Borodino is a village of Mozhaisky district of the Moscow region, which gave the name to the battle of Russian troops with Napoleon's army in 1812. 15 km from the village is Borodino station of the Belarusian railway. The battle of Borodino, which took place near the ancient villages of Borodino, Shevardino and Gorki near the Old Smolensk Road, was one of the main ones during the Patriotic War of 1812. In the battle participated 126 thousand Russian soldiers with 640 guns and 135 thousand French with 587 guns. The Russian army in the Battle of Borodino managed to inflict significant damage to Napoleon and retain its main forces, which became the key to the expulsion of the enemy from Russia. One of the symbols of Borodin is the brick Church of the Nativity of Christ (or Smolensk Church), built in the style of Moscow Baroque in 1697-1701. Its refectory and two-tier bell tower have been preserved. Directly near the walls of this church there were battles of the Battle of Borodino, the bell tower served as an observation point. During the battles, the church head was pierced with a cannonball, the temple suffered during the Great Patriotic War. Its restoration began only in 1961.
By the centenary of the Battle of Borodino in 1912, 34 monuments to various military formations were erected on the field. The military-historical museum-reserve of Borodino was created, in the exposition of which various documents, portraits of heroes, panorama of the Battle of Borodino, ammunition and equipment of the Russian and French armies, cannonballs, weapons, a hiking wheelchair and personal belongings of M. I. Kutuzov are presented. At the village of Gorki, a granite obelisk monument to M. I. Kutuzov was erected, crowned with a bronze eagle with outstretched wings and a laurel wreath in its paws.
On the Borodino field near the Semyonovsky flashes (fortifications of the left flank of the Russian army), on the initiative of M. M. Tuchkova, the widow of Major General A. A. Tuchkov, the Spaso-Bogoroditsky monastery was built, which became a monument to the soldiers who fell in the Battle of Borodino. The monastery was closed in 1929 and given to the labor commune named after K. E. Voroshilov. In 1992, the monastery was revived. From the buildings of the monastery, the temple of the Savior of the Unmade (1818-1820), the Vladimir Cathedral (1851-1859), the bell tower (1839), the church of John the Baptist with a refectory (1870s), as well as walls, towers, gates and a hotel have been preserved. On the territory of the monastery there is one of the flashes and an obelisk in memory of General P. P. Konovnitsyn and the soldiers of the Third Infantry Division who fell in the Battle of Borodino, which he commanded.
For almost two centuries, Borodino has remained a symbol of the invincibility of the Russian state; it attracts the interest of many Russians and foreign visitors. During the work on the novel "War and Peace" Borodino in 1867 visited L. N. Tolstoy. Every year, on the first Sunday of September, a solemn costume holiday, a memorial patriotic performance in memory of the great battle are arranged on the Borodino field.
