daydream forester travelling spirit

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What Are Traveling Spirits in Sky: Children of the Light? Everything to Know

Sky: Children of the Light is a game filled with stunning realms, a wholesome fanbase, and cute cosmetics to dress your character n. With every new day, there are daily quests, various spirits to visit with, and even new seasons from time to time. The various seasons also bring new cosmetics for a limited time, from the cape you wear to the hair on your head.

The seasons aren’t around forever though. Once its time has come to an end, the seasonal spirits, and more importantly, cosmetics, will all be set to the side. You’ll still be able to complete the quests in game, though the fun cosmetics won’t be available through the same means. You may feel down about not being able to get that really cool cape you saw, but fortunately, this isn’t the case. 

Within the world of sky are Traveling Spirits – spirits from previous seasons who return for a time. While they are around, you’re able to purchase the emotes and other fun things that they once offered, using the in game currencies. But when do the spirits show up? How long will they be here? Who is the current traveling spirit, and what cosmetics are they carrying? We have all the answers for you here, and will update this page every time a new traveling spirit arrives – so keep reading to find out more!

Who is the Current Traveling Spirit?

The visiting traveling spirit is none other than the Slouching Soldier. This spirit was originally from the Spirit of the Little Prince , a collaboration season in the summer of 2021. This spirit hasn’t previously visited as a traveling spirit, this being their first time back. It will remain at the home realm from February 16 to 19, waiting to say hello. During this time, you can purchase all of the cosmetics they carry!

What Cosmetics are the Spirit Carrying – And How Much Are They?

The current traveling spirit, the Slouching Soldier , has several unique items that players may be interested in. The first of these is an item that most TS’s carry: a heart (In-Game Currency) that goes for 3 candles . You can use this heart to help purchase some of the other cosmetics this spirit carries, as well as other seasonal items. 

After that, the spirit offers it’s emote, which is very fitting for the soldier – a slouch. There are four different versions of this emote, costing a total of 13 hearts all together. You only need to get the Level Three version of this emote to progress the Friendship Tree of this traveling spirit though. You’ll also need 2 ascended candles to get some of the more expensive cosmetics, which can be found by going to Eden.

This traveling spirit also carries a music sheet for 15 Hearts, and can be played on many of the instruments you can find in Sky, along with two different spells that go for 5 candles each. More notably, this traveling spirit has both a hair and cape cosmetic. The messy lob of hair, looking a lot like that of someone who hasn’t gotten a lot of sleep, goes for 42 candles. The cape on the other hand, which looks just as beaten up and torn, is 70 candles.

In total, you will need 13 Hearts, 140 Regular Candles, and 2 Ascended Candles if you want to purchase all of these spirits cosmetics. 

Where Can I find the Traveling Spirit?

If you’ve already visited the traveling spirit, and have found you’re unable to unlock the items, there’s a reason for that. You haven’t met them yet! Luckily, it’s pretty easy: All you have to do is find them.

This particular traveling spirit can be found in the Vault of Knowledge, the fifth realm in the game. You can find them in the old season’s location, which is just to the left of the vault’s spawn point. You’ll have to have finished the Valley of Triumph before accessing the spirit (the fourth in-game realm), so be sure to do that first.

Who have been the previous Traveling Spirits?

There has been many traveling spirit visits in the game before the current one, all of whom offer fun and colorful cosmetics to play around with. Here’s a list of some of the more recent traveling spirits, along with when they visited.

February 2023

Slouching Soldier (Current Traveling Spirit) Piggyback Lightseeker

January 2023

Rallying Thrillseeker Baffled Botanist

December 2022

Pleaful Parent Sassy Drifter

November 2022

Bearhug Hermit Prophet of Water

October 2022

Nodding Muralist Laidback Pioneer 

September 2022

Beckoning Ruler Shushing Light Scholar Indifferent Alchemist

August 2022

Scolding Student Thoughtful Director

Doublefive Light Catcher Timid Bookworm

Peeking Postman Hairtousle Teen

Greeting Shaman Prophet of Air

Daydream Forester Spinning Mentor

Scarecrow Farmer Stretching Guru Troupe Greeter

February 2022

Hiking Ground Prophet of Earth

January 2022

Saluting Protector Twirling Champion

We hoped you enjoyed our Sky: Children of the Light guide. Be sure to check out our  All Spirit Locations In the Hidden Forest in Sky: Children Of The Light guide as well. Or to follow our Sky: Children of the Light coverage, and other content, consider joining our  Facebook !

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Daydream Forester location in Sky: Children of the Light

Daydream Forester is a Seasonal Spirit introduced in Sky: Children of the Light during the Season of Assembly. Like all past Seasonal Spirits, you can still find her at the same location and get her unique emote and upgrades. Here’s where to find the Daydream Forester in Sky: Children of the Light.

Before you find Daydream Forester in Sky: Children of the Light

Make sure you finish the main story before you attempt to find the Daydream Forester or any other Seasonal Spirit. Seasonal Spirits only appear to players who have played through the story at least once.

How to find the Daydream Forester in Sky: Children of the Light

The Daydream Forester is in the Boneyard section of the Hidden Forest.  Enter Hidden Forest (the third realm door) and keep going until you reach the Boneyard. You’ll know you’re in the Boneyard when you enter the area with  a giant tree hollow  (big enough so you can walk through it) on the main path.  Ignore the hollow tree and look to the right.

There is a  big hill  that doesn’t look climbable, but you can still climb it. It’s a bit of a hike, but  keep going up the hill until you reach the top.  As you are probably aware, the rain in the Hidden Forest drains your candlelight constantly, and this might become a problem as you make your way up the hill. Try to save a bit of Candle Flame because it can easily drain entirely as you try to ascend the hill. If your Candle level is low,  bring a friend  along to help you out.

Once you reach the top of the hill,  there is a run-down tree house.  You may notice another spirit on the right side of the treehouse, but that isn’t the Daydream Forester. Instead,  head to the very back of the tree house from the left side . She will be kneeling in the rain. 

Interact with her using your Candle and follow her path. When you reach her final place, free her, and she will teach you the Bubbles Emote . 

Peredvizhniki

Summary of Peredvizhniki

Established in 1870, The Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions, commonly known as Peredvizhniki - meaning "Itinerants" or "Wanderers" - believed in representing subject-matter drawn from everyday life, with an accuracy and empathy which reflected their egalitarian social and political views. They worked across several types of painting, from landscape and portraiture to genre and historical painting, and by the close of the 19 th century had become the most famous art movement in Russia. In 1923 the group was disbanded, but its impact was felt across many subsequent genres of Russian art, from Neo-Primitivism to Socialist Realism .

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• The Peredvizhniki artists were perhaps best-known for their landscapes, paintings of archetypal Russian settings such as pine forests, wheat fields, and water meadows, which depicted their subject-matter with near photographic accuracy. At the same time, these landscapes were symbolically significant, representing the mood of the painter or viewer - as in the so-called "lyrical landscape" - or summing up some archetypal aspect of Russian culture or character.
• Peredvizhniki was the first group of Russian artists to recognize that the everyday Russian citizen was a worthy subject of their attention. They set about creating portraits and genre paintings which evoked aspects of the worker or peasant's daily life, or their hopes, fears, and allegiances. In an era where focusing on the common man or woman was synonymous with political radicalism, this work effectively sounded a clarion call for democratic reform.
• Peredvizhniki was the first great nationalist movement within Russian art. Rejecting what they saw as the Academy's slavish adherence to European taste, they forged a body of work which could become a talisman for an independent Russian spirit. Through their historical and religious paintings, for example, they presented the events and figures who had shaped the collective Russian consciousness.
• Like many of their peers in the French Realist movement of the mid-19 th century, the painters of Peredvizhniki were striving not just for a new stylistic paradigm within their nation's art, but for sweeping social and political change. But if Gustave Courbet's involvement with the Paris Commune of 1870 symbolized an unrewarded revolutionary fervor, the Peredvizhniki movement survived to witness the Russian Revolution of 1917, and thus for the transformation it had willed: if not in the form it would have expected.

Artworks and Artists of Peredvizhniki

Barge Haulers on the Volga

Artist: Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin's painting, arguably the defining work of Peredvizhniki, shows a group of exhausted men in harness pulling a barge along the sandy banks of the Volga. The composition emphasizes the harrowing effort of their labor, the diagonal line of workmen mirrored by the diagonal line of the shore (as if the whole scene were responding to and compounding the scale of their task). The laborers at the front of the line are larger, tilting forward with slack arms as if bearing down upon the viewer - the front man fixes our gaze pointedly - while the men that follow seem on the verge of collapse; at the end of the line, one figure slumps forwards, as if only held upright by the strap around his torso. In the distance to the left, a barge with sails unfurled can be seen on the still reflective waters: perhaps an ironic nod to Romantic landscape painting, emphasizing the abjection of the central scene. Repin began making preliminary sketches for this work in situ on the Volga in 1870, though the painting took three years to finish. Each of the barge haulers was based upon a real person whom Repin encountered during this preliminary visit, such as Kanin, a former priest, and Konstantin, a former icon painter. By using a wide, narrow canvas to accentuate the line of men, and by working with a high degree of naturalistic detail - creating precise tonal gradations, for example, and contrasting the lightness of the landscape with the shadow surrounding the men - Repin transformed what might otherwise have been a staid work of genre painting into a harrowing masterwork of Realism. Repin was the most famous artist in Russia by the close of the 19 th century: the almost uncanny visual and psychological accuracy of works such as Barge Hailers influenced a whole generation of painters, and also had a deep effect on the nation's social conscience. The work was arguably all the more powerful because, as Vladimir Stasov wrote, it was "not painted to move the viewers to pity," but simply to "show [...] the types of people Repin saw."

Oil on canvas - Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The Rooks Have Come Back

Artist: Alexei Savrasov

Alexei Savrasov's landscape painting shows a group of bare, twisted trees on a snow-covered hillside in front of a monastery. In the distance, beyond the steeple, a snowy expanse stretches to the horizon, generating a sense of enveloping isolation. The white of the snow and tree trunks, and the sharp angles of the walls and spires, create a kind of harsh clarity, suggesting the biting cold of the winter, but the top half of the canvas is dominated by billowing clouds and blue sky, and by the rooks which flock to the tops of the trees, heralding the spring. Savrasov painted almost exclusively in the landscape genre, and was associated with the development of so-called "lyrical landscape", a genre associated with the Peredvizhniki group in which the landscape becomes a mirror for human emotions. During the 1860s he had travelled to Europe, and had been influenced by Romantic landscape painters of the Swiss (Alexandre Calame) and British (John Constable) schools, but this work conveys a distinctly Russian spirit. It practical terms, it represents the area around the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, a provincial town 200 miles north-east of Moscow. Seen as the high-point of Savrasov's career, The Rooks Have Come Back is at once a highly allegorical work, showing the replenishment of the landscape after winter, and a piece of almost informal-seeming naturalism. It was well-received when it was shown at the first Peredvizhniki touring exhibition of 1871, and was later admired by Isaac Levitan, a pupil of Savrasov's whose emotionally evocative landscapes would themselves become famous. As Levitan put it, the work is "very simple, but beneath the simplicity [...] is the tender artist's soul".

