The article presents the results of complex cultural geographical research of Yasenevo area in Moscow. The research was aimed at revealing an interconnected system of unique spatial representations of this typical distant urban residential area. The methods and approaches of urban planning analysis, statistical method of ‘regional syndrome’, historical and fiction texts’ analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews were combined together for data collection within the framework of the project, with one of the mental mapping methods (image-geographical maps) used to present the results of the study. As a result Yasenevo is represented as a ‘green’ area due to Bitsevsky park surrounding it and various small gardens and groves in the yards. It is important to mention, Yasenevo is a compact and clearly isolated area, separated by the green areas from the surroundings. It has a specific urban planning and architectural structure dating back to Soviet modernism with peculiar semicircular buildings and streets, spacious avenues and green areas inside the separated cozy quarters (‘states’). Yasenevo is imagined as a ‘young’ area. However this vision co-exists with the historical heritage of preserved and ruined former noble estates and Soviet modernism blocks. Those unique features of Yasenevo are regarded as the basics of currently only partial local identity formation, on the one hand, and as the identifiers of potential organic (identity-based) place branding, on the other hand.
