St. Basil’s Cathedral: Russia’s Most Photographed Building Up Close

St. Basil’s Cathedral sits at the south end of Red Square, and no photograph prepares you for the colours in person. The nine onion domes are each painted differently: deep reds, greens, yellows, and a twisting pattern that looks like no other church architecture in the Orthodox world. Ivan the Terrible commissioned it to commemorate the capture of the Tatar stronghold of Kazan in 1552. The legend that he had the architects blinded so they could never build anything more beautiful is almost certainly apocryphal, but people repeat it with pleasure.

Inside the Cathedral

The interior surprises visitors who expect something cathedral-scale. It isn’t. The building is actually nine separate churches arranged around a central tower, each one small, with low ceilings and narrow spiral staircases. The walls are covered in 16th and 17th-century frescoes in various states of preservation. Several of the chapels hold original icon collections.

Entry costs around RUB 500 for foreign visitors (prices have changed frequently; check at the ticket window). Open daily 11:00-18:00 in winter, extended hours in summer. The cathedral fills up on weekend afternoons; weekday mornings before 12:00 are considerably better.

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Red Square

The square itself takes about 20 minutes to walk across at a relaxed pace. The GUM shopping mall running along the east side has a 19th-century arcade interior worth looking at even if you’re not buying anything from its current roster of luxury brands. The food hall in the basement sells good pelmeni and blini at fair prices. Lenin’s Mausoleum, when it opens (Wednesday-Sunday, 10:00-13:00, free), is genuinely strange: the former Soviet leader’s preserved body in a dimly lit underground chamber, viewed while filing past in silence at speed.

The Kremlin

The Kremlin is a 15-minute walk from St. Basil’s, or effectively adjacent at the square’s north end. Grounds entry costs around RUB 700; the Armoury (one of the best jewellery and royal treasure collections in Europe) costs separately. Budget a full morning. The Diamond Fund in a separate building holds Catherine the Great’s collection of diamonds and jewels, which is remarkable.

Getting Around Moscow

The Metro is cheap (around RUB 60 per journey), fast, and the stations on the ring line are architecturally spectacular in their own right. Okhotny Ryad station is the closest to Red Square. Download the Yandex Maps app for navigation; Google Maps works but Yandex has better real-time transit data.

Where to Eat

Café Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard is the most famous Russian restaurant in Moscow, aimed at a tourist and expense-account crowd but genuinely excellent. Borscht, beef Stroganov, and a comprehensive wine list. Budget RUB 3,000-5,000 per person. For cheaper eating, the stolovaya (canteen-style) restaurants near the Kitay-Gorod Metro area serve traditional dishes for RUB 300-500. Cheburechnaya on Sretenka Street is cramped, cash-only, and makes the best chebureki (fried meat pastries) in the city.

Where to Stay

Hotel Metropol on Teatralnaya Square is 10 minutes’ walk from Red Square and one of the great Russian Art Nouveau buildings (from around $200/night). Ibis Moscow Bakhrushina near Paveletskaya is functional and fair value at around $70-90/night.