Oil on canvas - The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Artist: Fyodor Vasilyev

This painting, depicting a water-meadow in the Russian countryside, is sometimes taken as the founding work of the "lyrical landscape" style, and is a classic example of Peredvizhniki landscape painting. In the foreground, scrubby vegetation is picked out with naturalistic detail; behind, a patch of earth leads in zig-zag pattern to a shallow lake, which in turn forms a curving diagonal drawing the eye upwards to the tree on the horizon line. The sky, filled with low-lying clouds, and the earth, are presented as contrasting areas of light and dark, with a shadow cast across the whole ground, stretching from left to right of the canvas. Though he was only twenty in 1870, Fyodor Vasilyev became one of the founding members of Peridvizhniki, and by the time he composed Wet Meadow in 1872 he had already collaborated with, and been tutored by, some of the most important artists attached to the movement. In 1867, he spent several months working on Valaam Island with the landscape painter Ivan Shishkin; in 1870, he travelled to the Volga with Ilya Repin - the trip on which Repin made his preparatory sketches for Barge Haulers - creating works in response such as Volga View: Barges (1870). A year later, in 1871, Vasilyev's painting The Thaw propelled him to fame - a copy was ordered by the family of the Tsar - as a result of which his friendship with Shishkin devolved into a rivalry. This particular work was created in the Crimea, while Vasilyev was attempting to recover from Tuberculosis. Its composition is based on memories of his native Russian landscapes, which perhaps helped to concentrate the strongly emotive mood of the piece. Vasilyev never recovered from his illness, dying in 1873 at the age of 23. However, by this point he had already produced a body of work that would have a profound influence on the development of landscape painting within the Peredvizhniki group, inspiring artists such as Isaac Levitan and Valentin Serov.

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy

Artist: Ivan Kramskoi

This portrait shows the venerated 19th-century Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in three-quarter pose, gazing intently at the viewer. His hands lie in his lap, suggesting self-containment or withdrawal, while the black frock coat wrapped around his shoulders lends him a priestly demeanor. The wall behind the writer is blank, implying a life of austere solitude, though his face registers quiet, even humorous contentment. Ivan Kramskoi was the leader of the "revolt of fourteen" out of which Peredvizhniki developed, and was renowned for his portraiture, including works depicting everyday Russians such as Portrait of a Peasant (1868), and others focused on Peredvizhniki members, such as Portrait of the Artist Konstantin Savitsky (1871). Tolstoy was already famous by the time he granted Kramskoi the commission for this portrait - an honor sought by many artists, and only secured after some persuasion - and following the sitting the two would become close friends, corresponding on the state of Russia and the ideals of Russian art. Proper to Tolstoy's developing reputation as an ethical and religious figurehead as well as a great writer, Kramskoi conveys a clear sense of moral authority, and of humane and perceptive attentiveness. Many of Kramskoi's sitters became iconic figures, and it is likely that the qualities suggested by this painting enhanced the Tolstoy myth. As for Tolstoy himself, he grew to like Kramskoi so much that he included a character based on him in Anna Karenina (1877), and would later remark of his Christ in the Wilderness (1872) that "he knew no better Christ." This is an important work of Peredvizhniki art not only in showing the achievements of their leader, but also in indicating the channels of mutual influence between writing and painting which characterized Russian culture during the 1860s and 70s. Both Kramskoi and Tolstoy were working to define not only a new Russian art, but also a new moral and social conscience for their nation.

Artist: Ivan Shishkin

This iconic landscape painting shows a field of rye just before harvest season. The intense color of the composition suggests the heat of late summer, the field burgeoning with its yield; in the foreground, wild flowers in blossom are picked out with the artist's customary precision, while the curve of the track draws the eye towards the center of the painting, echoed by the curves in the rye-stalks. Pine trees punctuate the skyline, and billowing clouds fill the air. Ivan Shishkin is remembered as the master of Perdvizhniki landscape painting, especially for his forest scenes and works depicting trees, such as Oak Grove (1887) and Forest Distance (1884). But whereas his contemporaries Vasilyev and Savrasov presented the landscape as a frame for the human condition, Shishkin was renowned for his scientific attention to natural detail; though this work is also replete with symbolic meaning. The painting depicts the rye fields of Lekarevskoe, at the edge of Yelabuga, the town where Shishkin was born and one of the engines of Russia's agricultural economy, known as 'Russia's Granary'. In this sense, the piece is a nationalistic paean to the wealth and plenitude of the Russian land. At the same time, it has a more poignant, biographical significance, having been composed based on material gathered during a trip to Yelabuga in 1877, after the death of Shishkin's wife and two sons. The two barely discernible figures in the center of the canvas are assumed to be Shishkin and his daughter - his last surviving relative during that trip - while the two black swallows in the foreground, and the larger, dead bird on the road, seem highly allegorical. The painting thus represents the loss and replenishment of life - human and natural - whilst also being a meticulous representation of a particular landscape, one which epitomized everything that Shishkin loved about the Russian countryside: "expansiveness; space; fields of rye; God's paradise; Russian riches..." It was his ability to convey the character of that landscape both realistically and emblematically that made him an enduringly influential figure in modern Russian art.

Morning in a Pine Forest

This canvas shows four bears, a mother and her cubs, playing around a fallen tree in a forest glade lit up by the morning sun. The triangular arrangement of the animals matches the triangular shape formed by the fallen pine at the center, which directs the eye towards the haze of sunlight behind. The cub to the right, outlined against the light, creates another focal point, while the verticals of the surrounding trees, reaching up beyond the top of the canvas, immerse the viewer in the woodland scene. A bluish morning mist clings to the trunks on the left-hand side. Painted around a decade after Rye , Morning in a Pine Forest is one of various works which Shishkin created throughout his career depicting lush coniferous woodland, also including Pine Forest (1866) and The Sestroretsk Forest (1896). The natural scene is recreated in such detail - each pine needle in its variation, the plants mingling in the foreground, the backwards-curving trunk behind the fallen tree - that the effect is of a near-photograph freshness. In this sense, the work is a quintessential example of Shishkin's oeuvre, but it is relatively unusual in representing animals. Indeed, when the painting was first shown at a Peredvizhniki exhibition, it was presented as a collaboration with Konstantin Savitsky, a painter known mainly for his working-class portraits who was thought to be responsible for the depiction of the bears. This is quite likely, but Savitsky's signature was later removed from the piece, and it was credited solely to Shishkin. This painting was well-received at the time, and remains popular to the point of cultural ubiquity in Russia. It is regularly cited as one of the nation's favorite paintings, and since 1925 a version of the image has appeared on the wrapper of the popular Clumsy Bear chocolate bar.

Vladimirka (The Road to Vladimir)

Artist: Isaac Levitan

This atmospheric landscape painting depicts the Vladimirka Road, part of the Great Siberian Road that led from Moscow to the wilderness areas of Northern Russia. The surface of the track seems to be broken up by grass and wagon ruts, as it cuts upwards from the left foreground, forming a disappearing diagonal reaching to the horizon. The vastness of the land and sky is emphasized by their emptiness - save for a single clump of trees, and a tiny church spire in the distance - and by the presence of a single pilgrim, passing an icon-and-cross station located to the right of the road. Levitan was a master of plein air painting. Often creating his works on location, he had the ability, like the French Impressionist painters of his era, to capture the atmosphere of a natural setting on a particular day, at a particular time, through an intuitive use of color. In this case, the atmosphere generated might seem subtly oppressive, the sky an icy blue-grey, the horizon a source of shadow rather than light. That mood is complemented by the impression of lonely penitence conveyed by the presence of the pilgrim, and - if the viewer knows anything of the location they are looking at - by the cultural associations of the landscape itself. The Great Siberian Road was associated with the transportation of prisoners north from Moscow to Siberian workcamps or to exile, a journey famously taken by Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), and recalled in the memoirs of the political activist Alexander Herzen. The poet Nikoly Nekrasov had also presented a (fictionalized) account of the journey in his 1872 work Russian Women . In its cultural and emotional allusiveness, Levitan's work is a classic example of the Russian "lyrical landscape"; indeed, he brought to all his natural scenes a poetic sensibility to match that of the writers who had described the journey along the Vladimir Road. Such psychologically affecting works would have a profound influence on subsequent Russian painters, including the Impressionist Konstantin Korovin and the Symbolist Mikhail Nesterov.

Artist: Mykola Pymonenko

This classic late work of Peredvizhniki genre paintings shows two children driving a small herd of calves across a shallow ford in a rural village. In the foreground, the track is deeply rutted by coach-wheels, filled with water lit up by the sun, while the children's movement away from the viewer, and their depiction mid-stride, creates a sense of informality and photographic accuracy, as if relaying a particular moment in time. In compositional terms, the road-surface forms a diagonal sweep across the canvas, while the angle of the fence on the far side of the ford parallels the line of the hill beyond. Pymonenko was a second-generation Peredvizhik, born in 1862, just a year before the "revolt of the fourteen", and only eleven years old at the time of the first Itinerant Exhibition. Enrolled as a member of the group in 1899, he produced scenes of working-class and peasant life, many of which, such as Victim of Fanaticism (1899), contain a strong element of ethical and social commentary. This work is relatively unusual in the simple, idyllic nature of the scene depicted, though perhaps the prominent groove-lines imply the children's future lives unfolding along predictable and arduous paths. Works like A Ford , and Matchmakers (1882), sum up Pymonenko's detailed and empathetic attentiveness to everyday Russian life. He was the best-known Ukrainian artist associated with Peredvizhniki, and later in his life would forge an unexpected connection with the future Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich, a pupil at the Kyiv Art School where Pymonenko worked from 1906.

Oil on canvas - Odesa Museum of Fine Arts, Odesa, Ukraine

Red Sunset on the Dnieper

Artist: Arkhip Kuindzhi

This painting, depicting a sunset on the Dnieper River, is dominated by a large luminous body of cloud. The red glow of the sun behind it, reflecting on the river, fills the entire canvas with unearthly light, while in the foreground the thatched roofs of huts can just be made out. However, the viewing point appears to be in mid-air, so that the scene below is flattened and miniaturized, the top half of the canvas given over entirely to the representation of the sky. The Ukrainian-born artist Arkhip Kuindzhi initially worked as a retoucher in a photography studio, and had considered opening a studio himself before becoming a painter. As a result, his work, like that of the French Impressionists, was deeply influenced by photography: this piece is exemplary in using unexpected color combinations and fine tonal gradations to capture the dramatic effects of sunlight in realistic ways. His paintings often present vast, empty panoramas, in which the features of the landscape are reduced to a minimum and the refraction and reflection of light becomes the primary object of attention. In this case, the scene becomes almost abstracted in its minimalism, the river banks forming homogenous dark bands on either side of the luminous strip of water. In its exaggerated, emotionally expressive use of color, and in its move towards a kind of compositional abstraction, Kuindzhi's work became a touchstone for Russian painters of the Symbolist and Expressionist schools, such as Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Bogaevsky, and Arkady Rylov. In this sense, his work indicates the threads of continuity that run from Perdvizhniki Realism to later movements in Russian and European art, suggesting the significance of the movement as a whole.

