10 Best Sights in Moscow, Russia

The oldest and richest museum in the Kremlin was founded in 1806 as the Imperial Court Museum, which was created out of three royal treasuries: the Court Treasury, where the regalia of the tsars and ambassadorial gifts were kept; the Stable Treasury, which contained the royal harnesses and carriages used by the tsars during state ceremonies; and the Armory, a collection of arms, armor, and other valuable objects gathered from the country's chief armories and storehouses. The Imperial Court Museum was moved to the present building in 1851 and enhanced and expanded after the Bolshevik Revolution with valuables taken from wealthy noble families as well as from the Patriarchal Sacristy of the Moscow Kremlin. The roughly 4,000 artifacts here date from the 12th century to 1917, and include a rare collection of 17th-century silver. Tickets for the Armory are sold separately at the main box office and allow you to enter at a specific time. Halls (zal) VI–IX are on the first floor, Halls I–V on the second.

Hall I displays the works of goldsmiths and silversmiths of the 12th through 19th centuries, and Hall II contains a collection of 18th- to 20th-century jewelry. One of the most astounding exhibits is the collection of Fabergé eggs on display in Hall II (Case 23). Among them is a silver egg whose surface is engraved with a map of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The "surprise" inside the egg, which is also on display, was a golden clockwork model of a train with a platinum engine, windows of crystal, and a headlight made of a tiny ruby.

Feeling overwhelmed by everything to see at the Armory Chamber? If nothing else, be sure to see the Fabergé eggs. If the weather is too good to spend all day indoors, check out the splendor of the Cathedral Square and come back to see the Armory another day.

Hall III contains Asian and Western European arms and armor, including heavy Western European suits of armor from the 15th to 17th centuries, pistols, and firearms.

Hall IV showcases a large collection of Russian arms and armor from the 12th to early 17th centuries, with a striking display of helmets. The earliest helmet here dates from the 13th century. Here, too, is the helmet of Prince Ivan, the son of Ivan the Terrible. The prince was killed by his father at the age of 28, an accidental victim of the tsar's unpredictable rage. The tragic event has been memorialized in a famous painting by Ilya Repin now in the Tretyakov Gallery, showing the frightened tsar holding his mortally wounded son.

Hall V is filled with foreign gold and silver objects, mostly ambassadorial presents to the tsars. Among the displays is the "Olympic Service" of china presented to Alexander I by Napoléon after the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807.

Hall VI holds vestments of silk, velvet, and brocade, embroidered with gold and encrusted with jewels and pearls. Also on display in this section are several coronation dresses, including the one Catherine the Great wore in 1762. Notice how small some of the waists are on the dresses. A pair of Peter the Great's leather riding boots are also on display – take note of their huge size.

Hall VII contains regalia and the imperial thrones. The oldest throne, veneered with carved ivory, belonged to Ivan the Terrible. The throne of the first years of Peter the Great's reign, when he shared power with his older brother Ivan, has two seats in front and one hidden in the back. The boys' older sister, Sophia (1657–1704), who ruled as regent from 1682 to 1689, sat in the back, prompting the young rulers to give the right answers to the queries of ambassadors and others. Among the crowns, the oldest is the sable-trimmed Cap of Monomakh, which dates to the 13th century.

Hall VIII contains dress harnesses of the 16th through 18th centuries.

Hall IX has a marvelous collection of court carriages. Here you'll find the Winter Coach that carried Elizaveta Petrovna (daughter of Peter the Great and someone who clearly liked her carriages; 1709–62) from St. Petersburg to Moscow for her coronation.

Moscow's biggest (bolshoi means "big") and oldest theater, formerly known as the Great Imperial Theater, was completely rebuilt after a fire in 1854. Lenin made his last public speech here in 1922. The splendor of tapestries, balconies, crystal chandeliers, and gold-leaf trim is matched by the quality of the resident opera and ballet troupes, two of the most famous performing-arts companies in the world. If you want to see a performance at the Bolshoi, be sure to book one of its 2,155 seats as far ahead as possible because performances can sell out quickly. To the left of the Bolshoi is the RAMT (Russian Academic Youth Theater), which puts on performances with a talented group of young actors. This is where you'll find the Bolshoi's main ticket office. The plaza, with fountains and fine wooden benches, is a nice spot for a relaxing look at the theater.

In 1591, the Russian army stood waiting for an impending attack from Tatar troops grouped on the opposite side of the river. According to legend, the Russians awoke one morning to find the Tatars gone. Their sudden retreat was considered a miracle, and Boris Godunov ordered a monastery built to commemorate the miraculous victory. The monastery, now in a secluded, wooded area in the southwest section of the city, was named in honor of a wonder-working icon of the Virgin of the Don that Prince Dimitry Donskoy had supposedly carried during his campaign in 1380 in which the Russians won their first decisive victory against the Tatars.

