THE MYSTERY OF THE FLYING PETERSBURG
OR
CLASS A DETECTIVE
"Tram Line" in "The Master and Margarita"
...........
1. Was there a tram?
Oh, dear reader, serious passions are blazing around the modest Moscow tram of route “A” - the famous “Annushka”! In fact, the majority of historians and local historians of Moscow have long been firmly established in the opinion that no tram has ever run along Ermolaevsky Lane (according to the novel, it was from there that the carriage under whose wheels Berlioz died turned out), much less along Bronnaya!
As for the old-timers, there are very different opinions. Some testify with full confidence: there have never been any Patriarchal trams! Yuri Efremov, who lived in Bolshoy Patriarchal in 1931, assures: “No trams have ever run near the fence of the square at Patriarchal.” Natalya Konchalovskaya, who lived with her parents since 1912 in the same house on Sadovaya where Bulgakov settled in the early twenties, also categorically denies the movement of the tram at the Patriarch's Pond.
Bulgakov’s first wife, Tatyana Lappa, directly stated in a conversation with Leonid Parshin:
“...The tram didn’t go there. I walked along Sadovaya, but not at the Patriarch’s. We lived there for several years... There was no tram there. I’m telling you, by God, that there was no tram.”
But other “natives” do not agree with them. Writer V. A. Levshin recalls: “Sometimes, towards evening, he [Bulgakov] calls me for a walk, most often to the Patriarch’s Ponds. Here we sit on a bench near the turnstile and watch the sunset fragment in the upper windows of the houses. Behind the low cast-iron fence, the trams circling the square rattle nervously.”
These meetings and gatherings between Bulgakov and Levshin date back to 1923-1924, when Bulgakov was 33 years old and Levshin was 20. The memoirs were written by Levshin almost 40 years after the events described. S. Pirkovsky, in a thorough study “Virtual Reality, or Tram on the Patriarchs”, perceived this evidence skeptically and even ironically: “What attracts attention and what does this fragment evoke in memory? Of course, the beginning of the novel. There is evening, and a bench, and the setting sun in the windows of the houses, and a pond. Only the “low cast-iron fence” and “nervously rattling trams bending around the square” are new touches in a recognizable picture... In Levshin’s memoirs, published in 1971, shortly after Bulgakov’s novel was published, “trams bending around the square” could have fallen involuntarily, most likely under magical influence of the chapters read for the first time.”
Tatyana Lappa-Kiselgof generally stated about Levshin’s memoirs: “He lied about everything there. He and Bulgakov didn’t even know each other, because we moved into their apartment because he moved out and the room became vacant. And not in the winter of 1922, as he writes, but in the summer of 1924, after we divorced. And three months later, Bulgakov left this house altogether, and Levshin only returned to this apartment a year and a half later.” And then Tatyana Nikolaevna gave examples of Levshin’s inventions and absurdities. So - congratulations, citizen, having lied...
Pirkovsky also cites another testimony - the writer Sergei Yesin, who “remembered” the tram on the Patriarchs in the post-war years, when he was a schoolboy: “As a boy<...>I crawled all the nooks and crannies<…>and I remember not only these same Patriarch’s ponds<…>But I also remember the famous turnstile on these ponds, near which Woland first appeared to Muscovites. I remember evrything<… >and I realize that these are not grown-up and matured literary reminiscences, but<…>meaningfully seen in childhood. I would even dare to say<…>statement that I even remember the creaking of this turnstile<…>I even undertake to say: everything happened. I saw, I saw, I saw! And the turnstile, and the turn of the tram, and a wooden box-box with the inscription “Beware of the tram!”... For example, there was an inscription on the tram tracks on Sivtsev Vrazhek, in the same box it sparkled like a star above the tram arch: “Beware of falling leaves.” .
