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1. Of course you could do all of the following or just register to our cultural scavenger hunt!
2. Take a look at this map of the city to have a real idea on how it is built and organized.
3. The Red Square
The heart of Russia’s capital, Red Square is arguably Moscow’s most visited attraction. The cobblestone square is surrounded by architectural stunners, and is the place where most of the city’s (and the country’s) history unfolded. What used to be a market square until the end of the 15th century is now surrounded by unforgettable sites such as the Kremlin, St.Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s Mausoleum and other celebrated attractions. Get Google maps directions>
4. Lenin’s Mausoleum
Moscow’s ultimate love-it-or-hate-it landmark, Lenin’s Mausoleum houses a glass sarcophagus with the embalmed body of the legendary Russian revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin. First opened to the public in August 1924, the Mausoleum attracts around 2.5 million visitors every year, who don’t mind standing in line and going through a thorough body search to get into the illustrious building.
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5. Kremlin
The biggest active fortress in Europe, Moscow’s Kremlin offers a week’s worth of attractions. Once you get behind the 2,235 meter-long Kremlin walls there are five squares and 18 buildings to explore, 20 towers to learn the names of, and the world’s largest bell and cannon to see.
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6. Arbat Street
An elegant historic street right in the city center, Arbat is one of Moscow’s top touristy spots. With lots of cafés and restaurants, live music performers and caricaturists, as well as souvenir shops and tattoo salons, monuments and a theatre, Arbat draws crowds of visitors every day.
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7. Tretyakov Gallery
Built between 1900 and 1905, Tretyakov Gallery started as the private collection of the Tretyakov brothers, who were 19th-century philanthropists. Designed by Viktor Vasnetsov, the gallery is a home to the world’s largest collection of Russian art, comprising over 100 thousand artworks. Here you can see the largest collection of icons, including Rublev’s Trinity and pre-revolutionary masterpieces such as Girl with Peaches by Valentin Serov, Demon by Mikhail Vrubel and Rooks have Returned by Alexei Savrasov. Get Google maps directions>
8. Gorky Park
Moscow’s premier green space, Gorky Park offers entertainment for every taste: outdoor dancing sessions, yoga and fitness classes all summer, as well as beach volleyball and ping-pong, rollerblading, skateboarding and cycling, along with segway and boat-rentals. In winter half of the park turns into one of the city’s biggest skating rinks. The park is also home to an open-air movie theatre and the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Get Google maps directions>
9. Bolshoi Theatre
Opened in 1925, the legendary Bolshoi Theatre is one of the pest places in Moscow for an evening of entertainment. Designed by Joseph Bové, this architectural stunner has two stages, hosting both ballet and opera performances. Get Google maps directions>
10. State Historical Museum
An attraction in its own right, the State Historical Museum, sheltered in a neo-Russian style building, was founded in 1872 by Ivan Zabelin and Aleksey Uvarov. What once was the Principal Medicine Store now houses an impressive collection, which includes relics of prehistoric tribes that once inhabited the territory of present-day Russia, the country’s largest coin collection, as well as 6th-century manuscripts and artworks collected by the Romanov dynasty among other treasures.
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11. GUM
As Russia’s most famous department store, GUM is arguably the most beautiful one too. Built in the 1890s, the glass-roofed arcade has successfully retained most of its original interiors. Home to over 200 of upscale boutiques, GUM also offers a variety of great eateries, a Soviet-style grocery store – Gastronom №1 – and the fanciest historic toilet you’ve ever seen. Get Google maps directions>
12. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
The largest foreign art museum in Moscow comprises three branches housing a collection of incredible works by masters of ancient civilisations, Italian Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age. The main building of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is home to the Ancient Civilisation and ‘Treasures of Troy’ exhibits, as well as Renaissance and Dutch masterpieces by Botticelli, Tiepolo Veronese and Rembrandt, some of which have never been displayed before. The Gallery of European & American Art, located next door, stores an incredible collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. Get Google maps directions>
13. Sparrow Hills
If you to take a walk from Gorky Park along the Moscow river embankment, you’ll end up in Moscow’s other legendary park – Sparrow Hills. Although the park doesn’t offer as many activities as its hip neighbour, here you can take a closer look at the tallest of the seven Stalinist skyscrapers – the Moscow State University – admire the view from the observation deck or get a cable car ride.