The monastery grounds are surrounded by a high defensive wall with 12 towers, the last of the defense fortifications to be built around Moscow. When you enter through the western gates, the icon looks down on you from above the entrance to the imposing New Cathedral, built in the late 17th century by Peter the Great's half-sister, the regent Sophia. The smaller Old Cathedral was built between 1591 and 1593, during the reign of Boris Godunov. After the plague swept through Moscow in 1771, Catherine the Great forbade any more burials in the city center and the monastery became a fashionable burial place for the well-to-do, and many leading intellectuals, politicians, and aristocrats were buried here in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

From 1934 to 1992, a branch of the Shchusev Architecture Museum kept architectural details of churches, monasteries, and public buildings destroyed under the Soviets inside the monastery walls. Bits and pieces of demolished churches and monuments remain, forming a graveyard of destroyed architecture from Russia's past.

Tsar Vasily III (1479–1533) founded this convent in 1524 on the road to Smolensk and Lithuania. Due to the tsar's initiative, it enjoyed an elevated position among the many monasteries and convents of Moscow and became a convent primarily for noblewomen. Little remains of the original structure. Enclosed by a crenellated wall with 12 colorful battle towers, today's complex dates largely from the 17th century, when the convent was significantly rebuilt and enhanced.

Among the first of the famous women to take the veil here was Irina, wife of the feebleminded Tsar Fyodor and the sister of Boris Godunov, in the 16th century. Godunov was a powerful nobleman who exerted much influence over the tsar and when Fyodor died, Godunov was the logical successor to the throne. Rather than proclaim himself tsar, he followed his sister to Novodevichy. Biding his time, Godunov waited until the clergy and townspeople begged him to become tsar. His election took place at the convent, inside the Cathedral of Smolensk.

In the next century, Novodevichy became the residence of Sophia, the half-sister of Peter the Great, who ruled as his regent from 1682 through 1689, while he was still a boy. She didn't want to give up her position when the time came for Peter's rule and was deposed by him. He kept her prisoner inside Novodevichy. Even that wasn't enough to restrain the ambitious sister, and from her cell she organized a revolt of the streltsy (Russian militia). The revolt was summarily put down, and to punish Sophia, Peter had the bodies of the dead streltsy hung up along the walls of the convent outside Sophia's window. He left the decaying bodies hanging for more than a year. Yet another of the convent's later "inmates" was Yevdokiya Lopukhina, Peter's first wife. Peter considered her a pest and rid himself of her by sending her to a convent in faraway Suzdal. She outlived him, though, and eventually returned to Moscow. She spent her final years at Novodevichy, where she's buried.

You enter the convent through the arched passageway topped by the Preobrazhensky Tserkov (Gate Church of the Transfiguration), widely considered one of the best examples of Moscow baroque. To your left as you enter is the ticket booth, where tickets are sold to the various exhibits housed in the convent. Exhibits include rare and ancient Russian paintings, both ecclesiastical and secular; woodwork and ceramics; and fabrics and embroidery. There's also a large collection of illuminated and illustrated books, decorated with gold, silver, and jewels. The building to your right is the Lophukin House, where Yevdokiya lived from 1727 to 1731. Sophia's prison, now a guardhouse, is to your far right, in a corner of the northern wall.

The predominant structure inside the convent is the huge five-dome Sobor Smolenskoy Bogomateri (Cathedral of the Virgin of Smolensk), dedicated in 1525 and built by Alexei Fryazin. It was closely modeled after the Kremlin's Assumption Cathedral. Inside, there's a spectacular iconostasis with 84 wooden columns and icons dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. Simon Ushakov, a leader in 17th-century icon art, was among the outstanding Moscow artists who participated in the creation of the icons. Also here are the tombs of Sophia and Yevdokiya. Yet another historic tale connected to the convent tells how the cathedral was slated for destruction during the War of 1812. Napoléon had ordered the cathedral dynamited, but a brave nun managed to extinguish the fuse just in time, and the cathedral was spared.

To the right of the cathedral is the Uspensky Tserkov (Church of the Assumption) and Refectory, originally built in 1687 and then rebuilt after a fire in 1796. It was here that the blue-blooded nuns took their meals.

A landmark feature of Novodevichy is the ornate belfry towering above its eastern wall. It rises 236 feet and consists of six ornately decorated tiers. The structure is topped by a gilded dome that can be seen from miles away.