Oil on canvas - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Beginnings of Peredvizhniki

Artel of artists.

Peredvizhniki developed out of The Artel of Artists, a cooperative commune established in 1863 following what was called the "revolt of fourteen." This came about when fourteen young artists, all studying at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art, rebelled against the choice of topic for the annual Gold Medal competition, "The Entrance of Odin into Valhalla". The group felt that the topic summed up the Academy's stifling focus on the Neoclassical tradition, and wanted to paint the reality of contemporary Russian life, learning from the examples of Realism and Naturalism in Europe.

The leader of the rebellion was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi, a student at the Academy since 1857, who had become increasingly dissatisfied with the conservatism of Russian art and society. Influenced by the literary critics Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Kramskoi became an increasingly vocal advocate for democratic reforms, arguing for the social and political responsibility of the artist, and for the development of a specifically Russian art. Finding the Academy hostile to both his political and his artistic views, he became the figurehead for a growing number of restless young students.

The Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions

Having established the Artel of Artists in 1863, in 1870 the group led by Kramskoi began plans to hold a series of "Itinerant Art Exhibitions", to be held in provincial locations and funded without state assistance, displaying the achievements of Russian art to the common man and woman. These were the founding activities of Peredvizhniki, a group also including Vasily Grigoryevich Perov, Nikolai Ge, and Grigory Myasoyedov. Perov, the eldest of them, was already well-known for his genre paintings, such as Arrival of a New Governess in a Merchant House (1866), and his tutelage of younger artists such as Nikolai Kasatkin, Konstantin Korovin, Isaac Levitan, Abram Arkhipov, and Mikhail Nesterov, would have a significant impact on the group's artistic development.

The first of Peredvizhniki's "Itinerant Art Exhibitions" was held in 1871, and from then on the group organized a series of shows across Russia, accompanied by artists' lectures, and talks on social and political reform. These exhibitions also created a new marketplace, a context in which artists could sell their work independently of Academic patronage, to an increasingly prosperous middle class. Between 1871 and 1923, no fewer than 47 exhibitions were organized by Peredvizhniki, in cities such as Kyiv, Odesa, Kazan, Orel, and Riga, as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky and Nikolai Chernyshevsky

Vissarion Belinsky was a noted literary critic, whose writing on Russian prose became a vehicle for his progressive political views. He was an ardent critic of serfdom, a system he described as "trampling upon anything that is remotely human", and of the autocracy of Tsarist government. Belinsky's influence on Russian society was so profound that the novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years in a Siberian prison camp for reading and planning to distribute one of Belinsky's letters attacking the feudal system. Like the great prose stylists whose work he promoted - Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev - Belinsky believed in a type of writing that would express a social conscience, and transcribe the psychological reality of lived experience.

Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was a writer and literary critic whose famous novel What Is to be Done? (1862) transformed public consciousness around the issue of serfdom (its title was later borrowed by Lenin for his revolutionary pamphlet of 1902). Partly as a result, Chernyshevsky - who was influenced by Belinsky - became a leading voice of revolutionary democratic movements in Russia, and the head of the Narodniks, a populist movement within the middle classes who felt that only the peasantry could overthrow the monarchy and establish a socialist regime. In 1874, the Narodniks began - in their words - "going to the peasants" to persuade them to revolt; the idea was very similar to that expressed by the Peredvizhniki exhibitions, which took art to the villages as a pretext for social reform.

Sovremennik Magazine

Sovremennik ("The Contemporary") was a magazine launched by the poet Alexander Pushkin, though its first issue was published following his unexpected death in a duel in 1836. The magazine became one of Russia's leading literary journals, printing work by the most famous writers of the golden age of Russian prose, including Ivan Turgenev, Dmitry Grigorovich, Alexander Druzhinin, and Leo Tolstoy.

Vissarion Belinsky became involved with the magazine in the late 1840s, at which point it was managed by the poet Nikolay Nekrasov and the critic Ivan Panaev. Often threatened with official censorship, but avidly consumed by the intelligentsia, Sovremmenik continued to appear until 1866. Between 1853 and 1862 Chernyshevsky edited the magazine printing his own work in it, such as his academic thesis The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality (1855), which called for an art that would "reproduce nature and life." The young members of the Artel of Artists were deeply influenced by the radical ideas espoused in Sovremmenik , seen as one of the motivating factors behind their own revolt in 1863.

Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov and Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov

Important early supporters of the Peredvizhniki artists included the art critic Vladimir Stasov - who was particularly influential in justifying their naturalistic treatment of social reality - and the collector Pavel Tretyakov. Stasov was the most respected critic of his era, a venerated figure who felt that Russian art should be "authentic, genuine, and not trivial." He believed that "after long years of scarcity, pretense, and imitation," such an art had finally been cultivated by Peredvizhniki, particularly as they had succeeded in freeing their work from European influence.

Tretyakov was a wealthy businessman and banker who began collecting art in 1854, with the aim of creating a National Gallery in Russia. He was an avid collector and supporter of the Peredvizhniki, buying works at their exhibitions and direct from the artists' studios, sometimes purchasing complete series of paintings at once. As a result, he held the largest collection of works by Perov, Repin, Kramskoi, Levitan, Serov, and various other Peredvizhniki artists. He also commissioned original work by the artists, including portraits of noted Russians, and often provided financial assistance to group members who were struggling to pay their way. In 1893, he established the Moscow City Gallery of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov, now known as the Tretyakov Gallery, where many Peridvizhniki works can still be viewed.

Peredvizhniki: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

Though perhaps best-known for their landscape paintings, the Peredvizhniki artists also worked across several other genres, including portraiture, genre painting, and historical and religious art, as evidenced by the wide-ranging oeuvre of Ilya Repin, the most famous figure attached to the group. Rebelling against the Neoclassical tradition of the Academy, Perdvizhniki sought to redefine the relative importance assigned to different types of painting by the Academic art-world, feeling that a historical painting, for example, was no more or less significant than a genre painting; they often sought to create work which combined the conventions of particular genres. Nonetheless, it is still possible to assess their achievements by reference to various inherited 'types' of painting: from landscapes and portraits to genre paintings and historical and religious works.

The extent of Peredvizhniki's interest in landscape painting varied. Some artists, such as the renowned Ivan Shishkin, focused primarily on the genre, producing works - such as Oak Grove (1887) - displaying a rapt attentiveness to the natural environment. Indeed, Shishkin became so identified with his images of forests that he was dubbed 'the singer of the forest' or 'Tsar of the forest.' Yet some critics argued that, for all their realism, his landscapes were too understated in their emotional content.

By contrast, the artist Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov, with works such as The Rooks Have Come Back (1871), created so-called "lyrical landscapes" or "mood landscapes", a creative path followed by younger artists such as Fyodor Alexandrovich Vasilyev, Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy, and Isaac Ilyich Levitan. Levitan, whose Secluded Monastery (1890) is another good example of this genre, was devoted to painting on location, and his understanding of light and color enabled him to capture the psychological and emotional impact of certain natural scenes with extraordinary accuracy. His work was seen as a radical departure from the conventions of the landscape genre, transcending naturalistic depiction to present landscapes as vessels or mirrors for human thought and emotion.

A more luminous treatment of landscape, emphasizing color and light in more exaggerated ways, is found in the work of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, while a further version of the Peredvizhniki landscape style is provided by the paintings of Ilya Yefimovich Repin. The most famous artist of the group, Repin's landscapes often focused on the human figure, as in Ploughman (1887), for example, which presents the famous writer Leo Tolstoy plowing a field.

The most well-known portraitist amongst the Peredvizhniki group was Kramskoi, who was celebrated not only for his portraits of noted Russians such as Tolstoy and Tretyakov, but also for his paintings of the Russian peasantry, and other real-life subjects. Works of Kramskoi's such as Portrait of An Unknown Woman (1883) capture the complexity of the individual subject while simultaneously blending and subverting the tropes of portraiture and genre painting. Nikolai Ge, Vasily Perov, Nikolai Yaroshenko, Valentin Serov, and Nicolai Kuznetsov were also known for their portraits. Despite their opposition to the stereotypical constraints of the genre, Peredvizhniki's portrait paintings often depict figures seen to exemplify some particular aspect of Russian identity, as in Serov's Portrait of the Composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1898) and Kuznetsov's Portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1893), both of which focus on famous composers and Russian cultural icons.

Genre Painting

The St. Petersburg Academy considered historical painting a higher form of art than genre painting, but the Peredvizhniki painters felt that genre painting - in short, the painting of scenes from everyday life - could be used to represent important moments in Russian history, and to capture the realities of Russian life. Perov's early genre work played an important role in establishing the group's emphasis on genre painting, but it was Ilya Repin's masterful Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870-73) that set the standard for painting in this style, constituting both a striking landscape and a psychologically harrowing portrait of Russian working life.

A number of other Peredvizhniki painters also excelled in genre work. Vladimir Makovsky's work often focused on urban life, bringing an emotional and occasionally satirical scrutiny to city-scenes, as in his On the Boulevard (1887), which depicts an alienated couple on a park bench. Mykola Pymonenko, a Ukrainian artist of a younger generation, was a similarly talented genre painter, though he focused on rural rather than city life, as in A Ford (1901). From the 1880s onwards, the genre painting of Peredvizhniki took a markedly political cast, with works such as Repin's Unexpected Visitor (1886) - which shows a hollow-eyed young man returning to his family after political exile - and Pymonenko's Victim of Fanaticism (1899).

Historical and Religious Painting

Despite opposing the bias in favor of history painting within the Academy, the Peredvizhniki artists themselves created historical scenes, though mainly based on episodes drawn from Russian national history (rather than classical antiquity). The most famous of these was perhaps Repin's Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire (1880-91), depicting the legendarily obscene response of the Ukrainian Cossacks to the Ottoman Sultan's demand for surrender following a 17th-century battle; it was described by the artist as "a study in laughter." Vasily Surikov became well-known for his trilogy of historical paintings The Morning of the Streltsy Execution (1881) - focused on Peter the Great's brutal suppression of a military revolt - Menshikov in Berezovo (1888) - showing a 17th-century military leader in exile - and Boyarynya Morozova (1887), which depicts the folk hero Feodosia Morozova at the moment of her arrest for resistance to religious reforms in 1671. All of these paintings represented pivotal and painful moments in the birth of the modern Russian state.

The works of Nikolai Ge and Kramskoi, by contrast, frequently focused on religious themes. Kramskoi's Christ in the Desert (1872) was exhibited at the second Peredvizhniki exhibition, with the contemporary critic Ivan Goncharov praising the depiction of Christ's "pauper appearance, under the rags, in humble simplicity, inseparable [from] true majesty and force." Older than most of Peredvizhniki, Ge became associated with the group late in his career, and continued to focus on religious subjects to an unusual degree, as in What Is Truth? (1890), a late work showing Christ being questioned by Pontius Pilate. In Orthodox Russia, religious paintings were seen as depicting historical fact, and for the Peredvizhniki artists, the figure of Christ - presented as poor, humble, and deeply human - became a symbol for the suffering of the common Russian.

