Moscow
During any season, at any hour of the day, Moscow thrills visitors with its artistry, history and majesty.
Kremlin & Red Square
The very founding site of the city (and arguably, the country), the Kremlin and Red Square are still at the heart of Moscow – historically, geographically and spiritually. Feel the weight of this significance as you wander within the walls of the ancient fortress, marvel at the mind-boggling magnificence of St Basil's Cathedral and pay your respects to the revered leader of a now-defunct state. Moscow will move you. It will tantalise your senses, soothe your spirit and boggle your mind – and it all starts right here at the Kremlin and Red Square.
Communist History
The remains of the Soviet state are scattered all around the city. Monuments remember fallen heroes and victorious battles, while museums attempt to analyse and synthesise the past. See Lenin and Stalin – off their pedestals – at the whimsical Art Muzeon. Step into the socialist-realist fantasy at VDNKh. Descend into the depths of the Soviet system at Bunker-42 Cold War Museum. Ride the museum-like metro and remember the millions who suffered at the Gulag History Museum. Nowadays, retro clubs and cafes give their guests a taste of the Soviet experience. You can even try your hand at Soviet-era arcade games.
Performing Arts
What is more thrilling than watching a ballerina defy gravity, leaping across the stage at the glittering Bolshoi Theatre? Or feeling the force of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, just a few blocks away from where it premiered more than a century ago? Or oohing and aahing as circus performers soar under the big tent? The classical performing arts in Moscow are still among the best in the world. Nowadays, even the most traditional theatres are experimenting with innovative arrangements, reviving lost favourites and hosting world premieres. Whether you appreciate the classics or prefer the contemporary, the capital's performing arts will impress.
Orthodoxy & Architecture
At nearly every turn in Moscow, you'll see golden domes peeking out over the rooftops and hear church bells peeling through the streets, which are dotted with some 600 churches – many of which are glittering after recent renovations. There are colourful hidden gems, historic fortresses and gargantuan cathedrals. The exteriors are adorned with stone carvings and glittering domes; interiors are packed with ancient icons, swirling incense and faithful worshippers. For more than a millennium, Orthodoxy has helped to define the Russian nation, a significance that is palpable in these atmospheric spiritual places.
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Moscow.
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Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
This is Moscow’s premier foreign-art museum, split over three branches and showing off a broad selection of European works, including masterpieces from ancient civilisations, the Italian Renaissance and the Dutch Golden Age. To see the incredible collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, visit the 19th & 20th Century Art Gallery. The Museum of Private Collections shows off complete collections donated by private individuals. What's left in the main building is also impressive, with many masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance. Artists such as Botticelli, Tiepolo and Veronese are all represented. The highlight is perhaps the Dutch masterpieces from the 17th century, the so-called Golden Age of Dutch art. Rembrandt is the star of the show, with many paintings on display, including his moving Portrait of an Old Woman. The rest of Europe is also well represented from this period. The Ancient Civilization exhibits contain a surprisingly excellent collection, complete with ancient Egyptian weaponry, jewellery, ritual items and tombstones. Most of the items were excavated from burial sites, including two haunting mummies. Another room houses the impressive ‘Treasures of Troy’ exhibit, with excavated items dating to 2500 BC. A German archaeologist donated the collection to the city of Berlin, from where it was appropriated by the Soviets in 1945. The Greek and Italian Courts contain examples from the museum's original collection, which was made up of plaster-cast reproductions of the masterpieces from Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as from the Renaissance. The 17th and 18th centuries dominate the 2nd floor, with several sections devoted to Italian and French artists. There is a separate gallery for the rococo period, featuring some appropriate dreamy paintings by Boucher. The main building will remain open during the construction of the new museum complex on ul Volkhonka, which is expected to be completed in 2019. After the opening of the new complex, the exhibits are likely to change locations.
