Things to do in Moscow: landmarks, art collections and parks

Moscow's major sights span five centuries of Russian statehood, religious art, imperial collecting, and twentieth-century engineering. Grouping experiences by neighbourhood and Metro line keeps transit time low and prevents museum fatigue across a multi-day stay in the capital.

Walk Red Square and enter Saint Basil's Cathedral

Paved with dark stone setts along a 330-metre-by-70-metre rectangle east of the Kremlin wall, Red Square covers almost 73,000 square metres and has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1990. At its southern threshold rises the Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed, built between 1555 and 1561 under Ivan the Terrible to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. Inside, narrow vaulted brick staircases link eight chapels arranged around a ninth central tent-roofed church and a tenth chapel added in 1588 over the grave of Saint Vasily. Across the square, the 242-metre-long facade of the GUM department store (built 1890 to 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev and engineer Vladimir Shukhov) shelters three parallel shopping arcades under arched steel-and-glass roofs.

Explore Cathedral Square and the Kremlin Armoury

Behind the crenellated brick walls of the Moscow Kremlin, Cathedral Square preserves the ceremonial court where Russian monarchs were crowned and buried. Aristotele Fioravanti's five-domed Dormition Cathedral (1475 to 1479) served as the coronation church from 1547 to 1896, while Aloisio the New's Cathedral of the Archangel (1505 to 1508) holds the tombs of Muscovite grand princes and tsars prior to Peter the Great, and Pskov masters built the nine-domed Cathedral of the Annunciation (1484 to 1489). Nearby stand the 81-metre Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the 201,924-kilogram Tsar Bell, and Andrey Chokhov's 1586 bronze Tsar Cannon. At the western edge of the grounds, the Kremlin Armoury displays imperial regalia, royal carriages, and seventeenth-century goldsmithing.

Compare Russian canvases at the Tretyakov and European art at the Pushkin

Founded by merchant Pavel Tretyakov in 1856 and donated to the nation in 1892, the State Tretyakov Gallery on Lavrushinsky Lane sits behind a fairy-tale Russian Revival facade designed by painter Viktor Vasnetsov between 1902 and 1904. Its chronological halls trace Russian painting from medieval icons to nineteenth-century Peredvizhniki (Wanderers) canvases. Across the Moskva River on Volkhonka Street, Roman Klein's 1912 Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts houses ancient casts, European old masters, and French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings just opposite the reconstructed 103-metre Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Attend a Bolshoi performance and cross Zaryadye Park's Floating Bridge

North of Red Square, the Bolshoi Theatre reopened its crimson-and-gilt Historic Stage in October 2011 after a six-year restoration. Even if evening ballet or opera tickets are sold out, walking south through medieval Kitay-gorod leads to Varvarka Street's sixteenth- and seventeenth-century churches and the terraced botanical zones of Zaryadye Park, whose V-shaped concrete bridge cantilevers 70 metres over the Moskva River embankment without supporting pillars in the water.

Tour VDNKh, the Cosmonautics Museum, and the Metro

In northern Moscow, the 107-metre titanium obelisk of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space (1964) rises above the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, which holds around 85,000 spaceflight items right outside the triumphal arch of VDNKh. Combine the trip with a self-guided ride around the Koltsevaya Line (Line 5) of the Moscow Metro to see Alexey Shchusev's yellow-vaulted Komsomolskaya station and Alexey Dushkin's 32 stained-glass panels at Novoslobodskaya, then finish along the riverside boardwalks of Gorky Park, Sparrow Hills, and Novodevichy Convent.