Moscow Tours
Our Moscow tours will not leave you indifferent. The more time you have for tours throughout Moscow, the more great impressions you will get.1st Moscow tour point - the Cathedral Square, in 1491, the Granovitaya Palata (Faceted Chamber) was built, that got its name from the facets of the main facade. There official ceremonies used to take place and foreign ambassadors to be received. In 1849, the Grand Kremlin Palace was constructed to the design of the architect Konstantin Tohn. The Palace accommodates the royal family's apartments and ceremonial halls with splendid furniture, crystal-glass and chinaware. The most famous of the halls is Georgievsky (St. George’s), where nowadays ceremonial receptions are held and the President presents people with state awards. Next tour point - Armory Museum of the Moscow Kremlin is the oldest museum in Russia. It used to be a state depository for arms first mentioned in the chronicles in 1547. At the beginning of the XIX century, the storehouse became the a museum of arts and crafts. The Armory Museum of Moscow has thea richest collection of arms, gold and silver adornments, trappings, church plates, carriages, drapery and chinaware from different countries. Among the displays of the Museum, there is a helmet of Prince Yaroslav (XIII century), the Cap of Monomach, surrounded by a golden crown and decorated with jewels, the dress which Catherine I was wearing during her coronation, and lots of gifts presented to Russian Tsars by foreign monarchs (Boris Godunov's throne from the Persian King Abbas, a silver tray from the Swedish King Charles XII, a Sevres set from Napoleon I, and gifts from ambassadors of the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, England and many other countries).
2nd Moscow tour - St. Basil's Cathedral – a symbol of Moscow – was built in 1555-1561 by the architects Postnik and Barma under Tsar Ivan the Terrible in honor of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. The nine individual pillar-churches symbolize the most important events of the Kazan campaign. It was decided that the cathedral should consist of 8 separate churches symbolizing days of decisive battles for Kazan. However the builders creatively interpreted the idea. They built 4 pillared churches and 4 smaller ones. They are all centered around the ninth one - Church or the Protection of the Virgin and crowned with cupolas. They are all connected with the with the gallery and inner vaulted passageways. The cathedral got its current appearance in the second half of the XVIII century when it was slightly reconstructed and painted. In 1588 a side chapel of St. Basil the Blessed was built near the cathedral over the grave of St. Basil who was worshiped by Muscovites as a God's fool. All this was realization of "сity cathedral", "heavenly Jerusalem", a monument of the world architecture. In 1929 Moscow cathedral was closed, the bells were removed. In 1990 19 bells were returned back to their place. From that time on liturgies are offered here from time to time. Here at St. Basil's you can see the richest in the whole Russia collection of bells as well as unique collection of 16-18 century icons and workers of applied art. There is a legend that says that Barma and Postnik were blinded by order of Ivan the Terrible, so that they could never build anything as beautiful again. In 1936, one of Stalin's associates, Lazar Kaganovich suggested demolition of the cathedral. It is said that he came to Stalin with a scale model of the Red Square with the cathedral detachable, and gave a long speech on how it impeded the traffic and carried out demonstrations. "Why not destroy it once and for all?", he said tearing the cathedral off the model. Stalin stared at him with his eyes wide open, thought for a moment and said slowly: "Lazar! Put it in its place!" The State was founded by emperor Alexander 2 in 1872 according to his request. The Museum was built by architect Sherwood and opened to the public in 1883. Today the Moscow State Historical Museum is the national treasure-house of Russia. Among its exhibits there are exponents of archeology, numismatics, documents, autographs, icons, portraits, engravings, hand-written and printed books, old armors, clothes, military uniforms and so on. Earlier it was Moscow university, then courthouse, then became ministries and then historical museum.
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3rd Moscow tour - Bolshoi theater is one of the most celebrated musical theaters in the world along with La Scala of Milan and Grand Opera of Paris. It was founded in 1776. The building of the theater was established in 1825 to the design of the architect Bovet. The quadriga on the eagle of the theater was sculptured by Peter Klodt. Most famous, talented and brilliant singers and ballet dancers of Russia have been performing here for two centuries. Among them, such as Fyodor Shalyapin, Sergey Lemeshev, Galina Vishnevskaya, Irina Arkhipova, Elena Obraztsova, Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Vladimir Vasiliev, Maris Liepa to name just a few. The Bolshoi have become a legend now, its name doesn’t need any translation, it speaks for itself in every given language & means a world to every culturally educated person all over the world.
4th Moscow tour - Tverskaya Tsar Road (present Tverskaya street, central street of Moscow). There is a Pushkin square on the other side of the Tverskaya street . Earlier it was called Holy Week (Strastnaya) Square and a convent was situated there. The monastery was destroyed in 1937 and the Russia Cinema-Hall was constructed, as well as lots of fountains. There is a monument to Alexander Pushkin in the middle of the square. The most famous Russian poet who lived in 18 century, was married to a woman who was famous for her smallest tail which was around 15" and was killed at the age of 33 in a duel, which was the common Russian style to deal with problems at that time. The purposes of that duel have been the center of cultural discussions up till now. In the Theatre Square all buildings were burned in the fire of 1812, Napoleon's war main disaster. The square was planned in a new manner after the Neglinnaya River was confined in an underground pipe. The square's main edifices are the Bolshoi and the Maly theatres, Moscow's pride and the visit card.
5th Moscow tour - Christ the Savior's Cathedral is the landmark of architecture of a unique and tragic destiny. This monumental building was constructed in the so called Russian-Byzantine style to the design of the architect Constantine Tohn and completed in 1883. All the work was paid for with the done on public donations. The interiors of the cathedral were created by the best Russian painters and sculptors. In 1931 under the personal order of Stalin, the Cathedral was blown up and found itself in ruins . A huge building - the Palace of Soviets was conceived instead. But this ambitious project turned out to be unfeasible, and so the swimming pool Moskva appeared on the site in 1958 to utilize the existing foundation pit, that was left after the blow. The decision to restore the Cathedral was made in 1994. The building was reconstructed-erected according to the old sketches, photos and drawings, but with application of the most state-of-the-art technologies. It took 45 years to erect the Cathedral in the XIX century, but only 6 years to restore it at the end of the XX one. On 19 August 2000 the Cathedral was consecrated. This cathedral has become the symbol of revival of Christian Russia for millions of Russians.
Moscow Tour to be continued...
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