Later Developments - After Peredvizhniki

Following a pattern repeated throughout the history of modern art, the initially revolutionary methods of Peredvizhniki had themselves been institutionalized by the 1890s, with many of the movement's key artists accepting teaching positions at the Imperial Academy. Indeed, by the turn of the century, oeuvres such as Repin's were perceived as monuments to a new creative orthodoxy, and younger artists increasingly viewed Peredvizhniki style with skepticism or frustration. In 1898, the art patron Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev - later famous for founding the Ballets Russes- established the group Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), which promoted new artists and movements in effective defiance of the Peredvizhniki hegemony.

The response to these new developments within the group itself was resistance in some instances, friendship and support in others, as in the notable case of the ageing Stasov. Younger artists associated with Peredvizhniki, such as Konstantin Korovin, Isaac Levitan, and Valentin Serov, also became allies of Diaghilev. Partly as a result, while early-20th-century artists were often outwardly hostile to the legacy of the group, their work continued to display the impact of Peredvizhniki techniques and concepts. The painters Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov , for example, who were responsible for defining Russian Primitivism and Rayonism - two of the most important styles within Russian avant-garde art of the 1910s - both advocated for the specific genius of Russian art, and for the depiction of working and rural life. Kazimir Malevich, who founded the Suprematist movement in 1913, went on to create works depicting peasants on Soviet collective farms, such as Mower (1930), which showing thematic influence of his teacher Pymonenko; we can also sense Peredvizhniki themes and tropes in Sergev Konenkov's sculptures, and in the Post-Impressionist landscapes of Konstantin Ivanovich Gorbatov. Even Russian Futurism , in its clamor for a new, egalitarian Russian society, arguably expressed the indirect influence of the Peredvizhniki ethos.

The group's most superficial cultural legacy, however, was rather bleaker, standing for the new cultural autocracy which gripped post-revolutionary Russia. In 1922, Peredvizhniki was replaced by the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AARR), led by Pavel Radimov - the last leader of Peredvizhniki - and incorporating other realist painters from the older group. The AARR rejected new developments in avant-garde art, and became closely associated with the advent of Socialist Realism during the 1930s. The emphasis on realistic representation and everyday subject-matter which had been so subversive in the 1860s thus became the basis for a constrictive orthodoxy, with Ilya Repin's work presented as the exemplar of Soviet art for decades.

All art movements, however, accommodate individuals of skill and significance, and many of those who became attached to Socialist Realism, such as Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, were initially inspired or incited by Peredvizhniki. Isaac Levitan's landscapes, whose non-human subject-matter in a sense transcended the cultural battles of the 1930s, were lauded by very different movements and figures, from Diaghilev to the Socialist Realist painter Czeslaw Znamierowski. Indeed, just as Levitan's work stood aloof from the Realist/Avant-garde debate, Znamierowski's Impressionist -influenced landscapes avoided the more explicitly propagandist motifs of Socialist Realism while remaining culturally acceptable in mid-century USSR. Later in the 20 th century, artists of the so-called Nonconfirmist School, such as Oleg Vassiliev, arguably carried the progressive spirit of Perdvizhniki forwards.

Works by the Peredvizhniki artists themselves have become ingrained in Russian cultural consciousness, as evidenced by the send-up of Repin's Barge Haulers in various political cartoons, and the naming of minor planets after Shishkin and Tretyakov by Soviet astronomers. As for the group's reception in the west, the influential American critic Clement Greenberg, in his 1939 article "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" cited Repin's Reply of the Cossacks (1880-91) as a particularly ignoble example of Kitsch. Perhaps as a result, the group's work was ignored to some extent for the following decades, though that situation began to change around the start of the 21st century.

Useful Resources on Peredvizhniki

• Ilya Repin By Grigori Sternine and Elena Kirillina
• Ivan Shishkin By Irina Shuvalova
• The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin By David Jackson
• The Wanderers and Critical Realism in Nineteenth-century Russian Art Our Pick By David Jackson
• Tolstoy, Ge, and Two Pilates By Jefferson J.A. Gatrall
• Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin: At the Edge of the Pine Forest By Sotheby's
• How Shishkin's Nephew Inspired a Mel Brooks Movie By Sothebys
• RN Documentary: The Volga Boatmen Audio Stories
• Review of The Peredvizhniki: Pioneers of Russian Painting Our Pick By Inessa Kouteinikova / 19th Century Art Worldwide: A Journal of Nineteenth-century Visual Culture / Autumn 2012
• Crossed Destinies - Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan By Galina Churak
• Titan of the Russian Forest: An Ivan Shishkin Art Gallery By Alice E.M. Underwood / Russian Life / Jan 25, 2017

Related Artists

Related Movements & Topics

Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Greg Thomas

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Home » Europe » Moscow

EPIC MOSCOW Itinerary! (2024)

Moscow is the heart of Mother Russia. Just the mention of this city conjures images of colorful bulbous pointed domes, crisp temperatures, and a uniquely original spirit!

Moscow has an incredibly turbulent history, a seemingly resilient culture, and a unique enchantment that pulls countless tourists to the city each year! Although the warmer months make exploring Moscow’s attractions more favorable, there’s just something about a fresh snowfall that only enhances the appearance of the city’s iconic sites!

If you’re a first-time visitor to Moscow, or simply wanting to see as much of the city as possible, this Moscow itinerary will help you do just that!

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Best Time To Visit Moscow

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Here is a quick look at the seasons so you can decide when to visit Moscow!

The summer months (June-August) are a great time to travel to Moscow to take advantage of the enjoyable mild temperatures. This is considered peak travel season. Bear in mind that hotel prices rise along with the temperatures!

If you’re planning a trip to Moscow during fall (September-November) try to plan for early fall. This way the temperatures will still be pleasant and winter won’t be threatening.

Russian winters (December-February) are not for the faint of heart as Napoleon learned to his peril. Some days the sun will be out for less than an hour, and snow is guaranteed. Although winters are exceptionally cold, this is when you’ll get a true glimpse of the Moscow experience!

The best time to visit Moscow is during spring  (March-May). The temperatures will begin to creep up and the sun begins to shine for significant portions of the day. Hotel rates will also have yet to skyrocket into peak ranges!

With a Moscow City Pass , you can experience the best of Moscow at the CHEAPEST prices. Discounts, attractions, tickets, and even public transport are all standards in any good city pass – be sure invest now and save them $$$ when you arrive!

Moscow is a large city with many accommodation options to choose from. Staying in a location that fits with your travel plans will only enhance your Moscow itinerary. Here is a brief introduction to a few great areas of the city we recommend checking out!

The best place to stay in Moscow to be close to all the action is Kitay-Gorod. This charming neighborhood will put you within walking distance to Moscow’s famous Red Square, thus cutting down on travel time. This will allow you to see more of the city in a shorter amount of time!

It’s surrounded by restaurants, cafes, bars, and shops. If you’re a first-time visitor to Moscow, or just planning a quick weekend in Moscow, then this area is perfect for you!

Another great area to consider is the Zamoskvorechye district. This area of the city offers a blend of new and old Moscow. It has an artsy vibe and there are plenty of fun sites you can explore outside of the main touristy areas of Moscow.

Of course, as in all areas of Moscow, it’s close to public transportation that will quickly connect you with the rest of the city and make your Moscow itinerary super accessible!

Best Airbnb in Moscow – Exclusive Apartment in Old Moscow

Modern and cozy, this apartment is in the heart of Old Moscow. Bordering the Basmanny and Kitay-Gorod districts, this two-bedroom flat is walking distance to the Kremlin and Red Square. Safe, quiet, and comfortable, this is the best Airbnb in Moscow, no question!

Best Budget Hotel in Moscow – Izmailovo Alfa Hotel

The Izmailovo Alfa Hotel is a very highly rated accommodation that provides all the components necessary for a comfortable trip to Moscow. There is an on-site restaurant, bar, fitness center, and an airport shuttle service. The rooms are modern and spacious and are equipped with a TV, heating/air conditioning, minibar, and more!

Best Luxury Hotel in Moscow – Crowne Plaza Moscow World Trade Centre

If you’re touring Moscow in luxury, the Crowne Plaza Moscow World Trade Centre is the hotel for you! Elegantly furnished rooms are equipped with a minibar, flat-screen TV,  in-room safes, as well as tea and coffee making facilities! Bathrooms come with bathrobes, slippers, and free toiletries. There is also an onsite restaurant, bar, and fitness center.

Best Hostel in Moscow – Godzillas Hostel

Godzillas Hostel is located in the center of Moscow, just a short walk from all the major tourist attractions and the metro station. Guests will enjoy all the usual hostel perks such as self-catering facilities, 24-hour reception, Free Wi-Fi, and security lockers. This is one of the best hostels in Moscow and its wonderful social atmosphere and will make your vacation in Moscow extra special!

Godzillas Hostel is one of our favourites in Moscow but they’re not taking guests right now. We’re not sure if they’re closed for good but we hope they’ll come back soon.

An important aspect of planning any trip is figuring out the transportation situation. You’re probably wondering how you’re going to get to all of your Moscow points of interest right? Luckily, this sprawling city has an excellent network of public transportation that will make traveling a breeze!

The underground metro system is the quickest and most efficient way to travel around Moscow. Most visitors rely exclusively on this super-efficient transportation system, which allows you to get to pretty much anywhere in the city! It’s also a great option if you’re planning a Moscow itinerary during the colder months, as you’ll be sheltered from the snow and freezing temperatures!

If you prefer above-ground transportation, buses, trams, and trolleybuses, run throughout the city and provide a rather comfortable alternative to the metro.

Moscow’s metro, buses, trams, and trolleybuses are all accessible with a ‘Troika’ card. This card can be topped up with any sum of money at a metro cash desk. The ticket is simple, convenient, and even refundable upon return to a cashier!

No matter which method you choose, you’ll never find yourself without an easy means of getting from point A to point B!

Red Square | Moscow Kremlin | Lenin’s Mausoleum | St. Basil’s Cathedral  | GUM Department Store

Spend the first day of your itinerary taking your own self guided Moscow walking tour around the historic Red Square! This is Moscow’s compact city center and every stop on this list is within easy walking distance to the next! Get ready to see all of the top Moscow landmarks!

Day 1 / Stop 1 – The Red Square

• Why it’s awesome: The Red Square is the most recognizable area in Moscow, it has mesmerizing architecture and centuries worth of history attached to its name.
• Cost: Free to walk around, individual attractions in the square have separate fees. 
• Food nearby: Check out Bar BQ Cafe for friendly service and good food in a great location! The atmosphere is upbeat and they’re open 24/7!

The Red Square is Moscow’s historic fortress and the center of the Russian government. The origins of the square date back to the late 15th century, when Ivan the Great decided to expand the Kremlin to reflect Moscow’s growing power and prestige!

