diff --git a/gensim/models/keyedvectors.py b/gensim/models/keyedvectors.py
index c17505cf06..b35a974f4f 100644
--- a/gensim/models/keyedvectors.py
+++ b/gensim/models/keyedvectors.py
@@ -198,6 +198,11 @@ def __init__(self, vector_size):
         self.vectors_norm = None
         self.index2word = []
 
+    @property
+    @deprecated("Attribute will be removed in 4.0.0, use self instead")
+    def wv(self):
+        return self
+
     @property
     def index2entity(self):
         return self.index2word
diff --git a/gensim/test/test_keyedvectors.py b/gensim/test/test_keyedvectors.py
index f013efa439..b3e03fb470 100644
--- a/gensim/test/test_keyedvectors.py
+++ b/gensim/test/test_keyedvectors.py
@@ -149,6 +149,10 @@ def test_rank(self):
         self.assertEqual(self.vectors.rank('war', 'war'), 1)
         self.assertEqual(self.vectors.rank('war', 'terrorism'), 3)
 
+    def test_wv_property(self):
+        """Test that the deprecated `wv` property returns `self`. To be removed in v4.0.0."""
+        self.assertTrue(self.vectors is self.vectors.wv)
+
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     logging.basicConfig(format='%(asctime)s : %(levelname)s : %(message)s', level=logging.DEBUG)