Moscow is a beautiful and vibrant city and it was a great surprise to us as we were not expecting it to be so easy to enjoy. Language can be a difficult barrier as the majority of the Russians do not speak fluent English, however they always try to communicate and usually, in a way or another, they are successful. Contrarily to what we’ve heard, people are friendly and try to make your life as easier as possible.
Some good recommendations for you when visiting Russia:
1- Buy a SIM card at the airport, so you have internet in your phone while in the country. Ideally you should ask for someone at the store to activate your cards this way you won’t have any troubles doing it.
2- Download Uber app (Yandex.Taxi), trips are quite cheap, usually you have upgrades on cars and you won’t have any problems with setting destinations.
3- Stay at a good Hotel with Concierge – due to language it is harder to communicate so it’s a good bet to choose an hotel with concierge as they can book everything for you, such as restaurants, theatre shows, museums or take care of any other arrangements.
Now here’s our top 5 places and experiences you cannot miss in Moscow:
Kremlin: there are different tickets to visit the Kremlin, one is to enter the Armoury Chamber, the other is to visit the Cathedral Square and the other one is to visit the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great. For the Armoury Chamber you can buy your tickets online but you’ll need to exchange them at pre-paid ticket’s office or you go to the box office to buy them. We didn’t want to wait in the infinite line to buy the tickets to the Armoury so we bought the ones to the Cathedral Square, electronic boxes are available for these tickets and there’s no line. We wanted to walk in the interior of the Kremlin and see the buildings, so architectural tour was enough but if you have time it’s a good idea to buy tickets to the Armoury Chamber as you’re able to freely walk inside the Kremlin anyways and still get to see the state treasures, my only suggestion is to buy the tickets online otherwise you can be more than one hour waiting in the line.
Red Square: the Red Square is beautiful and big. You have three main buildings there: the State Historic Museum, Saint Basil’s Cathedral and the GUM, a luxurious department store. Try to visit all of them if you have time, the State Historic Museum sometimes has really good exhibitions, if you’re limited in time try at least to visit the a Cathedral and have an ice cream at GUM.
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour: it’s the tallest Orthodox Christian church in the world and it has a particularity, it was built twice. The original church was built during the 19th century and took more than 40 years to build, however it was destroyed in 1931 by Stalin. It was again rebuilt between 1995 and 2000. It’s a magnificent cathedral both from the outside and inside and entrance is free.
Metro Tour: Metro Stations in Moscow are beautiful, metro it’s an easy and fast transportation and nowadays almost all stations are named in English too; nonetheless even if you don’t need to take the metro to visit Moscow, it is worth it to visit some of the most beautiful stations, with lots of history and treasures. For a long metro tour you can use the below map, if you just want to have a glance of the metro or have limited time I suggest you to see at least the following three stations: Kievskaya, Arbatskaya & Ploshchad Revolutsii – take line 4 and enjoy the visit.
Bolshoi Theatre: Bolshoi is one of the most important theaters in the globe with world top performances so you cannot miss a ballet or an opera there. You have to book your tickets in advance alternatively if you miss this, you can ask the concierge at your hotel to confirm if them can arrange tickets for you, sometimes even when it’s sold out at website the hotel is able to buy tickets through intermediaries or even has access to some available ones for their guests. Tickets aren’t cheap, they’ll cost you around 200€ per person but it’s worth it and make sure you buy tickets to the Historic Stage as the New Stage is at a different building on the side of main Bolshoi building and it’s not half beautiful although tickets are much cheaper.