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14. Moscow City
Home to Europe’s tallest office building, Moscow City, also referred to as Moscow International Business Center, is one Russia’s most ambitious engineering projects over recent years. With 16 buildings scattered over a surface area of 1,000 hectares, the business district is where you should come for great crowd-free shopping and the best panoramic views of the city.
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15. Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
One of Russia’s most visited cathedrals, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is a truly remarkable site. The grandiose cathedral was built in 1997 at the place of a 19th-century church of the same name, which in turn was demolished in 1931 by the Soviet authorities. For 50 years the place had been home to the world’s largest outdoor swimming pool, until the country’s new government decided to rebuild the sacred place. Designed similarly to look like its predecessor, the modern building also contains the icon Christ Not Painted by Hand by Sorokin, which miraculously survived the demolition of the original cathedral. Get Google maps directions>
16. Ostankino TV Tower
17. Izmaylovo
Mostly known for the city’s largest and best known flea market, Izmaylovo is a souvenir mecca, where you can get just about anything: from handmade items to Soviet antiquities. But it’s also one of Moscow’s largest green spaces, where you can hide from the city buzz.
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18. VDNKh All-Russian Exhibition Centre
The enormous VDNKh (short for All-Russian Exhibition Centre) recently went through an extensive renovation and now looks better than ever. The centre started as the all-Soviet agricultural exhibition in 1935, and now serves as an open-air museum of Soviet architecture. With the iconic fountain at its entrance, the park complex is home to a number of museums, shopping pavilions, multiple eateries, a massive oceanarium, a zip-line, and a horse-riding rink; in winter there’s a skating rink, largest in Europe. Get Google maps directions>
19. saritsyno Museum-Reserve
The former summer residence of Empress Catherine the Great was commissioned in 1775, and succumbed to deterioration during the Soviet era. The whole of Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve has been fundamentally renovated since 1980s to look even brighter than the original. With its opulently decorated buildings, gardens, meadows and forests, Tsaritsyno Park is the perfect place for a green respite in Moscow. Get Google maps directions>
20. Saint Basil's Cathedral
The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed, commonly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral, is a church in the Red Square in Moscow, Russia. The building, now a museum, is officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat or Pokrovsky Cathedral. It was built from 1555–61 on orders from Ivan the Terrible and commemorates the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. It was the city's tallest building until the completion of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in 1600.
The original building, known as Trinity Church and later Trinity Cathedral, contained eight churches arranged around the ninth, central church of Intercession; the tenth church was erected in 1588 over the grave of venerated local saint Vasily (Basil). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the church, perceived as the earthly symbol of the Heavenly City,as happens to all churches in Byzantine Christianity, was popularly known as the "Jerusalem" and served as an allegory of the Jerusalem Temple in the annual Palm Sunday parade attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and the tsar.
The building is shaped as a flame of a bonfire rising into the sky, a design that has no parallel in Russian architecture. Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in his book Russian Architecture and the West, states that "it is like no other Russian building. Nothing similar can be found in the entire millennium of Byzantine tradition from the fifth to the fifteenth century ... a strangeness that astonishes by its unexpectedness, complexity and dazzling interleaving of the manifold details of its design." The cathedral foreshadowed the climax of Russian national architecture in the 17th century.
As part of the program of state atheism, the church was confiscated from the Russian Orthodox community as part of the Soviet Union's anti-theist campaigns and has operated as a division of the State Historical Museum since 1928. It was completely secularized in 1929 and remains a federal property of the Russian Federation. The church has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. It is not actually within the Kremlin, but often served as a visual metonym for Russia in western media throughout the Cold War.
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Dima is our Moscow local representative, we asked her what an ideal day of leisure in Moscow could look like, what she'd suggest doing from early morning to late at night?
Here is what she suggests. Don't hesitate to contact Dima on Twitter @bigcitychase #Moscow #questionforDima if you have questions for her, we may publish your conversation in this blog if she thinks it might be useful to other Moscow visitors.
Dima from Moscow for Big City Chase Moscow :
"Zdravstvujtye, my name is Dima and I am Russian, I grew up in Novosibirsk in Siberia but I moved to Moscow when I was 18. I will suggest you a few activities to do in Moscow so that you spend a great leisure day in this beautiful city.
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