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Gorky Park
Moscow's main city escape isn't your conventional expanse of nature preserved inside an urban jungle. It's not a fun fair either, though it used to be one. Its official name says it all – Maxim Gorky's Central Park of Culture and Leisure. That's exactly what it provides: culture and leisure in all shapes and forms. Designed in the 1920s by avant-garde architect Konstantin Melnikov as a piece of communist utopia, these days it showcases the enlightened transformation Moscow has recently undergone. Activities include cycling, rollerblading, beach volleyball, urban and extreme sports, table tennis and even pétanque. There are 13 bicycle- and skate-rental places around the park, with one conveniently located under the Andreyevsky pedestrian bridge. In winter, the ponds are flooded, turning the park into the city’s biggest ice-skating rink. Art objects pop up throughout the park as part of various exhibitions and festivals, but Darya Zhukova's Garage Museum of Contemporary Art plays the flagship role. There are also numerous eateries in the form of small kiosks, the main cluster being the Gorky Park Food Row.
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State Tretyakov Gallery Main Branch
The exotic boyar (high-ranking noble) castle on a little lane in Zamoskvorechie contains the main branch of the State Tretyakov Gallery, housing the world’s best collection of Russian icons and an outstanding collection of other prerevolutionary Russian art. Show up early to beat the queues. The neighbouring Engineer’s Building is reserved for special exhibits. The building was designed by Viktor Vasnetsov between 1900 and 1905. The gallery started as the private collection of the 19th-century industrialist brothers Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov. Pavel was a patron of the Peredvizhniki, or Wanderers, a group of 19th-century painters who broke away from the conservative Academy of Arts and started depicting common people and social problems. Nowadays, these are among Russia’s most celebrated painters, and the Tretyakov boasts some of the most exquisite examples of their work.
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Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
The brainchild of Moscow art fairy Darya Zhukova, Garage is one of the capital's hottest modern-art venues. In 2015, the museum moved to spectacular new digs in Gorky Park – a derelict Soviet-era building, renovated by the visionary Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. It hosts exhibitions, lectures, films and interactive educational programs, featuring Russian and international artists. A good cafe and a bookstore are also on the premises. As you enter, pay attention to the part-ruined Soviet-era wall mosaics, conserved in the manner of ancient mosaics. Lectures and film screenings regularly occur here and at Garage Screen open-air cinema, located across the square favoured by inline skaters. The museum's large bookstore is mostly dedicated to art.
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19th & 20th Century Art Gallery
This branch of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts contains a famed assemblage of French Impressionist works, based on the collections of two well-known Moscow art patrons, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov. It includes representative paintings by Degas, Manet, Renoir and Pisarro, with an entire room dedicated to Monet. Rodin’s sculptures on view here include pieces from the Gates of Hell and the Monument to the Townspeople of Calais. The gallery displays many of the most famous paintings by Matisse, such as Goldfish; some lesser-known pieces by Picasso; a few exquisite primitive paintings by Rousseau; and works by Miro, Kandinsky and Chagall. The museum also contains several pieces by Van Gogh, including the scorching Red Vineyards and the tragic Prison Courtyard, painted in the last year of his life. There is an entire room devoted to works by Gauguin, representing his prime period. The rich collection of 20th-century art continues to grow, with recent additions by Arp and others. The location of the gallery is likely to change after the opening of the new museum complex (expected in 2019).
