New Year's Eve in Moscow

This year we decided to spend New Year's Eve in Moscow, a brave decision given that -15 C awaits us, but the idea of spending New Year's Eve in Red Square tempts us enormously, always provided we manage to solve the problem of freezing to death! The city is very large but most of the most important sights are all within a few kilometres. Red Square is beautiful and St Basil's Cathedral looks like a fairy-tale castle! Inside the square you can find other important buildings such as Lenin's Mausoleum, a square monument with the embalmed body of one of the fathers of communism inside, still much esteemed in Russia... On the other side of the square are the Gum department stores, a historic building now turned into a shopping centre: very distinctive. Another thing not to miss is a visit to the Kremlin, especially the cathedrals full of icons and decorated with gold in abundance.

Around the Kremlin you can visit the Alexander Gardens, and crossing them brings you straight into Red Square. The best view of the Kremlin, though, is from the right-hand part of the Moskva; from there you can also see St Basil's and a piece of Red Square. Another attraction not to be missed are the metro stations, works of art in their own right! My advice is to spend at least a morning wandering around the metro in search of the most beautiful stations. As for museums, the Pushkin Museum did not impress us much; in our opinion it is nothing exceptional, although it is still worth a visit.

A certainly exceptional experience is the banya, the typical Russian baths, where you go from the sauna to baths of icy water to "floggings" with twigs, to swims in "chilly" pools, an experience that is traumatizing at first but allows direct contact with Russians, since these baths are frequented by people who generally know English. As for the people, the experience was negative: older people, besides not knowing English, are quite "hostile" towards tourists, as are the police officers... The city can be comfortably visited in a week, although we recommend going in the warmer periods! Between smog and cold outdoors it is very hard to survive!