The Central House of Writers is an elaborate art nouveau mansion dating to 1889. The historic mansion housed the administrative offices of the writers' union for most of the Soviet period. As such, it was featured in Mikhail Bulgakov's famous novel The Master and Margarita.
The on-site restaurant is worth a peek for its ornate interior. Otherwise, the building is not open to the public.
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The Armoury dates to 1511, when it was founded under Vasily III to manufacture and store weapons, imperial arms and regalia for the royal court. Later it…
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This is Moscow’s premier foreign-art museum, split over three branches and showing off a broad selection of European works, including masterpieces from…
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At the southern end of Red Square stands the icon of Russia: St Basil’s Cathedral. This crazy confusion of colours, patterns and shapes is the culmination…
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The apex of Russian political power and once the centre of the Orthodox Church, the Kremlin is the kernel of not only Moscow, but of the whole country…
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Although Vladimir Ilych requested that he be buried beside his mum in St Petersburg, he still lies in state at the foot of the Kremlin wall, receiving…
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Moscow's main city escape isn't your conventional expanse of nature preserved inside an urban jungle. It's not a fun fair either, though it used to be one…
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Immediately outside the Kremlin’s northeastern wall is the celebrated Red Square, the 400m-by-150m area of cobblestones that is at the very heart of…
State Tretyakov Gallery Main Branch
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The exotic boyar (high-ranking noble) castle on a little lane in Zamoskvorechie contains the main branch of the State Tretyakov Gallery, housing the world…
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‘The colour of the house is liberal, ie red', playwright Anton Chekhov wrote of his house on the Garden Ring, where he lived from 1886 to 1890. The red…
2. Kudrinskaya Apartment Block
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The 160m, 22-storey Stalinist skyscraper at Kudrinskaya pl contains elite apartments, mostly occupied by pre-eminent cultural figures during Soviet times.
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The model for Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation design principle, this architectural landmark was an early experiment in semicommunal living. Designed…
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The planetarium has become one of the biggest and brightest stars on the Moscow museum circuit, now incorporating all kinds of high-tech gadgetry,…
5. Church of the Grand Ascension
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In 1831 poet Alexander Pushkin married artist Natalia Goncharova in the elegant Church of the Grand Ascension, on the western side of pl Nikitskie Vorota…
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Also known as the Gorky House-Museum, this fascinating 1906 art nouveau mansion was designed by architect Fyodor Shekhtel and gifted to celebrated author…
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Patriarch’s Ponds hark back to Soviet days, when the parks were populated with children and babushky. Today you’ll see grandmothers pushing strollers and…
8. Synagogue on Bolshaya Bronnaya
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Built in 1883, the Synagogue on Bolshaya Bronnaya was the private place of worship of a prerevolutionary millionaire. Closed in the 1930s, the building…