Moscow, Russia: Kremlin, Red Square, and a Metro Worth Visiting

Moscow, Russia: Red Square, the Kremlin, a boat ride on the Moskva, Novy Arbat & matryoshka, and the famous metro stations with chandeliers.

Red Square and the Kremlin in Moscow

After two days on the train from Bucharest to Moscow, I woke up the next morning finally ready to explore the city. But first, I had to move to a cheaper hostel: grabbed my backpack, exchanged some cash, and headed straight there.

The catch was that finding the address turned into a real problem, because for some obscure reason Russians either don't number their buildings at all or number them in complete chaos. I walked in circles around the whole neighborhood for half an hour, asking anyone who would listen, and nobody could point me in the right direction, until a few girls spotted me and asked whether I happened to be looking for the Bananas hostel. "YES, of course I am!" "Spasiba!" 😊

The first stop of the day was the long-awaited, long-dreamed-of Red Square, which apparently gets its name not from its color but from the Russian adjective krasnaya, which means both beautiful and red.

As someone who was actually there and photographed myself in every tourist pose the square had to offer, I can say that the place really is red: the Kremlin wall is red, the museum at the far end is red, and Saint Basil's Cathedral is more red than green or whatever else people imagine it to be.

When I finally got there, all I could manage was a quiet "Oohh..." because everything was beautiful and unmistakably Russian, even if the center of the square was blocked off with bleachers being set up for a concert at the end of the month.

Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, with all its colorful little domes, struck me as surprisingly small, perched as it is on a small mound of earth beside the square, and strangely, it looks more beautiful from a distance than when you are standing right next to it.

From the square, you can walk along the Kremlin wall all the way to the other side, where the entrance is and where a park gives Muscovites somewhere to rest on sweltering days (meaning 29 degrees Celsius, which is the most heat I managed to catch there). Keep walking and you loop back into Red Square, now from the opposite end, for the classic Moscow shots with vendors selling matryoshka dolls, kites, and tourist excursions.

The Bolshoi Theatre sits close enough to Red Square that you'll walk past it anyway. Even without tickets, stop for the facade: neoclassical columns, Apollo's quadriga on top, that particular Soviet grandeur Moscow does better than anywhere.

Bolshoi Ballet tickets sell out months in advance. Book before you travel, not once you arrive.

What to See in Moscow: A Boat Ride on the Moskva

I couldn't decide: visit the Kremlin or take a boat ride on the Moskva River?

I had lined up for Kremlin tickets (350 rubles, about 8.30 euros for the architectural ensemble), but in the end I slipped away rather shamelessly toward the water, bought a ticket (400 rubles, about 10 euros), and spent three full hours riding back and forth along the river, largely because nobody bothered to kick me off once we reached either end.

This river of theirs, which shares its name with the city, is roughly the size of the Danube at Budapest, to give you a sense of scale. Boats are everywhere, though they all follow more or less the same route: from Kievskaya station (the one where trains from Kiev arrive, and by extension those from Bucharest), past the Kremlin, which looks fantastic from the water, all the way to a bridge just past the Rossia Hotel (that's what Russians call their country).

After three hours, drunk on sun and views, I walked back along the riverbank, past buildings in the style of Casa Scânteii, though they look far more impressive in Moscow than they ever did in the Soviet satellite states.

About Moscow: Matryoshka Day

Before setting off on the trip, I had been given two important missions by my mother, repeated several times to make sure they stuck: bring her back a matryoshka from Russia and send her a postcard of Saint Basil's Cathedral.

I decided to take care of both on my second day, and since I had found out that Arbat Street was the best place in all of Moscow for souvenir hunting, I headed there. And since I was going to that part of the city anyway, I wanted to walk along Novy Arbat as well, the boulevard brother to the old pedestrian Arbat.

First, I stopped at the post office (which goes by something close to "pochta" in Russian, so not too different from the Romanian word), where I asked for dva shtamp Rumini, meaning two stamps for Romania. The woman behind the counter asked for the postcard. I hadn't written it yet, so I said niet and walked on.

Novy Arbat is a busy thoroughfare lined with newer buildings, tower blocks, capitalist advertising, and, from what I had read, the best clubs in Moscow. Walk to the end and you reach the river, but I turned off at some point toward old Arbat, which has nothing but small old buildings, plenty of tourists, a string of souvenir shops, street painters, and a relaxed, cheerful atmosphere.

I regretted not having more money to spend. There were Russian wool scarves and shawls everywhere, warm and beautiful, Russian fur hats and soft pelts, jewelry made from wood or amber, and sooo many matryoshka dolls, in every size, price range, and color imaginable.

If you don't know what matryoshka are, they are wooden dolls that contain smaller wooden dolls of the same design, each one fitting inside the next. The price goes up with the number of sisters nested inside. I saw some with 20 dolls and prices to match.

I wandered through the shops until my head spun. The matryoshka dolls seemed a bit expensive (I had seen cheaper ones near the Kremlin), the Russian scarves I could no longer look at without feeling a pang, and it was too hot for fur hats. I did pick up some postcards and a wooden brooch, and halfway down Arbat Street I stopped beside a statue and wrote the postcards. It was a clear, sunny day.