During the 20th century, the square became famous as the site for demonstrations designed to showcase Soviet strength. Visiting the Red Square today, you’ll find it teeming with tourists, who come to witness its magical architecture up close!

The square is the picture postcard of Russian tourism, so make sure to bring your camera when you visit! No matter the season, or the time of day, it’s delightfully photogenic! 

It’s also home to some of Russia’s most distinguishing and important landmarks, which we’ve made sure to include further down in this itinerary. It’s an important center of Russia’s cultural life and one of the top places to visit in Moscow!

In 1990, UNESCO designated Russia’s Red Square as a World Heritage site. Visiting this historic site is a true bucket-list event and essential addition to your itinerary for Moscow!

Day 1 / Stop 2 – The Moscow Kremlin

• Why it’s awesome: The Moscow Kremlin complex includes several palaces and cathedrals and is surrounded by the Kremlin wall. It also houses the principal museum of Russia (the Kremlin Armory).
• Cost: USD $15.00
• Food nearby: Bosco Cafe is a charming place to grat a casual bite to eat. They have excellent coffee and wonderful views of the Red Square and the Moscow Kremlin!

The iconic Moscow Kremlin , also known as the Kremlin museum complex, sits on Borovitsky Hill, rising above the Moscow River. It is a fortified complex in the center of the city, overlooking several iconic buildings in the Red Square!

It’s the best known of the Russian Kremlins – citadels or fortress’ protecting and dominating a city. During the early decades of the Soviet era, the Kremlin was a private enclave where the state’s governing elite lived and worked.

The Kremlin is outlined by an irregularly shaped triangular wall that encloses an area of 68 acres! The existing walls and towers were built from 1485 to 1495. Inside the Kremlin museum complex, there are five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers.

The Armoury Chamber is a part of the Grand Kremlin Palace’s complex and is one of the oldest museums of Moscow, established in 1851. It showcases Russian history and displays many cherished relics. Definitely make sure to check out this museum while you’re here!

The churches inside the Moscow Kremlin are the Cathedral of the Dormition, Church of the Archangel, Church of the Annunciation, and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki (a church tower).

The five-domed Cathedral of the Dormition is considered the most famous. It was built from 1475–1479 by an Italian architect and has served as a wedding and coronation place for great princes, tsars, and emperors of Russia. Church services are given in the Kremlin’s numerous cathedrals on a regular basis.

The Grand Kremlin Palace was the former Tsar’s Moscow residence and today it serves as the official workplace of the President of the Russian Federation (Vladimir Putin seems to have bagged that title for life) .

Insider Tip: The Kremlin is closed every Thursday! Make sure to plan this stop on your Moscow itinerary for any other day of the week!

Day 1 / Stop 3 – Lenin’s Mausoleum

• Why it’s awesome: The mausoleum displays the preserved body of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin .
• Cost: Free!
• Food nearby: Khinkal’naya is a charming Georgian restaurant with vaulted ceilings and exposed brick. It’s a popular place with locals and right next to the Red Square!

Lenin’s Mausoleum, also known as Lenin’s Tomb, is the modernist mausoleum for the revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. It’s located within the Red Square and serves as the resting place for the Soviet leader! His preserved body has been on public display since shortly after his death in 1924.

It’s located just a few steps away from the Kremlin Wall and is one of the most controversial yet popular Moscow attractions!

Admission is free for everyone, you’ll only need to pay if you need to check a bag. Before visitors are allowed to enter the mausoleum, they have to go through a metal detector first. No metal objects, liquids, or large bags are allowed in the mausoleum!

Expect a line to enter the building, and while you’re inside the building, you’ll be constantly moving in line with other visitors. This means you won’t be able to spend as long as you’d like viewing the mausoleum, but you’ll still be able to get a good look. Pictures and filming while inside the building are strictly prohibited, and security guards will stop you if they see you breaking this rule.

The mausoleum is only open on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday – unless it’s a public holiday or a day scheduled for maintenance. The hours it’s open for each day are limited, make sure to check online before you visit to make sure you can fit this into your Moscow itinerary for that day!

Insider Tip: The Lenin’s Museum is there for people to pay their respect; remember to keep silent and move along quickly, it’s not intended for people to congregate around. Also, men are not allowed to wear hats and everyone must take their hands out of their pockets when inside the building.

Day 1 / Stop 4 – St. Basil’s Cathedral

• Why it’s awesome: A dazzling designed cathedral that showcases Russia’s unique architecture. This cathedral is one of the most recognizable symbols of the country!
• Cost: USD $8.00
• Food nearby: Moskovskiy Chaynyy Klub is a cozy cafe serving food items and pipping hot tea; it’s the perfect place to go if you’re visiting Moscow during the winter months!

Located in the Red Square, the ornate 16th-century St. Basil’s Cathedral is probably the building you picture when you think of Moscow’s unique architecture. Its colorful onion-shaped domes tower over the Moscow skyline!

The cathedral was built from 1555-1561 by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It was designed with an iconic onion dome facade and enchanting colors that captivate all who see it. Fun fact: If you’re wondering why Russian churches have onion domes, they are popularly believed to symbolize burning candles!

This iconic cathedral has become a symbol of Russia due to its distinguishing architecture and prominent position inside the Red Square. It’s one of the most beautiful, wonderful, and mesmerizing historical cathedrals in the world!

The interior of the church surprises most people when they visit. In contrast to the large exterior, the inside is not so much one large area, but rather a collection of smaller areas, with many corridors and small rooms. There are 9 small chapels and one mausoleum grouped around a central tower.

Visiting the inside is like walking through a maze, there are even small signs all around the cathedral tracing where to walk, and pointing you in the right direction! The walls are meticulously decorated and painted with intricate floral designs and religious themes.

The church rarely holds service and is instead a museum open for the public to visit.

Insider Tip: During the summer months the line to go inside the cathedral can get quite long! Make sure to arrive early or reserve your tickets online to guarantee quick access into the cathedral!

Day 1 / Stop 5 – GUM Department Store

• Why it’s awesome: This is Russia’s most famous shopping mall! It’s designed with elegant and opulent architecture and provides a real sense of nostalgia!
• Cost: Free to enter
• Food nearby: Stolovaya 57 is a cafeteria-style restaurant with a variety of inexpensive Russian cuisine menu items including soups, salads, meat dishes, and desserts. It’s also located inside the GUM department store, making it very easily accessible when you’re shopping!

The enormous GUM Department Store is located within the historic Red Square. It has a whimsical enchantment to it that sets it apart from your typical department store.

A massive domed glass ceiling lines the top of the building and fills the interior with natural sunlight. There are live plants and flowers placed throughout the mall that give the shopping complex a lively and cheerful feel! A playful fountain sits in the center, further adding to the malls inviting a sense of wonder and amusement!

The GUM department store opened on December 2, 1893. Today, it includes local and luxury stores, including Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and many more! There are numerous cafes, restaurants, and even a movie theater inside!

For a special treat, head into Gastronom 1. This 1950s-style shop sells gourmet food items, like wine, freshly-baked pastries, cheese, Russian chocolate, and of course, vodka! Also, be on the lookout for a bicycle pedaling ice cream truck with an employing selling ice cream!

The ambiance is simply amazing, a trip to this idyllic shopping mall is an absolute must on any Moscow itinerary!

Insider Tip: Make sure to carry some small change on you in case you need to use the restroom, you’ll need to pay 50 rubles – or about USD $0.80 to use the bathroom in GUM.

Wanna know how to pack like a pro? Well for a start you need the right gear….

These are packing cubes for the globetrotters and compression sacks for the  real adventurers – these babies are a traveller’s best kept secret. They organise yo’ packing and minimise volume too so you can pack MORE.

Or, y’know… you can stick to just chucking it all in your backpack…

Novodevichy Convent | Gorky Park | State Tretyakov Gallery | All-Russian Exhibition Center | Bolshoi Theater

On your 2 day itinerary in Moscow, you’ll have a chance to use the city’s excellent public transportation service! You’ll explore a few more of Moscow’s historic highlight as well as some modern attractions. These sites are a little more spread out, but still very easily accessible thanks to the metro!

Day 2 / Stop 1 – Novodevichy Convent

• Why it’s awesome: The Novodevichy Convent is rich in imperial Russian history and contains some of Russia’s best examples of classical architecture!
• Cost: USD $5.00
• Food nearby: Culinary Shop Karavaevs Brothers is a cozy and simple place to have a quick bite, they also have vegetarian options!

The Novodevichy Convent is the best-known and most popular cloister of Moscow. The convent complex is contained within high walls, and there are many attractions this site is known for! 

The six-pillared five-domed Smolensk Cathedral is the main attraction. It was built to resemble the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral and its facade boasts beautiful snowy white walls and a pristine golden onion dome as its centerpiece. It’s the oldest structure in the convent, built from 1524 -1525, and is situated in the center of the complex between the two entrance gates.

There are other churches inside the convent as well, all dating back from many centuries past. The convent is filled with an abundance of 16th and 17th-century religious artworks, including numerous large and extravagant frescos!

Just outside the convent’s grounds lies the Novodevichy Cemetery. Here, you can visit the graves of famous Russians, including esteemed authors, composers, and politicians. Probably the most intriguing gravestone belongs to Russian politician Nikita Khruschev!

The Novodevichy Convent is located near the Moscow River and offers a peaceful retreat from the busy city. In 2004, it was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The convent remains remarkably well-preserved and is an outstanding example of Moscow Baroque architecture! 

Insider Tip: To enter the cathedrals inside the complex, women are advised to cover their heads and shoulders, while men should wear long pants.

Day 2 / Stop 2 – Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure

• Why it’s awesome: A large amusement area in the heart of the city offering many attractions!
• Cost: Free! 
• Food nearby: Check out Mepkato, located inside Gorky Central Park for a casual meal in a cozy setting. There are indoor and outdoor seating options and the restaurant is child-friendly!

Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure is a large green space in the heart of Moscow. The park opened in 1928, and it stretches along the scenic embankment of the Moskva River. It covers an area of 300-acres and offers a lovely contrast from the compact city center.

You’ll find all sorts of wonderful attractions, from boat rides to bike rentals to tennis courts and ping-pong tables, and much more! there are an open-air cinema and festive events and concerts scheduled in the summer months.  A wide selection of free fitness classes is also offered on a regular basis, including jogging, roller skating, and dancing!

Although many of the options you’ll find here are more suited for outdoor leisure during the summer, you’ll also a selection of winter attractions, including one of Europe’s largest ice rinks for ice-skating!

If you’re trying to decide what to do in Moscow with kids, the park also offers several venues designed specifically for kids. Check out the year-round Green School which offers hands-on classes in gardening and art! You can also feed the squirrels and birds at the Golitsinsky Ponds!

The park is very well maintained and kept clean and the entrance is free of charge, although most individual attractions cost money. There is also Wi-Fi available throughout the park.

With so many attractions, you could easily spend all day here! If you’re only planning a 2 day itinerary in Moscow, make sure to plan your time accordingly and map out all the areas you want to see beforehand!

