…If you told me that some fine summer day you'd like to see a dozen carved houses of Moscow, we'd get off at Elektrozavodskaya and, after roughly four hours of walking, finish our journey at Frunzenskaya — covering about twenty kilometers and seeing all the most interesting wooden houses (or not wooden, but always with nalichniki) that I know. Better not to rush, though, and to grab a bite somewhere in the middle. The second half of the walk will be considerably more enjoyable that way, I guarantee :)

The truth is (and fortunately) there are more than ten wooden houses left in Moscow, but I wouldn't drag you to all of them — I'd take you only to the most remarkable and beloved. Besides, next to some of them stand one or two more. Wooden houses are like good people — they look out for each other.

So: comfortable shoes on, let's go:
1. Quite possibly the most beautiful nalichniki in Moscow — Malaya Semenovskaya 11.
2. Just around the corner from the first — Medovy 5. The house is two stories, the ground floor stone, which makes the massive wooden nalichniki on the log upper floor all the more astonishing.
3. Next is Gastello 5, about twenty minutes away. You may come across information that this house belonged to a bicycle craftsman — don't believe it :)
4. Then, fairly close by — Rusakovskaya 19. Nalichniki remarkably similar to those in Kirzhach. Incidentally, go around the house to the left and rear — it will reveal an additional fragment of carved work (I hope it's still there).
5. Now for a longer walk (you could even take the metro to Kurskaya), because the next address is Melnitsky per. 8. There are two houses there — one in the photo is a bilingual kindergarten with about ten completely different nalichniki on it. And next to it, to the left, a more classic half-house with wooden carved nalichniki.
6. And off again on a big urban hike, all the way to 3rd Monetchikovsky per. 9, where my absolute favorite tiny house stands — miraculously surviving in the center of Moscow (they say because of a demolition prohibition written into the previous owner's sales contract). On the way you can also stop by Goncharnaya 7. That house isn't on the list, but it's almost on the route.
7. Starokonyushenny 36 (the house of the patron Porokhovshchikov, which you've probably seen before), and just nearby there's also the wonderful and utterly singular Lopyrovsky mansion at Kaloshiny per. 12 (no photo here, but it's easy to find: there's always someone smoking outside).
8. Then back outside the Garden Ring, to Burdenko 23, where the Palibin house has stood since 1818.
9. And after that — another twenty minutes or so — we walk to Bolshoy Savvinsky pereulok, where across from the wooden (also with nalichniki) building at No. 8, building 5, stands an office complex at Bolshoy Savvinsky 11 with nalichniki on its facade — built in 2015.
10. And to close our walk: the magnificent in all seasons Pogodinskaya Izba, at Pogodinskaya 12a.

And that's it — now for coffee!
Happy wandering :)