One of the finest art museums in Russia, the Pushkin is famous for its collection of works by Gauguin, Cézanne, and Picasso, among other masterpieces. Founded by Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetayev (1847–1913) of Moscow State University, father of poet Marina Tsvetaeva, the museum was originally established as a teaching aid for art students, which explains why some of the collection is made up of copies. The original building dates from 1895 to 1912 and was first known as the Alexander III Museum. It was renamed for Pushkin in 1937, on the centennial of the poet's death.

The first-floor exhibit halls display a fine collection of ancient Egyptian art (Hall 1); Greece and Rome are also well represented. The museum's great masterpieces include a fine concentration of Italian works from the 15th century (Room 5), among them Botticelli's The Annunciation, Tomaso's The Assassination of Caesar, Guardi's Alexander the Great at the Body of the Persian King Darius, and Sano di Pietro's The Beheading of John the Baptist. Rembrandt's Portrait of an Old Woman is in Room 10, and paintings by Murillo, Rubens, and Van Dyck are in Room 11. There are also frequent exhibits of collections on loan from other prominent European art museums.

Famous for the grand military parades staged here during the Soviet era, this vast space was originally called the Torg, the Slavonic word for marketplace. Many suppose that the name "Red Square" has something to do with Communism or the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, the name dates to the 17th century. The adjective krasny originally meant "beautiful," but over the centuries the meaning of the word changed to "red," hence the square's present name. The square is most beautiful and impressive at night, when it's entirely illuminated by floodlights, with the ruby-red stars atop the Kremlin towers glowing against the dark sky. There are five stars in all, one for each of the tallest towers. They made their appearance in 1937 to replace the double-headed eagle, a tsarist symbol that is again an emblem of Russia. The glass stars, which are lighted from inside and designed to turn with the wind, are far from dainty: the smallest weighs a ton.

This impeccably clean banya, known also simply as "Sanduny," is probably the city's most elegant bathhouse, with a lavish blue-and-gold-painted interior dating to the early 1800s. The entrance is marked by wrought-iron lamps and a circular marble staircase. The VIP section has a pool surrounded by marble columns and a lounge with leather booths. Note that the banya essentials of a towel and a sheet to sit on in the steam room cost extra; you can also bring your own. You can also purchase birch branches, which you may be able to convince a fellow bather to beat you with (or you can hire a trained masseuse there to do it). This is a classic Russian banya procedure that's supposedly good for the skin. There is a thorough list of rules and recommendations printed in English at the ticket booth. On-site facilities include a beauty parlor and, of course, more traditional massage.

The proper name of this whimsical structure is Church of the Intercession. It was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to celebrate his conquest of the Tatar city of Kazan on October 1, 1552, the day of the feast of the Intercession. The central chapel, which rises 107 feet, is surrounded by eight towerlike chapels linked by an elevated gallery. Each chapel is topped by an onion dome carved with its own distinct pattern and dedicated to a saint on whose day the Russian army won battles against the Tatars. The cathedral was built between 1555 and 1560 on the site of the earlier Trinity Church, where the Holy Fool Vasily (Basil) had been buried in 1552. Basil was an adversary of the tsar, publicly reprimanding Ivan the Terrible for his cruel and bloodthirsty ways. He was protected, however, from the tsar by his status as a Holy Fool, for he was considered by the Church to be an emissary of God. Ironically, Ivan the Terrible's greatest creation has come to be known by the name of his greatest adversary. In 1558 an additional chapel was built in the northeast corner over Basil's remains, and from that time on the cathedral has been called St. Basil's.

Very little is known about the architect who built the cathedral. It may have been the work of two men—Barma and Postnik—but now it seems more likely that there was just one architect, Postnik Yakovlyev, who went by the nickname Barma. Legend has it that upon completion of the cathedral, the mad tsar had the architect blinded to ensure that he would never create such a masterpiece again.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the cathedral was closed and in 1929 turned into a museum dedicated to the Russian conquest of Kazan. Although services are held here on Sunday at 10 am, the museum is still open. The antechamber houses displays that chronicle the Russian conquest of medieval Kazan as well as examples of 16th-century Russian and Tatar weaponry. Another section details the history of the cathedral's construction, with displays of the building materials used. After viewing the museum exhibits, you're free to wander through the cathedral. Compared with the exotic exterior, the dark and simple interiors, their brick walls decorated with faded flower frescoes, are somewhat disappointing. The most interesting chapel is the main one, which contains a 19th-century baroque iconostasis.