Day 2 / Stop 3 – The State Tretyakov Gallery

• Why it’s awesome: The gallery’s collection consists entirely of Russian art made by Russian artists!
• Food nearby : Brothers Tretyakovs is located right across the street from the gallery. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric restaurant serving top quality food and drinks!

The State Tretyakov Gallery was founded in 1856 by influential merchant and collector Pavel Tretyakov.  The gallery is a national treasury of Russian fine art and one of the most important museums in Russia!

It houses the world’s best collection of Russian art and contains more than 130, 000 paintings, sculptures, and graphics! These works have been created throughout the centuries by generations of Russia’s most talented artists!

The exhibits range from mysterious 12th-century images to politically charged canvases. The collection is rich and revealing and offers great insight into the history and attitudes of this long-suffering yet inspired people!

All pictures are also labeled in English. If you plan to take your time and see everything inside the museum it will take a good 3-4 hours, so make sure to plan your Moscow trip itinerary accordingly! This gallery is a must-see stop for art lovers, or anyone wanting to explore the local culture and history of Russia in a creative and insightful manner! 

Insider Tip: When planning your 2 days in Moscow itinerary, keep in mind that most museums in Moscow are closed on Mondays, this includes The State Tretyakov Gallery!

Day 2 / Stop 4 – All-Russian Exhibition Center

• Why it’s awesome: This large exhibition center showcases the achievements of the Soviet Union in several different spheres. 
• Food nearby: Varenichnaya No. 1 serves authentic and homestyle Russian cuisine in an intimate and casual setting.

The All-Russian Exhibition Center is a massive park that presents the glory of the Soviet era! It pays homage to the achievements of Soviet Russia with its many different sites found on the property.

The center was officially opened in 1939 to exhibit the achievements of the Soviet Union. It’s a huge complex of buildings and the largest exhibition center in Moscow. There are several exhibition halls dedicated to different achievements and every year there are more than one hundred and fifty specialized exhibitions!

The Peoples Friendship Fountain was constructed in 1954 and is a highlight of the park. The stunning gold fountain features 16 gilded statues of girls, each representing the former Soviet Union republics. 

The Stone Flower Fountain was also built in 1954 and is worth checking out. The centerpiece of this large fountain is a flower carved from stones from the Ural Mountains! Along the side of the fountain are various bronze sculptures.

You will find many people zipping around on rollerblades and bicycles across the large area that the venue covers. It’s also home to amusement rides and carousels, making it the perfect place to stop with kids on your Moscow itinerary! Make sure to wear comfortable shoes and allow a few hours to explore all the areas that interest you!

Day 2 / Stop 5 – Bolshoi Theater

• Why it’s awesome: The Bolshoi Theater is a historic venue that hosts world-class ballet and opera performances!
• Cost: Prices vary largely between USD $2.00 –  USD $228.00 based on seat location.
• Food nearby: Head to the Russian restaurant, Bolshoi for high-quality food and drinks and excellent service!

The Bolshoi Theater is among the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world! It also boasts the world’s biggest ballet company, with more than 200 dancers!

The theater has been rebuilt and renovated several times during its long history. In 2011 it finished its most recent renovation after an extensive six-year restoration that started in 2005. The renovation included an improvement in acoustics and the restoration of the original Imperial decor.

The Bolshoi Theater has put on many of the world’s most famous ballet acts! Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake premiered at the theater in 1877 and other notable performances of the Bolshoi repertoire include Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker!

Today, when you visit the theater, you can expect a magical performance from skilled singers, dancers, and musicians with the highest level of technique!

If you don’t have time to see a show, the theater also provides guided tours on select days of the week. Tours are given in both Russian and English and will provide visitors with a more intimate look at the different areas of the theater!

The stage of this iconic Russian theater has seen many outstanding performances. If you’re a fan of the performing arts, the Bolshoi Theater is one of the greatest and oldest ballet and opera companies in the world, making it a must-see attraction on your Moscow itinerary!

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Godzillas Hostel is located in the center of Moscow, just a short walk from all the major tourist attractions and the metro station.

• Towels Included

Cosmonautics Museum | Alexander Garden | Ostankino Tower | Izmaylovo District | Soviet Arcade Museum

Now that we’ve covered what to do in Moscow in 2 days, if you’re able to spend more time in the city you’re going to need more attractions to fill your time. Here are a few more really cool things to do in Moscow we recommend!

Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics

• Hear the timeline of the ‘space race’ from the Russian perspective
• This museum is fun for both adults and children!
• Admission is USD $4.00

The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is a museum dedicated to space exploration! The museum explores the history of flight, astronomy, space exploration, space technology, and space in the arts. It houses a large assortment of Soviet and Russian space-related exhibits, and the museum’s collection holds approximately 85,000 different items!

The museum does an excellent job of telling the full story of the exciting space race between the USSR and the US! It highlights the brightest moments in Russian history and humanity and is very interesting and fun for all ages!

If you’re a fan of space or just curious about gaining insight into Russia’s fascinating history of space exploration, make sure to add this to your 3 day itinerary in Moscow!

The Alexander Garden

• A tranquil place to relax near the Red Square
• Green lawns dotted with sculptures and lovely water features
• The park is open every day and has no entrance fee

The Alexander Garden was one of the first urban public parks in Moscow! The garden premiered in 1821 and was built to celebrate Russia’s victory over Napoleon’s forces in 1812!

The park is beautiful and well maintained with paths to walk on and benches to rest on. The park contains three separate gardens: the upper garden, middle garden, and lower garden.

Located in the upper garden, towards the main entrance to the park is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with its eternal flame. This monument was created in 1967 and contains the body of a soldier who fell during the Great Patriotic War!

The park stretches along all the length of the western Kremlin wall for about half a mile. Due to its central location in the city, it’ll be easily accessible when you’re out exploring The Red Square.

It provides a bit of relief from the city’s high-energy city streets. Bring a picnic lunch, go for a walk, or just sit and people watch, this is one of the best Moscow sites to wind-down and relax!

Ostankino Television Tower

• Television and radio tower in Moscow
• Currently the tallest free-standing structure in Europe
• Make sure you bring your passport when you visit, you can’t go up without it!

For spectacular views of the city, make sure to add the Ostankino Television Tower to your itinerary for Moscow! This impressive free-standing structure provides stunning views of the city in every direction. The glass floor at the top also provides great alternative views of the city!

It takes just 58 seconds for visitors to reach the Tower’s observation deck by super fast elevator. The tower is open every day for long hours and is a great site in Moscow to check out! There is even a restaurant at the top where you can enjoy rotating views of the city while you dine on traditional Russian cuisine or European cuisine!

The tower is somewhat of an architectural surprise in a city that is not known for skyscrapers! To see the city from a new perspective, make sure to add this stop to your Moscow itinerary!

Izmaylovo District

• The most popular attractions in this district are the kremlin and the flea market
• Outside of the city center and easy to reach via metro
• Most popular during the summer and on weekends

Travel outside the city center and discover a unique area of the city! The Izmaylovo District is a popular destination for locals and tourists alike, and one of the coolest places to see in Moscow! The two main attractions we recommend checking out are the Kremlin and the flea market.

The Izmailovo Kremlin was established as a cultural center and molded after traditional Russian architecture. This colorful complex is home to several single-subject museums, including a Russian folk art museum and a vodka museum!

Next to the Kremlin is the Izmailovo open-air market, which dates back to the 17th century! The market is connected to the Izmailovo Kremlin by a wooden bridge. Pick up all your Russian souvenirs here, including traditional handicrafts, paintings, books, retro toys, and Soviet memorabilia!

You will find many hand-made and hand-painted options available at higher prices, as well as mass-produced souvenir options at lower prices!

Museum of Soviet Arcade Games

• Closed on Mondays
• Filled with old arcade games that visitors get to try out!
• The museum also includes a small cafe and burger shop

For something a little different, check out the Museum of Soviet Arcade Games! The museum features roughly 60 machines from the Soviet era, including video games, pinball machines, and collaborative hockey foosball! The machines inside the museum were produced in the USSR in the mid-1970s.

The best part is, most of the games are still playable! Purchase tickets and try the games out for yourself! The museum also has a neat little screening room that plays old Soviet cartoons and an area with Soviet magazines! This unique attraction is a fun addition to a 3 day itinerary in Moscow, and an attraction that all ages will enjoy! 

Whether you’re spending one day in Moscow, or more, safety is an important thing to keep in mind when traveling to a big city! Overall, Moscow is a very safe place to visit. However, it is always recommended that tourists take certain precautions when traveling to a new destination!

The police in Moscow is extremely effective at making the city a safe place to visit and do their best to patrol all of the top Moscow, Russia tourist attractions. However, tourists can still be a target for pickpockets and scammers.

Moscow has a huge flow of tourists, therefore there is a risk for pickpocketing. Simple precautions will help eliminate your chances of being robbed. Stay vigilant, keep your items close to you at all times, and don’t flash your valuables!

If you’re planning a solo Moscow itinerary, you should have no need to worry, as the city is also considered safe for solo travelers, even women. Stay in the populated areas, try and not travel alone late at night, and never accept rides from strangers or taxis without a meter and correct signage.

The threat of natural disasters in Moscow is low, with the exception of severe winters when the temperature can dip below freezing! Bring a good, warm jacket if you visit in Winter.

However, please note that Russian views on homsexuality are far less accepting than those in Western Europe. Likewise, Non-Caucasian travellers may sadly encounter racism in Russia .

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Now that we’ve covered all the top things to see in Moscow, we thought we’d include some exciting day trips to other areas of the country!

Sergiev Posad (Golden Ring)

On this 7-hour guided tour, you’ll visit several scenic and historic areas of Russia. Start your day with hotel pick-up as you’re transferred by a comfortable car or minivan to Sergiev Posad. Admire the charming Russian countryside on your drive and enjoy a quick stop to visit the Russian village, Rudonezh!

You’ll see the majestic Saint Spring and the Church of Sergiev Radonezh. You’ll also visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, one of the most famous Orthodox sites in Russia!

Lastly, you’ll swing by the local Matreshka market and enjoy a break in a nice Russian restaurant before returning to Moscow!

Day Trip to Vladimir and Suzdal

On this 13-hour trip, you’ll discover old Russia, with its picturesque landscapes and white-stoned beautiful churches! You’ll visit the main towns of the famous Golden Ring of Russia – the name for several cities and smaller towns north-east of Moscow.

Your first stop will be in the town of Vladimir, the ancient capital of all Russian principalities. The city dates back to the 11th century and is one of the oldest and the most important towns along the Ring! Next, you’ll visit Suzdal, a calm ancient Russian town north of Vladimir with only 13,000 inhabitants!

The old-style architecture and buildings of Suzdal are kept wonderfully intact. If you’re spending three days in Moscow, or more, this is a great option for exploring the charming areas outside the city!

Zvenigorod Day Trip and Russian Countryside

On this 9-hour private tour, you’ll explore the ancient town of Zvenigorod, one of the oldest towns in the Moscow region! As you leave Moscow you’ll enjoy the stunning scenery along the Moscow River, and make a few stops at old churches along the way to Zvenigorod.

