This is the supposed place of MASSOLIT Chairman Mikhail Berlioz’s death in The Master and Margarita: ‘And right then a tram came hurtling along, turning down the newly-laid line from Ermolaevsky to Bronnaya. The tram went over Berlioz and a dark, round object was thrown out under the fence of Patriarch’s Path onto the cobbled slope. It was the severed head of Berlioz.’

“Are you looking for the turnstile, citizen?” inquired the checked type in a cracked tenor. ‘Come this way!” The precise location of the fateful turnstile remains a mystery for fans of the novel to this day. Having decided to contact the bureau of foreigners, Berlioz headed for the telephone booth on the corner of Ermolaevsky Lane and Malaya Bronnaya Street. By the time the literary man was approaching the turnstile, the tram had already turned and was moving along Bronnaya – so the turnstile was not on the corner but somewhere close further along the street. The location of the tramlines at Patriarch’s Ponds remains to be explained. We know that there was no passenger tram line here, although in numerous publications about Bulgakov and his works there is information about a temporary freight line and about an unofficial depot used to regulate the traffic on the main lines.

According to research by B. Myagkov, on Malaya Bronnaya Street in house 27/14 (on the corner of Malaya Bronnaya and Bolshoy Patriarshy Lane), there was a cooperative shop, Kommunar No. 116, which is supposed to be the grocery shop in which Annushka ‘the Plague’ bought the sunflower oil.