Bolshoi Theatre, Tverskaya Street, Kitay-gorod and Zaryadye Park

Surrounding the northern and eastern flanks of Red Square, the linked districts of Tverskoy and Kitay-gorod showcase two contrasting sides of central Moscow: the neoclassical grandeur of Theatre Square and Tverskaya Street on one side, and the narrow medieval trading lanes and modern riverside terraces of Kitay-gorod and Zaryadye Park on the other.

Theatre Square and the Bolshoi Theatre

Reached via Teatralnaya, Okhotny Ryad, or Ploshchad Revolyutsii Metro stations, Theatre Square (Teatralnaya Ploshchad) brings together three historic stage venues: the Bolshoi Theatre in the centre, the Maly Theatre to the east, and the Russian Academic Youth Theatre to the west. Designed originally by architect Joseph Bové and rebuilt in the 1850s by Alberto Cavos after a fire, the Bolshoi Theatre is fronted by an eight-column portico crowned by Peter Clodt's bronze sculpture of Apollo driving a four-horse quadriga.

Home to the Bolshoi Ballet (with more than 200 dancers) and Bolshoi Opera, the main Historic Stage reopened on 28 October 2011 after a comprehensive six-year structural and acoustic restoration that restored its six-tier crimson-and-gilt auditorium. Performances also take place on the adjacent New Stage, opened in 2002. Tickets are sold in advance blocks and require passport identification when booking; check the official site for performance schedules and guided daytime architecture tours of the auditorium.

Tverskaya Street and Hotel Metropol

Directly across Teatralny Proyezd from the Bolshoi stands the Art Nouveau facade of Hotel Metropol, famous for Mikhail Vrubel's ceramic mosaic frieze The Princess of Dreams. A few hundred metres west begins Tverskaya Street (known from 1935 to 1990 as Gorky Street), Moscow's principal radial avenue running northwest from Manezhnaya Square to the Garden Ring. Widened in the 1930s when several historic buildings were moved back on steel rollers, the avenue mixes monumental Stalinist stone apartment blocks with eighteenth-century landmarks such as the red-and-white residence of the Mayor of Moscow at 13 Tverskaya Street (built 1778 to 1782 opposite the equestrian statue of city founder Yuri Dolgorukiy) and the former English Club at 21 Tverskaya Street.

Kitay-gorod: Nikolskaya, Ilyinka, and Varvarka Streets

East of Red Square and behind the GUM department store lies Kitay-gorod, historically known as the Great Posad (merchant quarter). Three ancient streets radiate eastward from Red Square through the quarter:

• Nikolskaya Street: A pedestrian promenade lined with overhead string lights, the historic Moscow Print Yard (Pechatny Dvor), and the Zaikonospassky Monastery.
• Ilyinka Street: The nineteenth-century financial spine of Moscow, home to the Gostiny Dvor merchant arcade and pre-revolutionary bank headquarters.
• Varvarka Street: The oldest surviving streetscape in the quarter, preserving the white-stone Old English Court (the sixteenth-century headquarters of the Muscovy Company), the Chambers of the Romanov Boyars, the Church of Saint Barbara, the Church of Saint Maximus the Blessed, and the Church of Saint George on Pskov Hill.

Zaryadye Park and the Floating Bridge

Sloping south from Varvarka Street to Moskvoretskaya Embankment on the site of the former Zaryadye district, Zaryadye Park opened on 9 September 2017. Its terraced hills are planted with four botanical zones representing Russian tundra, steppe, northern forest, and floodplains, alongside an open-air amphitheatre sheltered by a free-form glass-and-steel "glass bark" canopy and the subterranean Zaryadye Concert Hall. Extending from the park's southern terrace, the 70-metre cantilevered V-shaped Floating Bridge projects over the Moskva River without any supporting pillars in the water, giving unobstructed daytime and evening views of the Moscow Kremlin walls and Saint Basil's Cathedral.