Isn't it so visible and convincing? But, alas, all this is nothing more than a figment of the memoirist’s imagination. Or, to put it mildly, the result of forgetfulness. Here is how Pirkovsky comments on Esin’s colorful description: “When, in what year, did a ten-year-old boy on the Patriarch’s Ponds see a “tram turn” and a “box-box”? If we temporarily disagree with the classic statement “calendars all lie” and believe the reference book, then it will turn out that in 1945! But there were no “sparkling” inscriptions on the “boxes” above the tram arches. There were inscriptions, but on flat signs mounted on the supports of the contact network, and they read: “Caution, leaf fall,” simply “Leaf fall,” or even simpler, “Yuz.” “Boxes” with a red and white inscription “Beware of the tram!” were installed on special posts along the tracks along the Boulevard Ring. The posts stood in front of the side exits beyond the fence, where the tram line ran. The warning sign lights turned on only when a tram approached. “Above the arc” they did not “sparkle”. In this year, 1945, as in subsequent years, the boy Yesin could not see the trams on the Patriarch's Ponds. They were not there and therefore could not be seen. And of course, you can imagine what you saw. Just not near the park on Malaya Bronnaya, but closer to the house on Tverskoy Boulevard.”
By the way, Pirkovsky himself, who in 1945 was also a Moscow boy, recalls his walks: “Then, in 1945-1946, I discovered my hometown, traveling around Moscow on foot and on trams... Having risen from the basement, we walked We walked along Ermolaevsky to the frozen pond and turned onto Malaya Bronnaya towards Sadovaya. There was no snow. I remember that there were no traces of rails along our route. Neither in Ermolaevsky, nor at the intersection with Malaya Bronnaya.”
The same is confirmed by native Muscovite Yuri Fedosyuk in his memoirs about Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s, “The morning paints with a delicate color...”. The author, without any regard to Bulgakov’s novel at all, recalls how in the summer of 1932, as a boy, he specially followed tram route “A”: “... although “Annushka”, which had left our stop, returned to the same place about 40 minutes later, I wanted to check its circularity line personally, and not with the help of a tram, God knows how it was laid there, for which it was best to walk its entire route.” According to the description, “Annushka” did not pass either along Ermolaevsky or Malaya Bronnaya.
Pirkovsky conducted a thorough investigation using numerous reference books and archives. As a result, he came to the conclusion: there is no documentary evidence that the tram on Ermolaevsky and Bronnaya ever ran! I will not give all the author’s arguments (for those who are not familiar with the topography of Moscow, this argumentation does not mean anything). I will highlight only one thing - laying a tram line along Bronnaya was a monstrous senselessness, which no municipality (neither tsarist times, nor post-revolutionary) would ever agree to: “... The tram line could not exist on the Patriarch's. The reason... is the lack of a targeted need for its installation. Otherwise, we will be faced with an unsolvable mystery: how, for almost ten years of its existence, and perhaps more, this line was not included in the transport directories published annually in Moscow until 1941?”
THERE IS, TRUE, ANOTHER EXPERT - Anatoly Zhukov, former chief engineer of Moscow track facilities. He told one of the Bulgakov scholars (allegedly based on his home archives): “There was a tram walking along Malaya Bronnaya! I walked until the end of the twenties.” However, Zhukov did not provide a single document, fact or reference to the existence of the mysterious tram line. But Glavmotrans answered the researcher of Bulgakov’s work B. Myagkov very clearly: “Never in the area of the Patriarch’s Ponds<...>tram traffic was not organized.” And all the necessary archives are there! Such a tram line did not exist in any reference book or on any of the Moscow transport maps.
True, Myagkov immediately invented a new version. Based on the “memories” of unknown “old-timers,” he came to the conclusion: “There was a tram, but not a passenger one, but a freight one. The tram tracks in the area of the Patriarch's Ponds, in addition, at the end of the day were filled with empty trams, forming a kind of night depot during the warm season. In the novel<…>Apparently, just such a tram was described, heading for rest in the evening: it was without passengers and clearly not a freight one.”
Now it seems to be clear why the mysterious line was not included in reference books and transport diagrams: it was a freight line and was not intended for passenger transportation. But this version explains absolutely nothing. It remains unclear: why did a PASSENGER tram appear on the Patriarch's Street? Well, a freight train was running - so what? Converting it into a passenger car and throwing Berlioz under its wheels is practically the same as inventing a passenger car from scratch! All the same, Bulgakov had to create a stop in his imagination and take Misha Berlioz there (after all, he was not heading to a freight tram stop)!
