Things to Do in Moscow

Red Square at 7 a.m.

Cobblestones still glisten after night cleaners. Gum-scented wind slices between Kremlin towers. You own St Basil's at dawn. Candy domes look edible in sideways light. The square feels its age, not a film set.

Soviet-era ice-cream inside GUM

Queue at the 1950s kiosk for plombir ice-cream in a wafer cup. Vanilla freezer air kisses your face. Clerks in pale-green uniforms charge less than a metro ride. Eat it while the glass-roofed arcade turns gold at sunset. Pigeons coo somewhere above the iron rafters.

Banya banya at Sanduny

The 19th-century halls reek of eucalyptus and birch tar. Wet birch leaves slap your back before you hit the marble cold pool. Steam curls like ghost breath under painted cherubs. Bankers and babushkas share the same bench. It's half spa, half neighborhood club.

River cruise under midnight bridges

From May to September the Radisson fleet keeps late hours. Boats glide past floodlit Stalin skyscrapers. Bass drifts from beach bars on the banks. Diesel-flecked mist coats your lips as the boat pivots opposite Novospassky's golden domes. The city finally lies flat after days of vertical neck-craning.

VDNKh space pavilion

Inside the cosmodrome hall you smell cold machine oil. The scorched capsule that carried Belka and Strelka hangs overhead. Concrete pavilions outside echo with skateboard wheels and accordion riffs. Retro-futurist nostalgia hits in one gulp.

Tverskaya Street - mansions turned five-star, ten-minute stroll to the Kremlin, quiet side lanes

Kitay-Gorod - medieval alleys, rooftop bars over onion domes, hostels inside merchants' courtyards

Zamoskvorechye - canals, candy-box churches, mid-range hotels near Skolkovo outpost

Arbat Pedestrian - tourist central, yes, but side streets exhale bakery air at dawn

Krasnye Vorota - constructivist brick, loft hotels in old printing houses, two stops from Red Square

Sokolniki Park - pine air, budget chains, straight red-line ride downtown