Welcome to Moscow, the capital and largest city of Russia, on the Moskva River. It is the most populous city entirely in Europe, home to more than 13 million people, and the northernmost and coldest megacity in the world. Moscow was first documented in 1147 and led the unification of the Russian lands in the 15th century. Peter the Great moved the capital to Saint Petersburg in 1712, but in 1918 it returned to Moscow. Surprisingly, more than 40 percent of the city is covered by greenery. Let's begin our tour at the very centre.
Red Square
Photo: mos.ru · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsYou are standing on Red Square, one of the oldest and largest squares in Moscow, stretching along the eastern walls of the Kremlin. Around you rise Saint Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum, the State Historical Museum and the GUM department store. Over the centuries this square has seen executions, demonstrations, riots, parades and speeches. Here is a detail few people notice: a moat once separated the square from the Kremlin, until it was paved over in 1812.
Moscow Kremlin
Photo: Pavel Kazachkov from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsBehind the red walls rises the Moscow Kremlin, a fortified complex with five palaces, four cathedrals and many towers. In Russian, the word kreml means a fortress within a city, and many old Russian cities have one of their own. But this is the best known. Within its walls stands the Grand Kremlin Palace, once a residence of the tsars. The name has also become a byword for power: during the Cold War, the Kremlin simply meant the Soviet government, and studying its decisions was called Kremlinology.
Saint Basil's Cathedral
Photo: Tsy1980 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsLook at this marvel of colour: Saint Basil's Cathedral, one of the best-known symbols of Russia. Ivan the Terrible ordered it built from 1555 to 1561 to celebrate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. Its nine onion domes each crown a different church, and together they rise like the flames of a bonfire. One historian wrote that it is like no other Russian building. The tenth chapel stands over the grave of the venerated local saint Vasily, or Basil, who gave the cathedral its popular name.
Bolshoi Theatre
Photo: DmitriyGuryanov · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsBefore you stands the Bolshoi Theatre, its name meaning simply the large theatre. Its opera and ballet companies are among the oldest and best known in the world, and the Bolshoi Ballet is by far the world's biggest, with more than 200 dancers. The building was originally designed by the architect Joseph Bové, and it has been rebuilt several times. Its neoclassical façade is so iconic that it appears on the Russian 100-rouble banknote.
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
Photo: Alvesgaspar · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsOn the bank of the Moskva rises the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, 103 metres tall. The church you see is the second on this site. The first took more than 40 years to build, and in 1882 it hosted the world premiere of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. In 1931 the Soviet leadership had it destroyed to make way for a colossal Palace of the Soviets. Work began, but stopped when Germany invaded in 1941, and the palace was never built. After the Soviet Union dissolved, the new cathedral rose here between 1995 and 2000.
Tretyakov Gallery
Photo: A.Savin · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsWelcome to the Tretyakov Gallery, considered the foremost treasury of Russian fine art in the world. It began in 1856 with the merchant Pavel Tretyakov, who bought works by the Russian artists of his day hoping to found a museum of national art. In 1892 he gave his collection of about 2,000 works to the nation. Look at the façade, designed by the painter Viktor Vasnetsov in a Russian fairy-tale style. Inside, the collection ranges from the icon of the Theotokos of Vladimir to Malevich's Black Square.
GUM
Photo: Josef F. Stuefer · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsFacing Red Square stands GUM, Moscow's most famous shopping centre. Before the 1920s, this building was known as the Upper Trading Rows. During most of the Soviet period it worked as a single department store, because there was only one seller, the Soviet state. Today, as originally, it is a mall with many shops, cafés and restaurants under one roof.
Moscow Metro
Photo: Metro1935 · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsDescend into the Moscow Metro, a tourist attraction in its own right thanks to its lavish decoration. It opened in 1935 with one line and 13 stations, the first underground railway in the Soviet Union. It has since grown into the longest metro in Europe and the only system in the world with three circle lines. At Park Pobedy station you are 73 metres below ground, one of the deepest stations anywhere. And trains come fast: at rush hour they often run less than 90 seconds apart.
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