Upon arrival, you’ll explore the medieval center, including the 14th-century Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery. Next, you’ll take a break for lunch (own expense) where you’ll have the chance to try out the Russian cuisine! Next, you’ll visit the Museum of Russian Dessert and sip on tea at a Russian tea ceremony.

The final stop of the day is at the Ershovo Estate, a gorgeous place to walk around and enjoy nature!

Day Trip to St Petersburg by Train visiting Hermitage & Faberge

On this full-day tour, you’ll enjoy a a full round trip to St Petersburg where you’ll spend an exciting day exploring another popular Russian city! You’ll be picked up from your hotel in Moscow and be transferred to the train station where you’ll ride the high-speed train ‘Sapsan’ to St Petersburg.

Upon arrival, you’ll start the day by touring the Hermitage Museum and the Winter Palace. Next, you’ll visit the Faberge Museum, where you’ll explore the impressive collection of rare Faberge Eggs! In the afternoon, enjoy a sightseeing boat ride and a traditional 3-course Russian lunch.

If you’re spending 3 days in Moscow, or more, this is an excellent trip to take!

Trip to Kolomna – Authentic Cultural Experience from Moscow

On this 10-hour tour, you’ll escape the city and travel to the historic town of Kolomna! First, you’ll visit the 14th-century Kolomna Kremlin, home to the Assumption Cathedral and an abundance of museums!

Next, enjoy lunch at a local cafe (own expense) before embarking on a tour of the Marshmallow Museum – of course, a marshmallow tasting is provided!  Your final stop is the Museum of Forging Settlements, where displays include armor and accessories for fishing and hunting.

Discover this beautiful Russian fairytale city on a private trip, where all of the planning is taken care of for you!

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Find out what people want to know when planning their Moscow itinerary.

How many days you need in Moscow?

We recommend that you spend at least two or three days in Moscow to take it all in.

What’s the best month to visit Moscow?

The best time to visit Moscow is over the spring, from March to May as temperatures are mild, crowds are thin and prices are reasonable.

What are some unusual things to do in Moscow?

I mean, queuing up to see an almost 100 year old corpse is pretty unsual! Check out Lenin’s Mausoleum if you fancy it!

What are some fun things to do in Moscow?

The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is a fun place to explore the famous space race from the perspective of the ‘other side’!

We hope you enjoyed our Moscow itinerary! We’ve made sure to cover all the Moscow must-sees as well as some unique attractions in the city! Our addition of insider tips, favorite food stops, and day trips from Moscow is an added bonus and will guarantee you make the most out of your exciting Russian vacation!

Immerse yourself in the modern and traditional Russian lifestyle! Get lost in museums, witness awe-inspiring architecture, and indulge in Russian cuisine! Spend the day strolling through all of the charming sites of Moscow, admiring the beautiful scenery and discovering the city’s fairytale-like enchantment!

And for transparency’s sake, please know that some of the links in our content are affiliate links . That means that if you book your accommodation, buy your gear, or sort your insurance through our link, we earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). That said, we only link to the gear we trust and never recommend services we don’t believe are up to scratch. Again, thank you!

Alya and Campbell

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Travel Itinerary For One Week in Moscow: The Best of Moscow!

I just got back from one week in Moscow. And, as you might have already guessed, it was a mind-boggling experience. It was not my first trip to the Russian capital. But I hardly ever got enough time to explore this sprawling city. Visiting places for business rarely leaves enough time for sightseeing. I think that if you’ve got one week in Russia, you can also consider splitting your time between its largest cities (i.e. Saint Petersburg ) to get the most out of your trip. Seven days will let you see the majority of the main sights and go beyond just scratching the surface. In this post, I’m going to share with you my idea of the perfect travel itinerary for one week in Moscow.

Moscow is perhaps both the business and cultural hub of Russia. There is a lot more to see here than just the Kremlin and Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Centuries-old churches with onion-shaped domes dotted around the city are in stark contrast with newly completed impressive skyscrapers of Moscow City dominating the skyline. I spent a lot of time thinking about my Moscow itinerary before I left. And this city lived up to all of my expectations.

Travel Itinerary For One Week in Moscow

Day 1 – red square and the kremlin.

Metro Station: Okhotny Ryad on Red Line.

No trip to Moscow would be complete without seeing its main attraction. The Red Square is just a stone’s throw away from several metro stations. It is home to some of the most impressive architectural masterpieces in the city. The first thing you’ll probably notice after entering it and passing vendors selling weird fur hats is the fairytale-like looking Saint Basil’s Cathedral. It was built to commemorate one of the major victories of Ivan the Terrible. I once spent 20 minutes gazing at it, trying to find the perfect angle to snap it. It was easier said than done because of the hordes of locals and tourists.

As you continue strolling around Red Square, there’s no way you can miss Gum. It was widely known as the main department store during the Soviet Era. Now this large (yet historic) shopping mall is filled with expensive boutiques, pricey eateries, etc. During my trip to Moscow, I was on a tight budget. So I only took a retro-style stroll in Gum to get a rare glimpse of a place where Soviet leaders used to grocery shop and buy their stuff. In case you want some modern shopping experience, head to the Okhotny Ryad Shopping Center with stores like New Yorker, Zara, and Adidas.

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To continue this Moscow itinerary, next you may want to go inside the Kremlin walls. This is the center of Russian political power and the president’s official residence. If you’re planning to pay Kremlin a visit do your best to visit Ivan the Great Bell Tower as well. Go there as early as possible to avoid crowds and get an incredible bird’s-eye view. There are a couple of museums that are available during designated visiting hours. Make sure to book your ticket online and avoid lines.

Day 2 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Tretyakov Gallery, and the Arbat Street

Metro Station: Kropotkinskaya on Red Line

As soon as you start creating a Moscow itinerary for your second day, you’ll discover that there are plenty of metro stations that are much closer to certain sites. Depending on your route, take a closer look at the metro map to pick the closest.

The white marble walls of Christ the Saviour Cathedral are awe-inspiring. As you approach this tallest Orthodox Christian church, you may notice the bronze sculptures, magnificent arches, and cupolas that were created to commemorate Russia’s victory against Napoleon.

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Unfortunately, the current Cathedral is a replica, since original was blown to bits in 1931 by the Soviet government. The new cathedral basically follows the original design, but they have added some new elements such as marble high reliefs.

Home to some precious collection of artworks, in Tretyakov Gallery you can find more than 150,000 of works spanning centuries of artistic endeavor. Originally a privately owned gallery, it now has become one of the largest museums in Russia. The Gallery is often considered essential to visit. But I have encountered a lot of locals who have never been there.

Famous for its souvenirs, musicians, and theaters, Arbat street is among the few in Moscow that were turned into pedestrian zones. Arbat street is usually very busy with tourists and locals alike. My local friend once called it the oldest street in Moscow dating back to 1493. It is a kilometer long walking street filled with fancy gift shops, small cozy restaurants, lots of cute cafes, and street artists. It is closed to any vehicular traffic, so you can easily stroll it with kids.

Day 3 – Moscow River Boat Ride, Poklonnaya Hill Victory Park, the Moscow City

Metro Station: Kievskaya and Park Pobedy on Dark Blue Line / Vystavochnaya on Light Blue Line

Voyaging along the Moscow River is definitely one of the best ways to catch a glimpse of the city and see the attractions from a bit different perspective. Depending on your Moscow itinerary, travel budget and the time of the year, there are various types of boats available. In the summer there is no shortage of boats, and you’ll be spoiled for choice.

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If you find yourself in Moscow during the winter months, I’d recommend going with Radisson boat cruise. These are often more expensive (yet comfy). They offer refreshments like tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and, of course, alcoholic drinks. Prices may vary but mostly depend on your food and drink selection. Find their main pier near the opulent Ukraine hotel . The hotel is one of the “Seven Sisters”, so if you’re into the charm of Stalinist architecture don’t miss a chance to stay there.

The area near Poklonnaya Hill has the closest relation to the country’s recent past. The memorial complex was completed in the mid-1990s to commemorate the Victory and WW2 casualties. Also known as the Great Patriotic War Museum, activities here include indoor attractions while the grounds around host an open-air museum with old tanks and other vehicles used on the battlefield.

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The hallmark of the memorial complex and the first thing you see as you exit metro is the statue of Nike mounted to its column. This is a very impressive Obelisk with a statue of Saint George slaying the dragon at its base.

Maybe not as impressive as Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower , the skyscrapers of the Moscow City (otherwise known as Moscow International Business Center) are so drastically different from dull Soviet architecture. With 239 meters and 60 floors, the Empire Tower is the seventh highest building in the business district.

The observation deck occupies 56 floor from where you have some panoramic views of the city. I loved the view in the direction of Moscow State University and Luzhniki stadium as well to the other side with residential quarters. The entrance fee is pricey, but if you’re want to get a bird’s eye view, the skyscraper is one of the best places for doing just that.

Day 4 – VDNKh, Worker and Collective Farm Woman Monument, The Ostankino TV Tower

Metro Station: VDNKh on Orange Line

VDNKh is one of my favorite attractions in Moscow. The weird abbreviation actually stands for Russian vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva (Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy). With more than 200 buildings and 30 pavilions on the grounds, VDNKh serves as an open-air museum. You can easily spend a full day here since the park occupies a very large area.

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First, there are pavilions that used to showcase different cultures the USSR was made of. Additionally, there is a number of shopping pavilions, as well as Moskvarium (an Oceanarium) that features a variety of marine species. VDNKh is a popular venue for events and fairs. There is always something going on, so I’d recommend checking their website if you want to see some particular exhibition.

A stone’s throw away from VDNKh there is a very distinctive 25-meters high monument. Originally built in 1937 for the world fair in Paris, the hulking figures of men and women holding a hammer and a sickle represent the Soviet idea of united workers and farmers. It doesn’t take much time to see the monument, but visiting it gives some idea of the Soviet Union’s grandiose aspirations.

I have a thing for tall buildings. So to continue my travel itinerary for one week in Moscow I decided to climb the fourth highest TV tower in the world. This iconic 540m tower is a fixture of the skyline. You can see it virtually from everywhere in Moscow, and this is where you can get the best panoramic views (yep, even better than Empire skyscraper).

Parts of the floor are made of tempered glass, so it can be quite scary to exit the elevator. But trust me, as you start observing buildings and cars below, you won’t want to leave. There is only a limited number of tickets per day, so you may want to book online. Insider tip: the first tour is cheaper, you can save up to $10 if go there early.

Day 5 – A Tour To Moscow Manor Houses

Metro Station: Kolomenskoye, Tsaritsyno on Dark Green Line / Kuskovo on Purple Line

I love visiting the manor houses and palaces in Moscow. These opulent buildings were generally built to house Russian aristocratic families and monarchs. Houses tend to be rather grand affairs with impressive architecture. And, depending on the whims of the owners, some form of a landscaped garden.

