What to see in the city where the Earth begins
To make a country, in the primers of Soviet schools there was a poem that recited like this: "Earth, as is known, begins in the Kremlin."
It is not surprising. Those of us who have seen the colorful domes of the Saint Basil's Cathedral standing out from the city's buildings, we know it's an impression that lasts a lifetime. And that you cannot get out of that vision unscathed.
Moscow is not only the capital of the largest country on the planet, it is the heart of two continents, the great gateway to all russias spread over its vast territory.
The writer Gabriel García Márquez described it as “the largest village in the world” and, although the city he knew is quite far from the one it is now, it is still disconcerting.
Moscow does not know half measures, everything is big there, as if it had to be at the height of the largest country ever and to be. That's why, its surface is capitalized; its monuments, portentous and its metro, the most beautiful in the world.
The heart of Russia opens to tourism
It is impossible to think of this immense city and not go to the memory of all the stories that have come down to us about tsarist russia , where illiteracy, malnutrition, superstition and technological backwardness were their most pressing problems.
We all remember the tales of the fateful last days of the Romanovs and the orgiastic rituals of the mystic Rasputin . or the fierce The rise and crash of the Soviet Union , which came like a cyclone to impose the authoritarian communist empire that would occupy a sixth of the territory of our planet.
Now that the 21st century has settled in, in Moscow it is easy to cross from one period to another in the blink of an eye. The Russian capital goes from ostentatious new capitalism to grayish blocks of flats with grim portals and half-rickety stairs.
Perhaps because of its continental climate, which brings the most unbearable cold or the most suffocating heat, Moscow has become a city of extremes , where the gap between poverty and luxury is not hidden; and where there are more millionaires than anywhere else in the world.
As if it were a Russian matrioshka, the Moscow capital has many layers to unravel before travelers and, now that it has begun to open up to tourism, its power has begun to unfold.
The Moscow capital has many layers to disarm
THE UNDERGROUND PEOPLE'S PALACE
Moscow is complex and must be taken with care, not because of the false cliché of being a dangerous city, but because immense.
With more than twelve million inhabitants, It has an old town that has 1,000 km2 and through which around five million private cars pass. For this reason, it is not surprising that the subway be the most used means of transport and part of the tourist and cultural attraction of the city.
Inaugurated at the height of the Stalinist era, the Moscow metro has all its indications in an indecipherable Cyrillic for those of us who do not understand an iota of this alphabet. It is the most used metro in the world , since it transports more than nine million people a day and, furthermore, the time between one train and the next It never exceeds two minutes of waiting.
With names practically impossible to pronounce, it has almost two hundred seasons full of indescribable beauty. Moscow metro stations, unlike the stations we have seen in other big cities, are part of an underground museum. In fact, he is known as the People's Palace.
Its escalators seem eternal, since during the Cold War they were built very deep sections , in case it had to be used as fallout shelter.
Kyevskaya station
However, once inside the bowels of the city, it's time to open your eyes wide and use your lines to make underground tourism. Its columns, arches, mosaics and chandeliers turn some stations into authentic baroque halls , while others introduce us to a strange retrofuturistic universe that serves as a sample of the glorious past of the Soviet Union.
With the intention of discovering and not transporting , it is best to choose the brown line , which is circular, and stop, for example, at Kyevskaya , one of the most impressive of this line and which, with its vaulted shape and its 18 mosaics, commemorates the Russian-Ukrainian union.
Belorusskaya, Komsomólskaya, Novoslobódskaya, Slavyansky Bulvar, Park Pobedy or Elektrozavodskaya , all these names that seem typical of a tongue twister are only those of some of the stations that you should have written down in a notebook when you go down to the depths of the city and want to get on the subway to simply let yourself go.
It almost seems that Moscow has to be thanked for its immensity.
Transfer at Komsomolskaya
BETWEEN Czars, COMMUNIST MUMMIES AND SHOPPING CENTERS
Returning to the Muscovite surface, the most monumental part of the city nor has it suffered major scratches due to the passage of time and the weight of history.
Over there, the Moskva River, the Kremlin and the Red Square They catch everyone's attention. On one side of the river stands, solemn, the Kremlin, that imposing reddish fortress which houses within it orthodox palaces and cathedrals crowned with brilliant golden domes.
The Kremlin, which began as a wooden palisade on top of a hill, has ended up being a symbol of the Great Mother Russia.
Outside the wall makes way the Red Square , also exorbitant and of an abysmal beauty. Today, it is crossed thousands of times a day by curious tourists who come to the heart of the city in the hope that the Saint Basil's Cathedral is as wonderful and colorful as you imagine , as if a chocolate artisan had created a gigantic work of chocolate and Walt Disney had deployed his entire color palette to decorate it. And it is, It is the biggest icon of Moscow for a reason.