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Novodevichy Convent
The Novodevichy Convent was founded in 1524 to celebrate the taking of Smolensk from Lithuania, an important step in Moscow’s conquest of the old Kyivan Rus lands. The oldest and most dominant building on the grounds is the white Smolensk Cathedral, with a sumptuous interior covered in 16th-century frescoes. Novodevichy is a functioning monastery. Women are advised to cover their heads and shoulders when entering the churches, while men should wear long pants. From early on, the ‘New Maidens’ Convent’ was a place for women from noble families to retire – some more willingly than others. The convent’s most famous residents included Irina Godunova (wife of Fyodor I and sister of Boris Godunov), Sofia Alekseyevna (half-sister of Peter the Great), and Eudoxia Lopukhina (first wife of Peter the Great). Enter the convent through the red-and-white Moscow-baroque Transfiguration Gate-Church (Преображенская надвратная церковь), built in the north wall between 1687 and 1689. All of these striking walls and towers, along with many other buildings on the grounds, were rebuilt around this time, under the direction of Sofia Alekseyevna. The elaborate bell tower (Колокольня) against the east wall soars 72m over the rest of the monastery. When it was built in 1690 it was one of the tallest towers in Moscow (second only to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in the Kremlin). The centrepiece of the monastery is the white Smolensk Cathedral (Смоленский собор), built from 1524 to 1525 to house the precious Our Lady of Smolensk icon. Previously surrounded by four smaller chapels, the floor plan was modelled after the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin. The sumptuous interior is covered in 16th-century frescoes, which are considered to be among the finest in the city. The huge gilded iconostasis – donated by Sofia in 1685 – includes icons that date from the time of Boris Godunov. The icons on the fifth tier are attributed to 17th-century artists Simeon Ushakov and Fyodor Zubov. The tombs of Sofia, a couple of her sisters, and Eudoxia Lopukhina are in the south nave. Sofia Alekseyevna used the convent as a residence when she ruled Russia as regent in the 1680s. During her rule, she rebuilt the convent to her liking – which was fortunate, as she was later confined here when Peter the Great came of age. After being implicated in the Streltsy rebellion, she was imprisoned here for life, primarily inhabiting the Pond Tower (Напрудная башня). Sofia was later joined in her enforced retirement by Eudoxia Lopukhina who stayed in the Chambers of Eudoxia Lopukhina (Лопухинские Палаты).
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Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
This opulent and grandiose cathedral was completed in 1997 – just in time to celebrate Moscow's 850th birthday. The cathedral’s sheer size and splendour guarantee its role as a love-it-or-hate-it landmark. Considering Stalin's plan for this site (a Palace of Soviets topped with a 100m statue of Lenin), Muscovites should at least be grateful they can admire the shiny domes of a church instead of the shiny dome of Ilyich’s head. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour sits on the site of an earlier and similar church of the same name, built in the 19th century to commemorate Russia’s victory over Napoleon. The original was destroyed in 1931, during Stalin’s orgy of explosive secularism. His plan to replace the church with a 315m-high Palace of Soviets never got off the ground – literally. Instead, for 50 years the site served another important purpose: the world’s largest swimming pool. The Cathedral replicates its predecessor in many ways. The central altar is dedicated to the Nativity, while the two side altars are dedicated to Sts Nicholas and Alexander Nevsky. Frescoes around the main gallery depict scenes from the War of 1812, while marble plaques remember the participants. The original cathedral was built on a hill (since levelled). The contemporary cathedral has been constructed on a wide base, which contains the smaller (but no less stunning) Church of the Transfiguration. This ground-level chapel contains the venerated icon Christ Not Painted by Hand, by Sorokin, which was miraculously saved from the original cathedral. It was here that the Pussy Riot punk collective staged its anti-religious and anti-Putin stunt, which landed them in prison in 2012.
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Mikhail Bulgakov Museum
Author of The Master and Margarita and Heart of a Dog, Mikhail Bulgakov was a Soviet-era novelist who was labelled a counter-revolutionary and censored throughout his life. His most celebrated novels were published posthumously, earning him a sort of cult following in the late Soviet period. Bulgakov lived with his wife, Tatyana Lappa, in a flat in this block, which now houses an arts centre and theatre on the ground floor, and a small museum in their actual flat. Back in the 1990s the empty Bulgakov flat was a hang-out for dissidents and hooligans, who painted graffiti and wrote poetry on the walls. Nowadays, this tradition continues and you can add your own contribution to the historic scrawlings. Inside the flat, you'll find some of the author's personal items, as well as posters and illustrations of his works. More interesting are the readings and concerts that are held here, as well as the offbeat tours on offer. A black cat hangs out in the courtyard.
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Moscow Planetarium
The planetarium has become one of the biggest and brightest stars on the Moscow museum circuit, now incorporating all kinds of high-tech gadgetry, interactive exhibits and educational programs. The centrepiece is the Large Star Hall (the biggest in Europe!), with its 25m silver dome roof, a landmark that is visible from the Garden Ring. Narration for the shows is available in multiple languages. In addition to the traditional planetary attractions, the new facility includes a 4D theatre (R450) and an innovative interactive exhibit called the Lunarium (R450), where visitors can perform experiments and witness the laws of nature in action.
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