Former Annehof Forest (Moscow)

 historical layer / disappeared object  Add category

Garden park and a historical place that was filled with tulips, narcissi and lilies, which were bought by citizens of the German Quarter (present-day Basmanny District). It had nine ponds and multiple summerhouses. Its alleys had statues of the goddess Venus and judge of Israelites Samson, aswell as gold-plated Sphinx statues. 30,000 rubles were spent on the maintaining of the park annually.

It was planted in the 1730s. Two versions exist on how it was formed. The first states that the empress Anna Ioannovna was dissatisfied on how there was an empty place in Sokolniki and wished a forest there to also hide from the heat. The forest was planted all in one day and Anna only found out about it several days later, to which she ordered the moving of the trees from Sokolniki to Lefortovo by thousands of soldiers. The second version states that Peter the Great planted all that by himself by digging trenches, with the garden being stolen from Lefort's territory.

On June 16 (29), 1904, a tornado was formed at the south-eastern outskirts of Moscow and progressed into Lefortovo, to which the Annehof Forest was almost destroyed. Starting in the 1920s, the former area was being built up with buildings.