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Guide To The Getty Villa In Los Angeles, What To See + Tips

Looking for a guide to the Getty Villa? Look no further! The Getty Villa is a fantastic one-of-a-kind museum that brings ancient art and architecture to life. I loved my experience.

The villa is a pristine recreation of a seaside Roman estate housing billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty’s collection of Greco-Roman antiquities.

Through the museum’s exhibits, you can track the history of the ancient world from 3,000 B.C. to the late Roman Empire in 400 A.D.

It seems a half mad idea to recreate an ancient villa to house your art. But Getty, with his obsession for antiquity and a Caesarian attitude, must have enjoyed the challenge of creating something so unique.

In this Getty Villa guide, you’ll find a history and overview of the collection, a list of must see masterpieces, and tips for visiting.

History Of The Getty Villa

J. Paul Getty was an American billionaire, oil tycoon, and art enthusiast. He came from money and power.

With a loan from his father, he invested in oil wells in the Middle East and became “the richest man in the history of the world.”

But Getty didn’t just have oil fever. He started seriously collecting art in the 1930s.

He was a passionate and lifelong collector who though collecting art was “one of the most exhilarating and satisfying of all human endeavors.”

Getty traveled widely throughout his life and made a habit of visiting archaeological sites. Trips to Italy left him with a taste for bronze and marble sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome.

But Getty didn’t want to just admire them in private.

He wanted to share his art with the world and let others travel back in time. By doing so, he hoped to “further the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge.”

In the early 1970s, Getty set about building a museum to house his collection on his 64 acre Malibu ranch. He modeled it on a luxury Roman villa from 40 B.C., the Villa dei Papiri excavated near Herculaneum and Pompeii.

READ : Ultimate Guide To Pompeii

The villa was owned by the wealthy Roman consul Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesonius. He was the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, a Roman whom Getty greatly admired.

The villa’s inhabitants lived surrounded by sculpture. It was a way to demonstrate their wealth and culture and earn an air of prestige.

In 79 A.D., the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius destroyed the villa and it was only re-discovered in 1750. Archaeologists uncovered underground tunnels, sculptures, frescos, stone pavements, and other artifacts.

In particular, 1,100 charred papyrus scrolls were discovered in the villa’s library, giving the villa its nickname the “Villa of Paper.”

The scrolls including the writings of Philodemos of Gadara, a philospher who was the patron of Caesonius. This links the villa to Caesonius.

Modern excavations of the villa have uncovered frescos on walls and geometric patterned mosaic and terrazzo floors. But the vast majority of it remains buried.

The team that Getty hired to recreate the ancient villa included architects, artisans, and archaeologists.

Getty reimagined the villa as an archeological site. Walls and a concrete courtyard below the villa create the sense of looking down into the dig pit.

Much of the Villa dei Papiri remains un-excavated and its elevations are mostly still a mystery. Therefore, architects based many of the Getty Villa’s architectural and landscaping details on other ancient Roman houses in the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae.

After a 9 year $275 million renovation, the Getty Villa opened to the public in 2006, becoming the home of the Getty Center’s Antiquities Collection. In 2015-18, further renovations were completed. The result is simply stunning.

Getty famously said: “Go to Pompeii and Herculaneum and see Roman villas the way they are now [in ruins] — then go to Malibu and see the way they were in ancient times.”

The Getty Villa can draw mixed reactions. Some art critics deride it for blurring the line between actual antiquities and a faux reproduced villa-environment.

This seems a silly criticism to me, as the difference between the two is readily apparent. The “atmosphere” of being in a reimagined Roman villa doesn’t detract from the academic quality of the art in any way. If anything, it enlivens the experience, just as Getty intended.

Overview Of The Getty Villa

The Getty Center is an immersive experience. It’s as much about architecture as art. Even if the museum didn’t have any art, it would be worth the price of admission just to see the reimagined Roman villa.

But the art is spectacular. You’ll almost feel like you’re in Rome or Pompeii.

There are 33 galleries on two levels that are organized thematically. 5 galleries are dedicated to temporary exhibits.

There are 1,000 antiquities on display, including sculpture, busts, pottery, paintings, jewelry, mosaics, and frescos. If you’re a history buff, you could spend hours perusing these galleries. 

The first floor showcases the Greek, Etruscan, and Persian collections.  In addition, there’s an area explaining Getty’s love for collecting artifacts from antiquity as well as his life and legacy. The second floor is exclusively dedicated to Roman art.

You can check out this online map to get oriented before your visit.

Guide To The Getty Villa: What To See

Here are 15+ of the top masterpieces and spaces you’ll see on a tour of the Getty Villa, in roughly the order you’ll encounter them on a visit.

You first enter into the atrium through a colonnaded facade and a floor paved in white marble.

Entry squares like this were common in the 2nd century B.C. They were the heart of a Roman house and designed for strolling and conversation.

Ionic half columns support a coffered ceiling with an open skylight, set over a square pool. The skylight has a coral frieze with lion’s head drain spouts. The geometric floor is copied from the House of the Faun in Pompeii.