And then, on top of everything else, it turns out that the invention of the “freight tram” is also nonsense. The skeptic Pirkovsky, already known to us, asks a simple question: “What kind of strategic cargo and to what objects was transported along this line in the center of Moscow? Who built it if they didn’t know about it at 22 Raushskaya?” Raushskaya, 22 - the address of the Office of Tram and Trolleybus Transport under the Moscow City Executive Committee and the Moscow Tram Trust, which under Bulgakov were in charge of everything related to tram traffic. And Pirkovsky finally finishes off Myagkov with the following argument: “It must be emphasized that in the pre-war years (and to this day) trams in Moscow were not left overnight on the city streets even “in the warm season.” All tram cars "spent the night" in their parks under the roof, where they were inspected, repaired (if required), washed and prepared for the next working day. There were no exceptions to this rule. Probably, “authoritative” old-time witnesses confused the trams with trolleybuses, which even now crowd in dozens, filling the streets and alleys around their parks day and night.”
And FINALLY, Myagkov, who has been quoted more than once, provides “scientific” evidence as an “iron” argument. It turns out that in the 1980s, the “dowsing method” was used to establish the presence of “rail routes” that were in the area of the Patriarch’s Ponds. The dowsing method is used in various fields of science and technology, when it is necessary to detect an object hidden under a layer of earth rock, soil: water sources, mineral deposits, etc. As a result of such searches in the area, the rails of that same mysterious tram were allegedly found under the asphalt line: “The rails were turning towards Malaya Bronnaya<…>and walked along it along the fence of the Patriarch's Ponds<…>and further to Tverskoy Boulevard<…>A gap was also discovered in the fence where the turnstile had previously been located. At the same time, the area where the tram could “howl and push” was clearly identified, and the place of death of Bulgakov’s ill-fated hero was determined with an accuracy of one meter.”
But the same insidious Pirkovsky dispels this “evidence” to smithereens: “For the biolocator to “feel” the tram rails, they had to be under a layer of asphalt. And this is impossible to believe. How did the city’s public services not stumble upon these rails during their almost annual “excavations” of the roadway for almost forty years? And why, in all the time that has passed, have they not bothered to dismantle the line and hand over the rails to Vtorchermet? Incredible. And if so, then the tram line, which remained under a layer of asphalt, could not have existed. This means that it is impossible to detect something that was not there, even by dowsing. The same can be said about the discovery of a gap in a long-defunct fence (“where is the sidewalk now”), the site of the “accelerating” section of the line and the fatal turnstile. We have to admit that the conclusions from dowsing searches, unfortunately, should be attributed to the case that often occurs in such a situation when wishful thinking is taken as reality.”
STOP-STOP! But here I allow myself to disagree with Pirkovsky. There REALLY WAS a turnstile at the Patriarch's! Even two turnstiles. And it is in their place that those very “gaps” that Myagkov wrote about exist. Only the searcher for the non-existent tram line did not take into account one thing: similar turnstiles were available at the entrance to most boulevards and parks in Moscow - as well as at the exit from them! This happened even before the revolution. Thus, M. Popov’s “Complete Dictionary of Foreign Words”, published in 1907, reports: “TURNIQUE is a cross that rotates freely on a low pole, which is installed in the middle of a narrow passage; it prevents the passage of large animals into public gardens, boulevards and etc., interferes with the passage of crews, etc.”
The same thing remained true before the war in Moscow (as well as in other Soviet cities). Georgy Andreevsky, in his study “Daily Life of Moscow in the Stalin Era,” writes about 1921:
"Unknown vandals knocked off a corner of the pedestal of the Gogol monument, trampled the lawns of public gardens, and distorted the revolving gates on the boulevards within Sadovaya, which protected pedestrians from accidents. (Remember such a gate-turnstile on the Patriarch's Ponds, for which Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz from Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" "Took your last step towards the tram?)".
This is what Alexey Panteleev (Erofeev) writes in the story “Lyonka Panteleev”:
“He rushed to the right, noticed a cast-iron turnstile turntable in the boulevard fence, hit it with his stomach... successfully jumped through the second turnstile.”
The story takes place in the first years of Soviet power, and the story was published in 1939.
But the memories of Zoya Borisovna Afrosina are already about the 30s of the last century:
“I was born in Moscow. I spent my childhood and youth in house No. 8 on Tverskoy Boulevard. This is the center of Moscow, the former boulevard ring of the A tram. The house was separated from the boulevard by a wide sidewalk, cobblestones and rails. Opposite our entrance there was an entrance gate-turnstile "It was a metal pole with rotating ears made of 20mm reinforcement and was used by children as a carousel."
Turnstiles existed at the entrance to ANY BOULEVARD, regardless of whether trams were passing by or not. Moreover, special caretakers were on duty here to regulate the occupancy of the boulevards and prevent crowding. But pandemonium did happen, and often! This is what Moscow old-timer Yuri Fedosyuk recalls about Pokrovsky Boulevard at that time:
“During the day, one life was going on on the boulevard, in the evening - another. The daytime regulars of the boulevard were mothers with children and pensioners... In the evening, the poorly lit boulevard turned into a promenade... Ten people of both sexes sat on one bench, acquaintances were quickly established, those sitting were divided into couples. From treating them to seeds, contacts turned into hugs, kisses and very frank touching."
Afrosina also recalls:
“In the evenings and on Sundays there were no places left on the boulevard benches. Mom sent me to take a seat in advance. I hated it, because I was very shy.”
It is no coincidence that Bulgakov notes the “first strangeness” of the “terrible May evening”: “... in the entire alley parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street, there was not a single person... no one came under the linden trees, no one sat on the bench, the alley was empty ". It really is strange.
By the way, the same Fedosyuk also writes about turnstiles: “Turnstiles at the exits, with the sign on the board flashing when a tram approaches: “Beware of the tram.” Why the turnstiles were needed is still unclear to me. My father explained: so that carts would not enter the boulevard and carriages with horses."
So, turnstiles operated on all boulevards, and their presence in no way can indicate the presence of a tram line nearby. And where this line actually ran, there was a warning sign.
Thus, this “evidence” of Myagkov does not work.
Leonid Parshin also showed extreme meticulousness about the ominous tram:
“I spent many days in Leninka, studying transport schemes and route guides of those years. There was no tram. In the photo library of the Moscow Museum of Architecture we managed to find pre-war photographs of the Patriarch's Pond and Malaya Bronnaya. There was no tram... The last hope (after all, I myself would like there to be a tram) is the archives of the transport department. On May 13, 1981 I received a response:
“The Department of Passenger Transportation Organization has considered your letter with a request to inform you about the work of the tram in the twenties on the street. Zheltovsky, M. Bronnaya and st. Adam Mickiewicz.
We inform you that according to the available archival documents and diagrams of urban railway lines, tram traffic was not organized along the streets of interest to you.
Head of Department I.M. Komov.”
K.M., who dealt with my request. Bartolome showed maximum conscientiousness. He checked both the cargo and auxiliary lines, and even found and questioned old employees of the Department. There was no tram. True, the tram line ran very close, along Sadovaya, past Bulgakov’s house.”
Let's summarize: all the facts indicate that no tram has ever run along Malaya Bronnaya Street (as well as along Ermolaevsky Lane).
In the photo: Moscow boulevard, 1920s.
CONTINUED HERE -
Moscow is closely connected with the work of Mikhail Bulgakov. Houses, parks and streets included in the brilliant plots of “The Master and Margarita” and “Heart of a Dog” - the portal “ZagraNitsa” found out where in Belokamennaya you can stroll through Bulgakov’s places
1Patriarch's Ponds
In fact, the novel about the Master and Margarita begins with them: “One day in the spring, at the hour of an unprecedentedly hot sunset, two citizens appeared in Moscow, on the Patriarch’s Ponds...”. The picturesque place of the prologue became disastrous for Berlioz, who fell under a tram.
There have never been tram tracks in the described place on the Patriarch's - this is pure fiction. But there were ponds! Back in the 17th century, there were three reservoirs in the Goat Swamp, but 200 years later, two of them were filled up. The surviving reservoir, symbolically described in the novel by Bulgakov, retains its collegiate name to this day.
Photo: strana.ru 
Photo: kinopoisk.ru 
Photo: kinopoisk.ru 2 Tram route "Annushka"
You could get to Chistye Prudy from Kaluzhskaya Square by tram “Annushka”. The romantic name for the route, which ran along the Boulevard Ring (“Ring A”), was given by the Muscovites themselves - in honor of that very tram and that same Annushka who spilled oil on the rails.
Today the route has already been changed, but its name remains unchanged. In honor of the events of “The Master and Margarita”, they organized the only tram-restaurant in Moscow, which will be easily noticed by anyone who goes for a walk to the Patriarch’s.
Photo: Victor Polyakov Moscow Theater of Satire
The prototype of the variety show in the novel “The Master and Margarita” was the capital’s Satire Theater, located on Triumfalnaya Square, 2. Indeed, why shouldn’t the magnificent session of black magic demonstrated by Woland and the great revelation of the audience happen on this stage?
In the theater premises, located not far from the “bad apartment,” until 1926 there was a Nikitin circus, and from 1926 to 1936 - a music hall. The building itself was built according to the design of the architect Nilus long before the events in the novel. The Aquarium garden is also nearby - the same one where Varenukha met Azazello and Behemoth.
Photo: northern-line.rf
Photo: biletleader.ru 4 Spaso House
Bulgakov was inspired to describe the “new moon spring ball” in “The Master...” by one grandiose event - a luxurious reception on the occasion of the Moscow “Spring Festival” in 1935, which was attended by about 400 invited guests. The event took place in the Spaso House building, located on Spasopeskovskaya Square, 10, in the former Vtorov mansion, now the American Embassy. This architectural monument, built in 1915 on the site of an old estate, has a very mysterious history. From 1946 to 1952, a wooden US coat of arms with a listening device hung here! The regalia is now in the CIA Spy Museum.
Photo: wikimedia.org 
Photo: dominterier.ru 
Photo: Ragulin Vitaly 5 "Master's House"
Every admirer of Bulgakov’s work knows the legendary house in Mansurovsky Lane, 9: it was where the Master lived! “Small windows just above the sidewalk leading from the gate. On the contrary, four steps away, under the fence, there are lilacs, linden and maples...” While working on the novel, Mikhail Afanasyevich often came to visit the artist Toplenin, his friend, who lived here. So the house ended up in the work. By the way, the star of the Maly Theater was given the honor of the first reading of “The Master and Margarita.” And the novel was praised.
Photo: stasyakalita.livejournal.com
6
“Bad apartment”: State Museum of M. A. Bulgakov
The “bad apartment” at 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street is a collective image. In fact, it was copied from two real-life apartments: No. 34 and No. 50, with whose residents Bulgakov and his wife, who live here, were not friends, to put it mildly (“I positively don’t know what to do with the bastard that inhabits this apartment... ").
The interior of “apartment No. 50” was borrowed from the fashionable house No. 13 on Prechistenka, where a relative of the legendary jeweler Faberge once lived and where Bulgakov visited.
The house on Bolshaya Sadovaya, 10 was built by the architect Milkov in 1903 for Ilya Pigin, owner of the Dukat tobacco factory. A memorial plaque attached to the wall of the house reminds of the legendary events of those years. Today there is an educational center and Bulgakov Museum located here.
Photo: moscowwalks.ru 
Photo: in-moskow.livejournal.com
"Kalabukhovsky House"
Bulgakov's places in Moscow are also Margarita's mansion on Ostozhenka, the "Master's basement" (Pashkov House), Griboyedov House, a grocery store on Arbat, Torgsin, Bryusov Lane, Aleksandrovsky Garden, the Metropol Hotel, Dorogomilovskoye Cemetery...
In the list of unique architectural surroundings, one more house should be noted - No. 24, located on Prechistenka. The prototype of the “Kalabukhov house” from the legendary “Heart of a Dog” is directly related to the writer’s biography. His uncle, Nikolai Mikhailovich Pokrovsky, a famous Moscow gynecologist, with whom the Bulgakov couple stayed, once lived here.
Photo: moscowwalks.ru The Patriarch's ponds in The Master and Margarita turn out to be directly connected with Woland. Not far from here is Styopa Likhodeev’s apartment, where he settled, the Variety Theater, where he gave a performance... If you think about it, most of Woland’s stay in the capital takes place here...
And, of course, it is in the park on the Patriarch's Ponds that Woland first appears on the pages of The Master and Margarita. Let's try to reconstruct "on the ground" the events of that memorable evening. So,
One day in the spring, at an hour of unprecedentedly hot sunset, two citizens appeared in Moscow, on the Patriarch's Ponds. ... Finding themselves in the shade of slightly green linden trees, the writers first rushed to the colorfully painted booth with the inscription “Beer and water.”
Here question 1 arises: where did these two citizens come from?
Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz was the chairman of Massolit. He worked in the Griboedov House, very close to the Patriarch's - most researchers consider the prototype of the Griboedov House, where Massolit was located, the Herzen House, located at 25 Tverskoy Boulevard. It is logical to assume that Berlioz came to the Patriarch's after work - to rest before the evening meeting and, at the same time, give a lecture to the hapless poet. From the Gentzen House you can get there either through Maly Kozikhinsky Lane or through Malaya Bronnaya - either one or the second street will lead to the eastern corner of the pond.
Possible walking routes from Massolit to Patriarch's. 
It turns out that Berlioz and Ivanushka entered the park on the Patriarchs through this entrance. 
Somewhere here there was a “Beer and Water” booth. 
Let me clarify a little about the late start time of the meeting - by today's standards, a meeting scheduled for 22.00 is too much. But in Stalin's times this was quite normal. Stalin worked until three or four o'clock in the morning, and large state institutions, willy-nilly, learned to stay awake with him: in anticipation of a possible call to Himself, ministers did not close their eyes; so that time would not be wasted, they pulled their deputies to the workplace; they, in turn, were their own subordinates, and this chain stretched further and further.
Having spent the first half of the working day at the workplace, in the evening the employees went home for several hours to take a nap before the second, night part. And at ten in the evening the windows of large institutions, which included Bulgakov’s Massolit, lit up again.
So, we figured out the entrance. Now question number 2: in which direction did Berlioz and Ivanushka go - straight or left? Bulgakov answers this question quite clearly:
Not only at the booth, but in the entire alley parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street, there was not a single person. ... Passing by the bench on which the editor and poet were seated, the foreigner glanced sideways at them, stopped and suddenly sat down on the next bench, two steps away from his friends.
...
- May I sit down? - the foreigner politely asked, and the friends somehow involuntarily moved apart; the foreigner deftly sat down between them and immediately entered into conversation.
So, Ivanushka and Berlioz settled somewhere on an alley parallel to Malaya Bronnaya. 
There is no precise indication of a specific bench in The Master and Margarita. However, Bulgakov’s friends lived in house No. 32 on Malaya Bronnaya, and knowing the writer’s love of tying the fictional realities of his works to some significant objects from the real world, some researchers place “that very Woland bench” in front of their entrance.
Woland's bench. 
She's from a different angle. 
The third question that usually occupies Bulgakov lovers: where did Berlioz run to “ring the phone”? Bulgakov also points out this quite directly:
Berlioz... rushed to the exit from the Patriarch's, which is located on the corner of Bronnaya and Ermolaevsky lane. ... Immediately this tram flew up, turning along the newly laid line from Ermolaevsky to Bronnaya. Turning and going straight, it suddenly lit up from the inside with electricity, howled and charged.
So, Berlioz runs forward along the alley parallel to Malaya Bronnaya towards Ermolaevsky Lane. 
Here it is, the exit from the Patriarch's on the corner of Ermolaevsky Lane and Malaya Bronnaya. 
Here it is, the turn. 
But there is no place for the tram to “go straight and push” here. In this regard, some researchers suggest that there was a gap in the Patriarchal fence directly opposite the perpendicular Malaya Bronnaya Alley. It was here that the ill-fated turnstile was located.
The location of the proposed exit on the diagram...
If you make a list of questions that can divide modern Russian society into two irreconcilable camps, absolutely incapable of perceiving each other’s arguments, then it will not be headed by either the most pressing question of the ownership of Crimea in the last four years, or the mothballed “Who is to blame?” and "What should I do?" There are problems of a more global, practically metaphysical nature, namely, “What happened to the Dyatlov group?” and “Did the tram run on Patriarch’s Ponds?”
And if in the case of the Dyatlovites, each researcher is free to offer his own version of the tragedy, which will be as difficult to refute as to prove, then with the Bulgakov tram, things, at first glance, are simpler, because there are only two options: either he walked or he didn’t .
I adhere to the second version, namely, the tram never ran on Patriarch's Ponds. This is supported by the absence of any documents confirming the presence of tram tracks there, much less passenger routes.
Apologists for the first version appeal to the memoirs of witnesses who remember both the tram and the very turnstile on which they rode as a carousel in childhood. Some even resorted to the dowsing method and, with the help of a vine, discovered the remains of rails and a gap in the fence of the square, where there used to be a turntable, on the handrail of which Annushka broke a liter bottle of sunflower oil. But even they are forced to admit that the passenger route along Malaya Bronnaya never existed. Therefore, they agreed to a relatively secret freight tram line (these were not noted in publicly available reference books and maps) around the pond, which in the warm season was used as a settling basin for passenger cars.
Let us mark on the map in red the tram route described in the first argument
Blue dots are places for which photographs of the period of interest to us were found
In addition to the tram, the turnstile plays an important role in the death of Mikhail Alexandrovich. The desire to protect oneself became fatal:
The cautious Berlioz, although standing safely, decided to return to the slingshot, moved his hand to the turntable, and took a step back. And immediately his hand slipped and fell off, his leg moved uncontrollably, as if on ice, along the cobblestones that sloped down to the rails, his other leg was thrown up, and Berlioz was thrown onto the rails.
The turnstile usually has four handrails. Only one of them could be stained with oil. Passing through the turntable, the chairman of MASSOLIT took hold of the clean handrail with his hand and stepped over the oil stain, and backing away, his hand and foot landed on the oil. It turns out that Woland played Russian roulette with Mikhail Alexandrovich, where the chances of staying alive were at least three out of four, but Berlioz was clearly unlucky.
Where could the ill-fated turntable be located? An inattentive reader, finding himself at the Patriarch's, usually takes a selfie at the exit from the park and captions the photo: “Berlioz died at this place.” But the text of the novel says:
Immediately this tram flew up, turning along the newly laid line from Ermolaevsky to Bronnaya. Turning and going straight, it suddenly lit up from the inside with electricity, howled and charged.
Those. the turn was left behind. Most often, researchers’ blogs cite a diagram from Sergei Litvinov’s website 
Looks logical. The path along the pond leads to the turnstile. However, there could not be a turntable here either. Let's look at the text again:
“Okay, okay,” Berlioz said falsely affectionately and, winking at the upset poet, who was not at all happy with the idea of guarding the crazy German, he rushed to the exit from the Patriarch’s, which is located on the corner of Bronnaya and Ermolaevsky Lane......
Mikhail Alexandrovich just backed away, but consoled himself with the thought that this was a stupid coincidence and that there was no time to think about it at all now.
- Are you looking for a turnstile, citizen? - the checkered guy inquired in a cracked tenor, - come here! Straight ahead and you'll get out where you need to go. You would have to charge a quarter liter... to get better... to the former regent! - Grimacing, the subject took off his jockey cap with a backhand.
Berlioz did not listen to the beggar and the regent's talk, he ran up to the turnstile and grabbed it with his hand. Having turned it, he was about to step onto the rails when red and white light splashed in his face: the inscription “Beware of the tram!” lit up in the glass box.
There are 25-30 meters between the bench furthest to the exit and the supposed location of the turntable. Koroviev would have had to shout for Berlioz to hear him. However, he speaks in a "cracked tenor", i.e. not too loudly, and also holds out his cap to the chairman. And he even backs away. This could have happened if the distance between the heroes did not exceed 5-6 meters. But there is no reason to install a separate turnstile 10-15 meters from an existing exit.
So I consider the issue of the tram on Patriarch’s Ponds closed until supporters of its existence present material evidence, be it photographs, official documents or dug up rails. Memories of those who have long been dead are not considered material evidence.
Where does this most convincing plausibility and detail of the death of Mikhail Alexandrovich come from? In the 20s, indeed, people often died under the wheels of trams. 
In addition, turnstiles and tram tracks were on the Ponds. Only not on the Patriarchal, but on the Pure Ones, along whose fence the legendary “Annushka” walks to this day.
I am sure that it is to this place that old-timers’ memories of trams on the Patriarch’s Street refer to. Human memory is an interesting thing, especially when it comes to events that took place many decades ago. I, too, was once confused when I didn’t find a house with animals on the Yandex panorama near the Patriarch’s Ponds and, being sure that I had once seen it there in person. Okay, I can, I’m not a Muscovite)))
Why did Bulgakov need to move the tram from Chistye Prudy to Patriarch's? From the Patriarch's ponds, dug on the site of the Goat Swamp, the Chertory stream, hidden in a pipe, originates, along the bed of which Ivan Bezdomny's famous pursuit of Woland mainly runs. In addition, the novel is written in such a way that it is impossible to determine exactly when its action takes place. To a Moscow reader of the 1930s, the novel would have seemed topical, but the mention of the “newly laid” tram tracks along Ermolaevsky and Malaya Bronnaya gave a cut-off: the time of the events described in “The Master and Margarita” had not yet arrived. A sign for those who would suddenly believe in the real coming of Woland and the ride of a cat on a tram with a ticket in its paw.
Once again, let's carefully look at the photograph taken by Alexander Rodchenko in 1932 on Chistoprudny Boulevard, opposite building 3a, building 7. Here there is everything we are looking for: rails, a tram, a turnstile, a glowing sign “Beware of the tram,” cobblestone pavement.
P.S. I wonder what this woman in a scarf and apron is holding in her left hand?
P.P.S. Perhaps a bottle of vegetable oil?
How Moscow streets were namedIn this place there was a Goat swamp: next to it there was a Goat yard, from which wool was sent to the royal and patriarchal courts. These places in the city enjoyed a bad reputation: traces of robberies and murders were lost in the quagmire.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the residence of Patriarch Hermogenes was established here, and the Patriarchal Sloboda appeared on the site of the swamp. In 1683-1684, by order of Patriarch Joachim, 3 ponds were dug for breeding fish for the patriarchal table. There were similar fish cages in other parts of Moscow: expensive varieties of fish were bred in Presnya, and for daily needs in the Goat Swamp. The memory of this remains in the name of Trekhprudny Lane.
After the abolition of the patriarchate, the ponds were abandoned and became swampy. And at the beginning of the 19th century, the ponds were buried - only the decorative Great Patriarchal Pond was left. A park was built around it. In 1924, the Patriarch's Pond and Patriarch's Lanes were renamed Pionerskie. But the pond was still called Patriarchal.
The action of the novel "The Master and Margarita" begins on the Patriarch's Ponds.
Here Berlioz falls under a tram that was turning from Ermolaevsky to Bronnaya. For a long time this fact was considered a fiction, because the nearest tram track was on Sadovaya Street. But Bulgakov scholars found out that there was an additional path along the Patriarch’s Ponds, which was occasionally used. Now, next to the supposed meeting place of Berlioz and Bezdomny with Woland, there is a sign “It is forbidden to talk to strangers.”
Since the 19th century, concerts have been held on the Patriarch's Ponds in the summer, and a free skating rink has been opened in the winter. Leo Tolstoy took his daughters here to skate. This skating rink also entered the cinema: one of the scenes of the film “Pokrovsky Gate” was filmed here. In 1938, a wooden pavilion was built on the pond. At first it was used as a locker room at the skating rink, and in 1983-1985 the pavilion was rebuilt in stone, and now there is a restaurant there.
They say that......previously, cattle were grazed on the Patricks. But sometimes a black goat appeared, after whose visit the livestock began to die. The only way to drive him away was with the holy cross. Then the local residents asked the patriarch for help: he sprinkled the place with holy water, and the goat did not appear again.