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Moscow is located on the Moskva River, which bends its way through the city. Most of the main
sites are on the northern bank of the river. The other major
waterway is the Yauza River, which flows into the Moskva east of the
Kremlin.
Much of Moscow's geography is defined by the numerous 'Ring
Roads' that circle the city at various distances from the center,
roughly following the outline of the walls that used to surround
Moscow. With Red Square and the Kremlin forming the very center, the
innermost ring road is the Boulevard Ring, built in the 1820's where
the 16th centuries walls used to be. It runs from the Christ the
Saviour Cathedral in south-west central Moscow, to the mouth of the
Yauza in south-east central Moscow.
The next ring road, the Garden Ring, derives its name from the
fact that landowners near the road in Tsarist times were obligated
to maintain gardens to make the road attractive. In Soviet times the
road was widened.
The recently constructed Third Ring is not much use for tourists
but is a heavily used motorway which absorbs a bit of Moscow's
traffic. It roughly follows the outline of Kamer-Kollezhsky val,
the customs boundary of Moscow in the 18th-early 20th century. The
outer edge of Moscow is largely defined by the Moscow Ring Road, a
motorway which encircles the entire city (similar to London's M25
and Paris' Périphérique). Finally, a Fourth Ring is due to be
built between the Third Ring and the Moscow Ring Road in the next
years.
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