Moscow is one of the world’s great metropolises and a city of huge contrasts: Moscow has both a European and Asian feel as East meets West in the architecture of the Kremlin and Red Square, the communist past and the new ‘democracy’ present collide in extremes of prosperity and poverty, the nouveau riche gather on Tverskaya Street to shop and sip cocktails in state-of-the-art cafes, while the poor and downtrodden eke out an unhappy existence amid monumental Stalinist housing projects, all the while chaotic rush-hour traffic inches past peaceful onion-domed churches on Moscow’s historic side streets.
Moscow as a city dates back to the 12th century and became Russia’s capital in the 15th century under Ivan III. The city’s main historical sites include the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Moscow Kremlin, a fortress and seat of power in the center of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River, the onion domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square. These three places are first on the list of most first-time visitors to Russia’s capital.
Other famous sites in the city include the golden domes of the huge Cathedral of Christ the Savior rebuilt in the 1990s, the peaceful 16th century Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery near the Luzhniki Sports Stadium and the monolithic, 1950s, Stalinist Moscow State University building in Vorobyovy Gory (the Sparrow Hills).
Moscow also has some of the world’s greatest museums, theaters and art galleries including: the Tretyakov Art Gallery, the Pushkin Fine Art Museum, the Mayakovsky Museum for both contemporary and historic Russian and European art. Other worthwhile museums and galleries include the gruesome KGB Museum and Dostoyevsky’s House.