buildings were built on this street. One of them, located at Volokolamskoye Shosse, 1, is called the “House of Design Institutes”. Built in the fifties, this monumental structure is one of the most striking and visible examples of the Stalinist Empire.
A little further are the Stroganov Academy and the building of the Food University.
Volokolamsk highway is famous for other interesting objects. For example, the house at number forty-seven once housed the Segert mansion, built in 1914. They say that it was here, according to Bulgakov’s plan, that a landmark meeting of the Homeless with the Master took place.
At the very beginning of the road, on the even side of Volokolamka, there is the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Institute of Neuralgia. And already on the Spassko-Tushino section the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Savior was majestically located.
When in the mid-nineties people began to develop the lands of the Moscow Region, it was Volokolamsk Highway that took the first blow of the so-called point developers. It was explained simply: along the highway there were many villages, small towns and villages, so there were no problems with connecting communications.
Such active development has played a cruel joke with the dear, turning it in the suburbs into one of the busiest. Volokolamsk highway is quite narrow, it cannot be expanded, because for this it will be necessary to demolish the cottage villages and villages built on both sides.
In addition, it is famous for a huge number of traffic lights, which not all motorists like. However, there is hope that by 2015 the Volokolamsk highway will be unloaded. The Moscow Region Government plans to build a new high-speed toll road through Krasnogorsk.
The Moscow part of the road was not ignored. The Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture of the capital, from Leningradsky Prospekt up to the Moscow Ring Road, has developed a reconstruction project involving the organization of ten lanes for traffic. Volokolamsk highway will increase its capacity thanks to four underpasses under construction.