Tolstoy bought this house in 1882, at the age of 54, and spent nine winters here with his family. In summer he preferred his country estate in Yasnaya Polyana. The years here were not particularly happy ones. By this time Tolstoy had already experienced a religious conversion that prompted him to disown his earlier great novels, including War and Peace and Anna Karenina. His conversion sparked a feud among his own family members, which manifested itself even at the dining table: Tolstoy's wife, Sofia Andreevna, would sit at one end with their sons, while the writer would sit with their daughters at the opposite end.

The ground floor has several of the children's bedrooms and the nursery where Tolstoy's seven-year-old son died of scarlet fever in 1895, a tragedy that haunted the writer for the rest of his life. Also here are the dining rooms and kitchen, as well as the Tolstoys' bedroom, in which you can see the small desk used by his wife to meticulously copy all of her husband's manuscripts by hand.

Upstairs you'll find the Tolstoys' receiving room, where they held small parties and entertained guests, who included most of the leading figures of their day. The grand piano in the corner was played by such greats as Rachmaninoff and Rimsky-Korsakov. When in this room, you should ask the attendant to play the enchanting recording of Tolstoy greeting a group of schoolchildren, followed by a piano composition written and played by him. Also on this floor is an Asian-style den and Tolstoy's study, where he wrote his last novel, Resurrection.

Although electric lighting and running water were available at the time to even the lesser nobility, Count Tolstoy chose to forgo both, believing it better to live simply. The museum honors his desire and shows the house as it was when he lived there. Inside the museum, each room has signs in English explaining its significance and contents.

On view are some of the world's greatest masterpieces of Russian art, spanning the 11th through the 20th centuries. The works include sacred icons, stunning portrait and landscape art, the famous Russian Realists' paintings that culminated in the Wanderers' Group, and splendid creations of Russian Symbolism, impressionism, and art nouveau.

In the mid-1800s, a successful young Moscow industrialist, Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, was determined to amass a collection of national art that would be worthy of a museum of fine arts for the entire country. In pursuit of this high-minded goal, he began to purchase paintings, drawings, and sculpture. He became one of the—if not the—era's most valued patrons of the arts. In 1892 he donated his collection to the Moscow city government, along with a small inheritance of other fine works collected by his brother Sergei. The holdings have been continually increased by subsequent state acquisitions, including the seizure of privately owned pieces after the Communist revolution.

The rich collection of works completed after 1850 pleases museumgoers the most, for it comprises a selection of pieces from each of the Russian masters, sometimes of their best works. Hanging in the gallery are paintings by Nikolai Ge (Peter the Great Interrogating the Tsarevich Alexei), Vasily Perov (Portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky), Vasily Polenov (Grandmother's Garden), Viktor Vasnetsov (After Prince Igor's Battle with the Polovtsy), and many others. Several canvases of the beloved Ivan Shishkin, with their depictions of Russian fields and forests—including Morning in the Pine Forest, of three bear cubs cavorting—fill one room. There are also several paintings by the equally popular Ilya Repin, including his most famous painting, The Volga Boatmen. Later works, from the end of the 19th century, include an entire room devoted to the Symbolist Mikhail Vrubel (The Princess Bride, Demon Seated); Nestorov's glowing Vision of the Youth Bartholomew, the boy who would become St. Sergius, founder of the monastery at Sergeyev-Posad; and the magical pieces by Valentin Serov (Girl with Peaches, Girl in Sunlight). You'll also see turn-of-the-20th-century paintings by Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich (1874–1947), whose New York City home is a museum.

The first floor houses the icon collection, including the celebrated Holy Trinity painted by the late-14th- and early-15th-century master Andrei Rublyov. Also on display are some of the earliest icons to reach ancient Kievan Rus', such as the 12th-century Virgin of Vladimir, brought from Byzantium.

The second floor holds 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century paintings and sculpture and is where indefatigable Russian art lovers satisfy their aesthetic longings. A series of halls of 18th-century portraits, including particularly fine works by Dmitry Levitsky, acts as a time machine into the country's noble past. Other rooms are filled with works of the 19th century, embodying the burgeoning movements of romanticism and naturalism in such gems of landscape painting as Silvester Shchedrin's Aqueduct at Tivoli and Mikhail Lebedev's Path in Albano and In the Park. Other favorite pieces to look for are Karl Bryullov's The Last Day of Pompeii, Alexander Ivanov's Appearance of Christ to the People, and Orest Kiprensky's well-known Portrait of the Poet Alexander Pushkin.

When you leave the gallery, pause a moment to look back on the fanciful art nouveau building itself, which is quite compelling. Tretyakov's home still forms a part of the gallery. Keep in mind that the ticket office closes an hour before the museum closes. There are no English-language translations on the plaques here, but you can rent an audio guide or buy an English-language guidebook.