Red Square Offbeat: 6 Day Itinerary
Six days is enough to leave the city once and still cover Red Square properly. Bring rubles: no foreign Visa or Mastercard works anywhere in Russia since 2022, cash only, no exceptions for tourists. A visa is required for almost everyone, and the e-visa skips US, UK, Canadian, and Australian passports specifically, who need a slower, pricier consular visa instead. Both the US State Department and the UK Foreign Office currently advise against all travel to Russia, worth reading before you book anything. Aim for May or September, and avoid the fortnight before 9 May, when Red Square closes for parade rehearsals.
This is the 5-day plan plus one day out of the city entirely. For the fullest version, see the full week itinerary.
Book these before you go
- Kremlin Cathedral Square + Armoury Chamber timed tickets: kreml.ru , released 17 days out
- St Basil’s Cathedral ticket: tickets.shm.ru
- Tretyakov Gallery timed entry: tretyakovgallery.ru
- Sergiev Posad train: pass.rzd.ru
- A room near Okhotny Ryad or Ploshchad Revolyutsii metro: Ostrovok.ru (Mastercard only online; cash also works at many properties)
Day 1: Red Square and St Basil’s maze
Start at Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin walls if you booked a morning slot (1,100 RUB standard, 600 RUB reduced, closed Thursdays), then walk out to St Basil’s, nine chapels wearing one candy-striped exterior, a separate ticket at roughly 2,000 RUB for foreign visitors against 600 to 900 RUB for Russian citizens. If the mausoleum’s open days line up (Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat, Sun, 10:00 to 13:00 only), do Lenin first thing. Lunch inside GUM, a private luxury mall today despite the Soviet-era acronym, where the cheap ice cream stand is the closest thing left to Soviet pricing under that roof. Finish after dark, when the floodlighting on St Basil’s and the Kremlin wall is at its intended effect.
Day 2: The Armoury and the metro’s palace stations
If the Armoury Chamber’s Faberge eggs and coronation carriages are worth a second Kremlin ticket, book one of its four fixed daily slots (10:00, 12:00, 14:30, or 16:30, 1,400 RUB standard, 800 RUB reduced) rather than trying to walk in. Afterward, ride the circle line to Komsomolskaya and Mayakovskaya, both ornate Stalin-era stations that cost a single 75 RUB Troika fare to see.
Day 3: Bunker-42 and Kitay-Gorod’s old streets
Ride the metro out to Taganskaya for Bunker-42, a real Cold War command bunker built 65 meters underground and now run as a guided-tour museum. Back in the center, walk east from Red Square into Kitay-Gorod, the pre-revolutionary quarter most tour groups walk straight past: the Romanov Boyars’ Chambers, Nikolskaya Street, and the Zaikonospassky Monastery.
Day 4: Tretyakov Gallery and Gorky Park
Head south into Zamoskvorechye for the Tretyakov Gallery, Russia’s premier collection of Russian art and home to Andrei Rublev’s Trinity icon, 700 RUB admission, closed Mondays, worth half a day on its own. Walk or take a short metro hop to Gorky Park afterward, free and open 24 hours; pay only for specific attractions inside it, like the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art or a bike rental.
Day 5: Novodevichy Convent and the Sparrow Hills skyline
Novodevichy Convent, a UNESCO World Heritage-listed 16th-century convent roughly 5km southwest of the Kremlin, runs about 1,000 RUB for foreign adults; its cemetery next door, with graves including Chekhov, Gogol, and Khrushchev, has its own entrance and is free. From there continue to Sparrow Hills for the classic wide shot of Moscow State University’s main building over the river, free, 24 hours, with a cable car across to Luzhniki Stadium.
Day 6: Sergiev Posad, a day trip out of the center
Sergiev Posad is roughly 1 hour 10 to 1 hour 20 by suburban or express train from Yaroslavsky Station, departures every 20 to 40 minutes, and it’s home to the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius, the single most important monastery in Russian Orthodoxy and the standard first stop on the so-called Golden Ring. Everything worth seeing sits within a 10 to 20 minute walk of the station, so it’s a genuine day trip, not an overnight commitment. Book the train through pass.rzd.ru rather than a resale site.
Is Sergiev Posad better than pushing on to Vladimir or Suzdal?
For a single day trip, yes. Sergiev Posad is closer, faster, and the single most historically significant monastery stop; Vladimir and Suzdal reward a full dedicated day or an overnight that a 6-day Moscow trip usually can’t spare.
Which Kremlin ticket should I skip if I’m short on time?
Keep Cathedral Square over the Armoury if you have to choose. It covers the cathedrals and the grounds for 1,100 RUB without locking you into one of only four timed entries a day, which the Armoury requires.
| Day | Focus | Metro / travel time | Rough daily cost (RUB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Red Square, St Basil’s, GUM, Lenin’s Mausoleum | Okhotny Ryad or Ploshchad Revolyutsii, both a short walk from the square | 2,500 to 4,500 |
| 2 | Kremlin Armoury, metro-palace loop | Circle line to Komsomolskaya and Mayakovskaya, 75 RUB Troika fare | 2,000 to 4,000 |
| 3 | Bunker-42, Kitay-Gorod | Taganskaya metro for the bunker, then walk from Red Square | 2,000 to 3,500 |
| 4 | Tretyakov Gallery, Gorky Park | South by metro to Tretyakovskaya, then a short hop or walk to the park | 2,500 to 4,000 |
| 5 | Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills | Metro to Sportivnaya, then a short ride or walk to the viewpoint | 1,500 to 3,000 |
| 6 | Sergiev Posad day trip | Suburban/express train from Yaroslavsky Station, about 1h10 to 1h20 each way | 1,000 to 2,500 |
Confirm the mausoleum’s restoration status before you build day one around it. It’s supposed to reopen fully by August 2026, but Russia’s own tourism sites don’t agree on exactly when.