During the early part of the 20th century though, many of Russia’s aristocratic families (including the family of the last emperor) ended up being killed or moving abroad . Their manor houses were nationalized. Some time later (after the fall of the USSR) these were open to the public. It means that today a great many of Moscow’s finest manor houses and palaces are open for touring.

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There are 20 manor houses scattered throughout the city and more than 25 in the area around. But not all of them easily accessible and exploring them often takes a lot of time. I’d recommend focusing on three most popular estates in Moscow that are some 30-minute metro ride away from Kremlin.

Sandwiched between the Moscow River and the Andropov Avenue, Kolomenskoye is a UNESCO site that became a public park in the 1920’s. Once a former royal estate, now it is one of the most tranquil parks in the city with gorgeous views. The Ascension Church, The White Column, and the grounds are a truly grand place to visit.

You could easily spend a full day here, exploring a traditional Russian village (that is, in fact, a market), picnicking by the river, enjoying the Eastern Orthodox church architecture, hiking the grounds as well as and wandering the park and gardens with wildflower meadows, apple orchards, and birch and maple groves. The estate museum showcases Russian nature at its finest year-round.

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If my travel itinerary for one week in Moscow was a family tree, Tsaritsyno Park would probably be the crazy uncle that no-one talks about. It’s a large park in the south of the city of mind-boggling proportions, unbelievable in so many ways, and yet most travelers have never heard of it.

The palace was supposed to be a summer home for Empress Catherine the Great. But since the construction didn’t meet with her approval the palace was abandoned. Since the early 1990’s the palace, the pond, and the grounds have been undergoing renovations. The entire complex is now looking brighter and more elaborately decorated than at possibly any other time during its history. Like most parks in Moscow, you can visit Tsaritsyno free of charge, but there is a small fee if you want to visit the palace.

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Last, but by no means least on my Moscow itinerary is Kuskovo Park . This is definitely an off-the-beaten-path place. While it is not easily accessible, you will be rewarded with a lack of crowds. This 18th-century summer country house of the Sheremetev family was one of the first summer country estates of the Russian nobility. And when you visit you’ll quickly realize why locals love this park.

Like many other estates, Kuskovo has just been renovated. So there are lovely French formal garden, a grotto, and the Dutch house to explore. Make sure to plan your itinerary well because the estate is some way from a metro station.

Day 6 – Explore the Golden Ring

Creating the Moscow itinerary may keep you busy for days with the seemingly endless amount of things to do. Visiting the so-called Golden Ring is like stepping back in time. Golden Ring is a “theme route” devised by promotion-minded journalist and writer Yuri Bychkov.

Having started in Moscow the route will take you through a number of historical cities. It now includes Suzdal, Vladimir, Kostroma, Yaroslavl and Sergiev Posad. All these awe-inspiring towns have their own smaller kremlins and feature dramatic churches with onion-shaped domes, tranquil residential areas, and other architectural landmarks.

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I only visited two out of eight cities included on the route. It is a no-brainer that Sergiev Posad is the nearest and the easiest city to see on a day trip from Moscow. That being said, you can explore its main attractions in just one day. Located some 70 km north-east of the Russian capital, this tiny and overlooked town is home to Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, UNESCO Site.

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Sergiev Posad is often described as being at the heart of Russian spiritual life. So it is uncommon to see the crowds of Russian pilgrims showing a deep reverence for their religion. If you’re traveling independently and using public transport, you can reach Sergiev Posad by bus (departs from VDNKh) or by suburban commuter train from Yaroslavskaya Railway Station (Bahnhof). It takes about one and a half hours to reach the town.

Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is a great place to get a glimpse of filling and warming Russian lunch, specifically at the “ Gostevaya Izba ” restaurant. Try the duck breast, hearty potato and vegetables, and the awesome Napoleon cake.

Day 7 – Gorky Park, Izmailovo Kremlin, Patriarch’s Ponds

Metro Station: Park Kultury or Oktyabrskaya on Circle Line / Partizanskaya on Dark Blue Line / Pushkinskaya on Dark Green Line

Gorky Park is in the heart of Moscow. It offers many different types of outdoor activities, such as dancing, cycling, skateboarding, walking, jogging, and anything else you can do in a park. Named after Maxim Gorky, this sprawling and lovely park is where locals go on a picnic, relax and enjoy free yoga classes. It’s a popular place to bike around, and there is a Muzeon Art Park not far from here. A dynamic location with a younger vibe. There is also a pier, so you can take a cruise along the river too.

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The Kremlin in Izmailovo is by no means like the one you can find near the Red Square. Originally built for decorative purposes, it now features the Vernissage flea market and a number of frequent fairs, exhibitions, and conferences. Every weekend, there’s a giant flea market in Izmailovo, where dozens of stalls sell Soviet propaganda crap, Russian nesting dolls, vinyl records, jewelry and just about any object you can imagine. Go early in the morning if you want to beat the crowds.

All the Bulgakov’s fans should pay a visit to Patriarch’s Ponds (yup, that is plural). With a lovely small city park and the only one (!) pond in the middle, the location is where the opening scene of Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita was set. The novel is centered around a visit by Devil to the atheistic Soviet Union is considered by many critics to be one of the best novels of the 20th century. I spent great two hours strolling the nearby streets and having lunch in the hipster cafe.

Conclusion and Recommendations

To conclude, Moscow is a safe city to visit. I have never had a problem with getting around and most locals are really friendly once they know you’re a foreigner. Moscow has undergone some serious reconstruction over the last few years. So you can expect some places to be completely different. I hope my one week Moscow itinerary was helpful! If you have less time, say 4 days or 5 days, I would cut out day 6 and day 7. You could save the Golden Ring for a separate trip entirely as there’s lots to see!

What are your thoughts on this one week Moscow itinerary? Are you excited about your first time in the city? Let me know in the comments below!

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24 comments.

Ann Snook-Moreau

Moscow looks so beautiful and historic! Thanks for including public transit information for those of us who don’t like to rent cars.

MindTheTravel

Yup, that is me 🙂 Rarely rent + stick to the metro = Full wallet!

Mariella Blago

Looks like you had loads of fun! Well done. Also great value post for travel lovers.

Thanks, Mariella!

I have always wanted to go to Russia, especially Moscow. These sights look absolutely beautiful to see and there is so much history there!

Agree! Moscow is a thousand-year-old city and there is definitely something for everyone.

Tara Pittman

Those are amazing buildings. Looks like a place that would be amazing to visit.

Adriana Lopez

Never been to Moscow or Russia but my family has. Many great spots and a lot of culture. Your itinerary sounds fantastic and covers a lot despite it is only a short period of time.

What was their favourite thing about Russia?

Gladys Parker

I know very little about Moscow or Russia for the\at matter. I do know I would have to see the Red Square and all of its exquisite architectural masterpieces. Also the CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST THE SAVIOUR. Thanks for shedding some light on visiting Moscow.

Thanks for swinging by! The Red Square is a great starting point, but there way too many places and things to discover aside from it!

Ruthy @ Percolate Kitchen

You are making me so jealous!! I’ve always wanted to see Russia.

Moscow is in my bucket list, I don’t know when I can visit there, your post is really useful. As a culture rich place we need to spend at least week.

DANA GUTKOWSKI

Looks like you had a great trip! Thanks for all the great info! I’ve never been in to Russia, but this post makes me wanna go now!

Wow this is amazing! Moscow is on my bucket list – such an amazing place to visit I can imagine! I can’t wait to go there one day!

The building on the second picture looks familiar. I keep seeing that on TV.

Reesa Lewandowski

What beautiful moments! I always wish I had the personality to travel more like this!

Perfect itinerary for spending a week in Moscow! So many places to visit and it looks like you had a wonderful time. I would love to climb that tower. The views I am sure must have been amazing!

I was lucky enough to see the skyline of Moscow from this TV Tower and it is definitely mind-blowing.

Chelsea Pearl

Moscow is definitely up there on my travel bucket list. So much history and iconic architecture!

Thumbs up! 🙂

Blair Villanueva

OMG I dream to visit Moscow someday! Hope the visa processing would be okay (and become more affordable) so I could pursue my dream trip!

Yup, visa processing is the major downside! Agree! Time and the money consuming process…

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• Português do Brasil

Chuckling Scout

• View history

• 2 Expression
• 4 Traveling Spirit
• 5 Season Friendship Tree
• 8 References

The Chuckling Scout Spirit can be found in the Boneyard , positioned around the perimeter of a small treehouse on the player's immediate right if entering from the Forest's Brook . The Daydream Forester is also located on the outside of this treehouse; the Chuckling Scout and the Daydream Forester can be found on opposite sides of the structure. This Spirit is a standard memory quest with 6 memory fragments, with a 15-minute overall time limit .

As you relive its memory, you can see the Scout and the Daydream Forester walking around the perimeter of the treehouse, on the opposite side of the small stream. The two appear to be gathering sticks before Daydream Forester is distracted from the task and wanders off. The Chuckling Scout follows the Forester , sneaking along behind their fellow, preoccupied spirit. The Daydream Forester does not seem to notice the Chuckling Scout following along behind them in each memory fragment.

Be wary while reliving this memory because the Spirit can be damaged by the polluted rain . Be quick to collect the fragments and make sure to bring a friend to recharge.

At the end of the memory, Chuckling Scout silently stands behind the Forester , waiting for the other spirit to finally notice them. Not realizing that the Chuckling Scout had been following behind them the entire time, Forester turns around and jumps in alarm. After their sneaky surprise, the Chuckling Scout lets out a small chuckle, shaking their head in amusement.

Relive the Chuckling Scout Quest

Expression [ ]

• Level 1 will make your avatar lift their left hand to their mask as if muffling a chuckle, their shoulders shaking as they laugh. During this expression, a whistling sound effect plays, accompanied by chimes. Together, the effects mimic a "hehe" sound.
• Level 2 makes the same motion as Level 1, with white starburst particles popping up in front of the avatr's face.
• Level 3 will make your avatar hold both hands to their stomach as they belly laugh, and will then make your avatar look around and cover their mouth with their hands. During this expression a whistling sound plays, just as in Level 1.
• Level 4 makes the same motion as Level 3, with many pink starburst particles popping up in front of the avatar's face.

Cosmetics [ ]

Traveling Spirit [ ]

This Spirit has not yet returned as a Traveling Spirit . When they do return, they will offer the same collectibles as during their Season , but in a restructured Friendship Tree with new non-Seasonal prices for all items. Any items that were SP -exclusive during the Season will become available to all players.

All dates when this Spirit has visited as a Returning Spirit are:

• March 6, 2023 (SV#1)

Season Friendship Tree [ ]

This Friendship Tree provides the collectibles sold by this Seasonal Spirit during their original Season. This Tree can no longer be accessed. However, the items listed here will be available for purchase when the Spirit returns as a Traveling Spirit .

Gallery [ ]

• The Chuckling Scout could be seen sitting by a campfire during the Spring Camping Event in 2024.

References [ ]

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 This item can only be obtained if you have purchased the Season Pass for this Season.
• 1 Season of Nesting
• 2 Children of Light
• 3 Dancing Performer

2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

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A History of Moscow in 13 Dishes

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