I walked back to the hostel via Red Square, the perfect place to waste time, and stopped inside the famous GUM department store, a grand shopping arcade carrying foreign goods where you can find absolutely anything.

GUM spans the entire eastern side of Red Square under a glass and steel roof from the 1890s, the kind of structure that makes you look up and forget what you came in for. Mostly luxury brands now, but the Soviet-era ice cream counter in the main passage is still there and still has a queue.

On Pokrovka Street, a little further along, I had spotted two rats on my first morning in Moscow, near the gate of a building. One was thoroughly dead, and the other was spinning in dizzy circles around its own tail. Too much vodka is bad for your health?

Visiting Moscow: The Metro with Chandeliers

You have all probably come across those viral slideshows with photos of the Moscow metro: the luxury, the extravagance, the chandeliers... Do the Russians really have metro stations that look like ballrooms?!? Well... more or less, yes, but only a handful of the 182 Moscow Metro stations, not all of them.

Since my last day there was more about relaxing than rushing around, I set myself just two small goals: dropping in on old Lenin at home and visiting one of Moscow's metro stations. Lenin didn't work out, because being on holiday, I woke up too late, and by the time I got to Red Square it was just past noon and they were no longer letting visitors in (it closes at 1 p.m.).

I headed for the metro. I had ridden their trains before, and the experience is very different from Bucharest's, though not because of the chandeliers but because of how deep the stations go. You descend as if into a mine, on escalators where you stand for minutes on end before reaching the platform.

At the bottom of the escalator sits a woman in a small booth with a row of monitors beside her, and if you somehow haven't paid for your metro ticket, she grabs you by the collar right there in front of everyone and sends you back up another endless escalator. At least, that's how I imagine it.

Back to the metro chandeliers: I had read that the stations worth visiting in Moscow were Komsomolskaya and Novoslobodskaya on the ring line, Kropotkinskaya on the red line, and Mayakovskaya on the green line.

At the first station, Komsomolskaya, I felt somewhat let down, as it struck me as fairly ordinary. The thing is, there are actually two connected stations, and the moment you reach the second one, you are greeted by something like the images below.

Of the four stations, only Kropotkinskaya failed to impress me, so I didn't bother photographing it. For 28 rubles (0.70 euros), the price of a single metro ride, it's worth setting aside an hour or two to see these stations for yourself.

As a side note, in 2024 I visited the metro in Tashkent and liked their stations even more. The design is more creative and covers a wider range of themes.

One area worth a stroll if you have time is Moscow City, the skyscraper business district in the west of the city, a very different face of Moscow from the imperial center. Easy to reach by metro.

The End of My Moscow Visit

Two places worth the effort: Cafe Pushkin on Tverskaya, open 24 hours, staged like a 19th-century literary club complete with period menu. Theatrical, yes, but the food holds up.

White Rabbit occupies the 16th floor of the Smolensky Passage building, panoramic Moscow view, modern Russian cuisine. Not cheap. Worth it once.

I ended my visit to Moscow with a few unfinished wishes: to visit the Kremlin someday, which I had missed this time around, to see Lenin's mausoleum, and maybe to reach a neighborhood on the outskirts and see for myself what the real Moscow looks like, the one where ordinary Russians actually live.

The next day I was heading to Saint Petersburg by train, continuing my journey through Russia and the Baltic states.

Hotels in Moscow

Back in 2011, I stayed cheap in Moscow, in a hostel, but today you'll find options for every budget, from a chic hotel in Moscow to Airbnb rentals.

If you want to stay in a historic boutique hotel in Moscow, here are three options:

• Metropol - An iconic hotel from 1905, with Art Nouveau architecture, located near Red Square and the Bolshoi Theatre.
• Russo-Balt - An elegant hotel in an 1876 building near Arbat, with an aristocratic style and refined atmosphere.
• Villa Kadashi - A historic villa converted into a boutique hotel, close to the Kremlin, ideal for an intimate and authentic experience.

Getting to Moscow

I got to Moscow by train, but the most efficient option is to fly from Bucharest to Moscow. The Bucharest to Moscow flight takes about an hour, Aeroflot operates the route, and you can find Moscow to Bucharest tickets on Skyscanner.

Moscow has three main international airports:

• Sheremetyevo (SVO), located northwest of the city, about 29 kilometers out
• Domodedovo (DME), to the south, about 42 kilometers out
• Vnukovo (VKO), to the southwest, about 28 kilometers out

Moscow's airports are connected to the city center by the Aeroexpress fast train, which gets you there in 35 to 45 minutes, stopping at:

• Belorusskaya station from SVO
• Paveletskaya station from DME
• Kievskaya station from VKO

Weather in Moscow

Moscow has a continental climate, with long, harsh winters where temperatures regularly drop below -10°C, and short but warm summers that can top 30°C.

I went in August and it was warm and pleasant.

Moscow to Saint Petersburg

The easiest way to travel from Moscow to Saint Petersburg is on the Sapsan high-speed train, which takes about three and a half hours and runs frequently from morning to evening. Tickets are available online and prices vary depending on class and how far in advance you book.

If you prefer something more classic, there are overnight trains like the Red Arrow, which has sleeping cars and is an experience in itself. For tickets and schedules, check the Russian Railways or Sapsan Trains websites.

I took the overnight train, left in the evening, and arrived in Saint Petersburg at sunrise.