2. Inner Peristyle

The inner peristyle is a pleasing and intimate green space, and was also common in villas from the 2nd century B.C. Inspired by the House of the Silver Wedding in Pompeii, the space is defined by 36 Ionic columns surrounding a garden. At each corner is a white marble fountain.

The colonnade is surrounded by walls decorated in the First Pompeian Style. The columns were modeled after the House of Colored Capitals in Pompeii. The ceiling was imitates the Street of Tombs in Pompeii

The peristyle is home to some of the Chiurazzi Bronzes . The originals are in the Archeological Museum of Naples and reproductions are on display at the villa.

The bronze statues are of mythological women who seem to be drawing water from a stream. They’re set in marble bases around the pool.

Legend holds that the King of Argos ordered his 50 daughters to kill their Egyptian husbands on their wedding night. One daughter defied her father’s mandate. Her grateful father-in-law exempted her from her sisters’ agonizing fate — eternal water haulage.

3. Athenian Vases

The Getty Villa houses a large collection of Athenian vases, which in ancient times were used for drinking, serving, and storage.

They were initially made with fired clay and the “black figure technique.” That technique depicted figures in glossy black, with finely incised details. Sometimes red and white colors were added.

By 500 B.C., new techniques had developed. Artisans used red figures, gilding, and further refinements of shape.

They decorated the vases with deeds of the gods and heroes, scenes from domestic life, or sporting events like chariot races. Artists signed some of the vases, so we know their identities.

4. Hall of Colored Marbles & Crouching Venus

This “status symbol” gallery is a luxurious space. The hall gets its name from the 14 different varieties of marble used.

It showcases the types of marble that would have adorned the houses of wealthy Romans in antiquity. Marble was used for floors, walls, and fountains.

The marbles in this room were inspired by homes in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The hall’s floor is cut from ancient salvaged pieces.

In the center of the room is the Crouching Venus sculpture. It’s the first major sculpture you’ll see at the villa and one of Getty’s earliest acquisitions. It’s a larger-than-life-size statue of the goddess, kneeling down to bathe with her son Cupid.

In the 18th century, a well known restorer added arms to Venus and arms and legs to Cupid. These were all removed before Getty bought the statue.

5. Basilica & Venus Statue

Right next door is the Basilica, another gorgeous room clad in marble. In ancient Rome, a “basilica” was a large public hall. But sometimes they were added to private homes and used as shrines.

The basilica is lined with 8 white marble Corinthian columns, topped with elaborate multi-colored capitals. It has a vaulted and coffered ceiling, with stucco work derived from Pompeii.

The intricate marble floors were made with ancient stone fragments in a design copied from the ancient Villa dei Papiri. Statues stand in bays in front of recessed honey colored onyx windows on the side walls.

Under a half dome in the apse is a marble statue of Venus with some modern restorations. It’s a variant of the famous Venus de Milo sculpture in the Louvre . Venus is accompanied by a dolphin, alluding to her birth from the sea.

6. Temple Of Hercules & Landsdowne Hercules

The Temple of Hercules is another glittering marble room. The elaborate marble floor is a work of art itself, composed of 4 million pieces of stone.

It reproduces a 1st century pavement from the Villa dei Papiri. Yellow and gray triangles form a geometric pattern of 22 concentric circles.

In the center is an illusionistic polychrome marble circle. The original circle was one of the first things to be excavated at the ancient villa, marking the official discovery of the Villa dei Papiri. The original is in the National Museum of Naples.

The centerpiece of the room is the famous Landsdowne Hercules . It’s one of the Getty’s prize possessions and the piece that inspired Getty to recreate the Villa dei Papri. He purchased it in 1951 from the Marquess of Landsdowne.

The statue stands in a niche in front of green marble and red porphyry. This kind of room wouldn’t have existed in a typical Roman villa. It was created specifically to house the statue.

The Landsdowne Hercules was discovered in 1790 near Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli . Getty acquired it in 1951. Hercules looks buff and carries his trademark club and lion skin.

In this room, you’ll also find a Portrait Head of Tiberius and a statue of Leda and the Swan . Leda was acquired at the same time as the Hercules .

Getty purchased Tiberius , also known as the Landsdowne Tiberius , in 1971. For over a century, the head was attached to the wrong body. It depicts Tiberius with his recognizable thin lips and eyebrows.

7. East Garden

Two bronze doors then lead to the East Garden, which is planted with mulberry trees, laurels, boxwood, ivy, and ferns. It’s one of the quietest and most tranquil spaces in the villa.

A fountain in the center was copied from the Villa dei Papiri. Water cascades from life size bronze animal heads, include civets.

The spectacular fountain on the wall is an exact copy of the Great Fountain of Pompeii. It’s made of colorful mosaics and shells and adorned with theater masks.

8. Getty Bronze

The 2,000 year old Getty Bronze is the most priceless and famous piece in the Getty Villa collection. It’s also known as the Statue of a Victorious Youth . The sculpture may remind you of Michelangelo’s David in Florence’s Accademia Gallery .

Kept in a climate controlled room, it’s a high caliber bronze Greek statue of a handsome male athlete with good hair. He’s about to remove his wreath and dedicate it to the gods.

