Kremlin and Red Square
The central ring of Moscow is the holy of holies, the historical, cultural and political center of the country. For a tourist, this district offers above all an unmissable cultural program, to be visited during the day or to admire its illuminated night landscape. In this Moscow Kremlin, which always creates as many fantasies in political circles as in pop culture, you can visit architectural masterpieces and religious monuments of exceptional beauty such as the Annunciation Cathedral and many sumptuous palaces such as the Terems. On Red Square, St. Basil the Blessed is still a major building of Orthodox art. To this list of century-old buildings is added the recent Zaryadye Park, inaugurated in 2017, which reviews all that Russian nature has to offer.
Tverskaya and Patriarch's Ponds
In the centre of Moscow, this district is the trendiest in the capital. There are a multitude of restaurants, shops, concept stores, bars and theatres popular among Muscovites. Unlike the Kremlin, its points of interest are scattered all over its surface.
Tverskaya Street is a major parade route running 2.5 km from the Manege Square to Belarus Square and inevitably used during the city's many festivities. To its left, looking towards the Kremlin, is "Patriki", with its more intimate and pedestrian streets. It is a great place to stroll or shop during the day and go out at night. For a bite to eat in a modern ambience, you can opt for one of the establishments in the nearby streets of Malaya Bronnaya and Bolshaya Bronnaya.Lubyanka, Kitai-Gorod and Taganskaya
Lubyanka Square remains forever tainted with a sinister reputation because of the red terror and Soviet oppression directed from its famous yellow building. Its massive facades have successively housed the headquarters of the world's most powerful special services: the Cheka, the OGPU, the NKVD, the KGB and today the FSB. In contrast, the surrounding area now offers an impressive choice of bars and clubs that make the neighbourhood more associated with Moscow's nightlife than with the dark activities of espionage. If you leave Lubyanka, you will soon reach Kitai Gorod, which is a former shopping suburb, while the more festive bars are located in the easternmost alleys and along the Yaouza River. The district also has the anarchic Taganka square with explosive neon lights.
Basmanny: Kuznetsky Most and Chistye Prudy
This area close to the Kremlin was above all a dynamic district at the heart of the city's commerce during the 18th and 19th centuries. This identity has been perpetuated in the very Art Nouveau architecture of its many shops and art galleries that nestle there. It is also here that you will find all the highlights of today's bohemian Moscow: the Gogol Centre and Teatr.Doc, vegetarian restaurants and author cocktail bars, etc. In spite of the many points of interest concentrated there, this district remains surprisingly a haven of peace in the middle of the bustling city (with the notable exception of Three Stations Square).
Arbat and the museum district
Arbat Street is anchored in the Moscow imagination like an old quarter invested by its poets, writers and musicians. Today it is a must-see street if you visit the city, even if you won't find anything from those times that everyone remembers. Today it is a Mecca for tourism and pilgrimages in this former nursery of Slavic talent and you can admire the architecture of the buildings, the former home of Pushkin and several prestigious theatres. The old pedestrian and pleasant Arbat is doubled by an urban monstrosity: the new Arbat wanted by Khrushchev after a trip to Cuba. One should not think that the district has died under the weight of mass tourism: today, a myriad of museums and galleries emerge between the Kropotkinskaya and Arbat metro stations and found its new identity as a "museum district" so much wanted by the town hall. Its beating heart is unquestionably the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Russian Louvre.
South of the Moskva River
On the right bank of Moscow, little has changed since the 19th century. Quieter in the evening, the district is very lively during the day. Its main artery is Bolshaya Ordynka Street, where crowds wander between one-storey houses, bourgeois pavilions, shops, cafés and rival bell towers. To the east is the incredible Tretyakov Gallery; to the south, in Museon Park, its huge annex dedicated to more contemporary art. To the north lies the Baltschug peninsula with its house on the quay, a building of the nomenklatura (Bersenevskaya Street, 2). Opposite, the former Red October chocolate factory has been converted into the capital's trendiest cultural cluster, whose must-see attractions are the Strelka Institute and the Frères Lumières photography gallery.
Beyond the Garden Ring
Moscow is a huge city. The interior of the Garden Ring represents a very small part of its total area. Don't think that beyond it the jungle begins. A visit to the Donskoye Monastery district, Kolomenskoye Monastery or Novodevichi Monastery and Cemetery are essential for any interested orthodox tourist. For all others, the painters' quarter with its wooden houses in Sokol, the Sparrow Mountain and the Soviet-empire building of the MSU (the oldest university in the country), but above all Moscow City and the VDNKH park are must-see visits to understand why Muscovites sometimes still feel they are the masters of the world.
