Tips on what to do in Moscow
If you think that Moscow is only the Red Square, you need to get to know this city! It’s a typical big city, with 15 million inhabitants, options for all the tastes and various budgets.
In the Russian-speaking zone, Moscow is the luxury and business capital. It’s simply evident the concentration of fancy brands around its central area. Literally fancy!
It’s not a cheap city, but not so expensive as Zurich and Geneva. If consider fancy places, it’s another story! There are 35 billionaires living in Moscow and the city is the point for the superrich of Russian-speaking zone. At a fancy restaurant, a soup may cost some 50 euros, for example. It depends where you go!
I recommend at least 5 days to explore the Russian capital calmly. Let’s go with some tips!
Take time to appreciate the metro stations
Moscow has 200 metro stations and as you move to/from the central areas it is impossible to not be enchanted by the beautiful decorations and architecture on the walls, on the ceilings and on the lamps at many moscovites metro stations.
During the Soviet Union, such beauty inside the metro stations served the purpose to communicate the greatness of the Soviet regime exactly at places where millions of people pass by daily: the metro stations.
Another tip is to buy the tickets through a card with higher amount. One token is 50 rubles, while I paid 650 rubles for a card with 20 tickets (it would cost 1000 rubles if bought separately)
Another tip is to use the app Yandex.metro, which shows all the metro stations in the city and the fastest routes to take in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk and Istanbul.
Walk around Red Square
Surely it is the most touristical and clichet place in Moscow. But nothing that belittles the architectonic beauty of St. Basil’s Cathedral, of Kremlim, of the Red Square and of the Kazan Cathedral . By the way, do you know why the name Red Square? Nothing related to the red color used by the Soviet regime and left-wing parties. In the Old Russian, the word krasnaya (Красная) means pretty, beautiful. In Russian, Red Square is Krasnaya Ploschad (Красная Площадь).
Eat at a stolovaya
Stolovaya ( Столовая, in Russian it is pronnounced “stalovaya”) is a typical restaurant from the Soviet times where the served meals are exposed in “vitrines”/refrigerators, on a standardized food style.
A well-known stolovaya is the Stolovaya Nº57 (Столовая Nº57), located at the GUM (Гум) shopping mall and very frequented by tourists, next to the Red Square. Anyway, there are lots of stolovayas with various prices and qualities.
Join Moscow Free Tour
Moscow Free Tour happens everyday starting at 10:45h with a 2h30min duration. The meeting point is the Cyril and Methodius monument, next to the Kitay-Gorod metro station, purple line. The tour passes by old buildings and churches until the Red Square.
It’s also worth to check the paid tours: Metro Tour, Kremlin Tour, Communist Tour, Mystical Tour. All information is available on moscowfreetour.com.
Go to parks
If you like to spend time at parks, you have to visit the Gorky Park (next to Park Kultury/Парк Культурыand Shabolovskaya/Шаболовская metro stations) and the All Russia Exhibition Center (next to the VDNKh/ВДНХ and Botanicheskiy Sad/Ботанический Сад metro stations). At the All Russia Exhibition Center, there is Historical Museum and the Cosmo Museum with spacecrafts created during the Soviet Union.
Moscow by bicycle
Along Moskva River, you can also appreciate the view combing modern skyscrapers and imponent buildings built during the Soviet regime. It’s possible to rent a bicycle for 100 rubles a day.
I hope you enjoy Moscow as I did! Let’s see when I return to this city!
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