Saint Basil's Cathedral
Legend has it that Ivan the Terrible , amazed with the final result of the cathedral, asked his chief architect, Postnik Yakovlev, that if he would be able to repeat a similar work. Given Yakovlev's affirmative answer, the tsar ordered him to be blinded so that he could never again build something so beautiful.
As if it were an ironic joke about communism and capitalism, the Red Square is also home to two opposing worlds.
On one side is the Lenin's Mausoleum , a disconcerting, cold and dark place where the revolutionary's mummy, fully embalmed and preserved, welcomes the curious perfectly dressed from inside a transparent urn. This place, in which the effigies of the communist leaders also have their space, right in front of the sumptuous GUM department store, the largest and most luxurious shopping center in Russia.
And Red Square doesn't end there, for at the opposite end of Saint Basil's Cathedral is the **State Museum of Russian History,** another amazing building. And by his side, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, less showy than that of San Basilio, but it should not be overlooked.
Lenin's mausoleum
THE ENDLESS CITY
On the banks of the Moskva River, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is the main temple of Russia. The cathedral had a tragic fate, because during Stalin's regime it was destroyed, since its place was going to be occupied by the Palace of the Soviets, a huge building 415 meters high crowned by a statue of Lenin 100 meters high, and in the head of which, Stalin would install his office.
The Palace of the Soviets was thus to become the tallest building in the world and symbolize the absolute triumph of Soviet communism over capitalism. Although the works began, the arrival of the Second World War prevented its construction.
Almost in the 1990s, the uprising of the destroyed cathedral was reactivated. To this day, seeing its white facade and golden domes reflected in the calm waters of the river is a pleasure that no one should miss.
Once the 'mandatory visits' have been made, it is time to approach one of the keys to the Soviet world: the space race
The Cosmonautics Museum allows us to know the space achievements of the USSR, since they were the true pioneers in space exploration.
The center welcomes us with the Monument to the Conquerors of Space , a gigantic obelisk that mimics the wake left after a rocket takes off.
Cathedral of Christ the Savior
Very close to the museum is the All Russian Exhibition Center , although everyone still knows him as the VDNKh Park , by its Soviet acronym.
It is a place that could well be a great Disneyland in the purest 'soviet' style. The park continues to exhibit the glory of those times when the world lived divided in two and pending a red telephone.
After passing through its colossal main entrance marked by a triumphal arch, the park becomes a continuous exhibition of statues, golden fountains, monuments about the space race , restaurants, huge pavilions, amusement areas and communist motifs such as stars or the hammer and sickle.
Nevertheless, the magnificence of moscow It does not end there, but it has only just begun. Their heights are torn by tall buildings who intended to compete against the tallest in the United States.
In 1947 , when the city was eight hundred years old, Stalin ordered the construction of eight skyscrapers to celebrate the anniversary and show, once again, the power of the USSR.
VDNKh Park
The skyscrapers were built in just ten years and, today, seven of them remain, known as 'Stalin's Seven Sisters': the Leningrad Hotel, the Ukraine Hotel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Red Gate Administrative Building, Moscow State University, the Kotelnicheskaya Building and the so-called 'Home', on Kudrinskaya square. The eighth sister, the Palace of Soviets, never saw the light of day.
Off the beaten track by tourists, and on the outskirts of the city, is Izmailovo market . The market hall makes a great impression, as imitates the walls of the Kremlin.
Once inside, the surprise can be even greater. Plagued with small and different wooden stalls, the market looks like the interior of a city in 17th century Russia where cats and the occasional rat also walk.
This Kremlin and all its wooden constructions are a masterpiece of Moscow craftsmen. Chaotic and full of stalls where you can buy souvenirs of all kinds, especially those with the image of Vladimir Putin, Russian dolls and refrigerator magnets stand out.
There is also space for the most captivating antiques, like cameras from the communist era. A place that takes you back in time and where the bargaining It is the order of the day if you intend to take something home.
Izmailov market stalls
They say that to know Moscow takes an eternity , and it probably is. Well, its long and crowded streets, such as the pedestrianized Arbat, are never seen enough times.
The same happens with the Kolomenskoe Park , an immense recreational estate, on the banks of the Moskva, which served as a refuge for the Russian aristocracy and whose main attraction is the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich , declared World Heritage. A reconstruction of the original palace where there is the opportunity to walk around and get to know the surroundings disguised as a Tsar, or Tsarina, with clothes that they themselves have there.
Moscow may turn out to be largely forgotten by the Western world, but for those of us who have crossed the bridges over the Moskva while waking up at 04:00, or looked up at the highest peak of one of the 'Seven Sisters of Stalin', we know that Moscow is a city that gets between your collarbones
Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich