The road which nowadays leads from the Kremlin to the New Maiden Convent was once a country road that was known in the days of Ivan The Terrible as Great Devil Road. Long ago the thoroughfare that's now Gogolevsky Boulevard was entirely occupied by a fast-flowing stream – a stream that gave muscovites a few headaches in Spring and Summer. Most affected were people departing or leaving the city in the direction of New Maiden Convent – who exclaimed “Devil take it, flooded again!” when their road got washed away. Thus the river was known as the Devil River, and the flooded causeway as Great Devil Road. It occurred to holy-minded Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich that religious pilgrims going the shrine at the New Maiden Convent shouldn't have to take a road named after Satan, and he decreed it henceforth be known as Purity Road.During the soviet era Purity Road was renamed as Kropotkinskaya. The childhood days of scientist Kropotkin – who first proposed the idea of an Ice Age – was passed right here on this street. However, the old streetname was subsequently restored.Licenses:Photo Moscow 05-2012 Prechistenka 06, by A.Savin , is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5