Ancient bronze sculptures from Greece are exceedingly rare. Only a handful survive today.

Bronze is an extremely precious and expensive material. Most often, the bronze was melted down for metal.

The statue was preserved by a cosmic accident. It was submerged and preserved in a shipwreck in the Adriatic Sea, and only discovered in the early 1960s. As a result, the body, once golden, is now a mottled green and brown.

Italy has asked for the return of the sculpture. But the Getty maintains that the statue was bought in good faith (for $4 million), after it had been retrieved in international waters. And, in fact, they have an extemely good case against forfeiting the rare statue.

In the same room, you’ll also see the Head of a Man from 150 B.C. The bust is of exceptional quality and very expressive, indicating that he was an important man.

9. Tablinum

A tablinum was an important room in a Roman household. It was the main reception room where the host entertained guests. It stands between the inner and outer peristyles.

The tablinum is ornate and richly decorated, with colorful marble inlaid in geometric patterns on the floors and walls. Dating from late 1st century, the designs are replicated from different villas in Herculaneum.

The ceiling has recessed arched panels. There’s an illusionistic vine motif, which incorporates floors, birds, cupids, and fruit. The floral elements were intended to “link” the inner and outer gardens.

10. Outer Peristyle

Two bronze doors open from the Tablinum onto the Outer Peristyle. This is the heart of the Getty Villa and its largest garden space.

It has a central reflecting pool running its length, 1,000 Mediterranean plants, sculptures, and sybaritic bronze statues. It’s framed on each side by porticos, with columns copied from the basilica at Pompeii.

You can walk in the arcaded pathways. They are decorated with tromp l’oeil frescos in the Second Pompeian Style and blood red porphyry marble floors.

The north wall features frescos of landscapes and architecture copied from the Villa dei Papiri and another villa in Oplontis. Frescoes with theatrical masks on garlands are copies of those from the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor.

There are two square arbors covered with grape vines. There are myriad plantings, but I loved the pomegranate trees best.

In and around the pool are copies of bronze statues, including half-man half- goat satyrs. You’ll also find semicircular benches to rest, copied from ones in Pompeii.

11. Herb Garden

Immediately to the west of the outer peristyle is the Herb Garden. Like nearly everything at the villa, the garden was based on the original herb garden at the Villa dei Papiri. It’s often missed by visitors because it can’t be seen from many villa locations.

Most wealthy Romans had herb gardens, which were used for medicinal and culinary purposes. You can inhale the sweet ascent of lavender, mint, basil, and thyme. You’ll also see a lovely lily pond, with a whimsical waterspout depicting Silenos, a friend of Dionysis.

12. Funerary Relief of Hadirat Kathina

Acquired by the Getty Villa in 2019, this is a limestone funeral relief renowned for its intricate carving. Dating from around 200 A.D., it depicts a bejeweled woman with an Eastern headdress.

It was once adorned with golden paint. You can still see flicks of its original colors, though time has stripped much away.

13. Roman Floor Mosaics

On the second floor, you’ll see walls mounted with large Roman mosaics. Mosaics were popularized in the late 2nd century B.C.

Elaborate mosaics were used to decorate luxurious domestic and public buildings across the broad expanse of the Roman Empire. The mosaics transformed entire rooms into spectacular settings of vibrant color, figural imagery, and abstract design. 

The floor mosaics often depicted violent and combative scenes of hunting and savagery. For example, in the mosaic above, a lion viciously chomps on the back of a wild ass.

On a calmer note, you’ll also see a lovely mosaic of a peacock with a long multi-colored tail. Peacocks had special significance and were associated with immortality.

READ : Guide To Sicily’s Villa Romana del Casale

14. Boscoreale Frescos

In another room, you can admire frescos from the black and white rooms of the Villa of Numerous Popidius Florus at Boscoreale. The villa dates from the early 1st century B.C. and was excavated in 1905-06.

In contrast to the fancy seaside villas of Pompeii, Boscoreale was a working farm. Despite being more modest, the country residence had some of the finest wall paintings of that era.

Indeed, the frescoes are among the most important to be found anywhere in the Roman world. They identify the original owner as a rich man with exquisite taste.

The frescos exemplify the late Second Pompeian Style, the most renowned style in Roman wall painting. They depict illusionistic vistas, fanciful architectural elements, and scenes from daily life — all set against red, yellow, white, and black bands of color.

15. Galleries Of Early And Late Roman Sculpture

This Gallery of Early Roman Sculpture room features statues and busts from early Roman sculpture, including busts of the emperors. The greatest innovation over Greek sculpture was in portraiture.

Unlike the Greeks, Romans adopted a highly naturalistic style that didn’t idealize the sitter. They would show the subject’s age and rugged features. The sculptures were displayed in public places and used as propaganda.

In the center of the room is an elaborate Torso of a Man in Armor , who may be Emperor Tiberius. These type of statues honored victorious generals or members of the imperial family.

There’s also a statue is a 7 foot tall women draped in flowing drapery. It likely dates from 160-190 A.D.

When the Getty Villa acquired the work in 1972, she was missing a head. But a senior curator of the Getty recognized the matching head on view in the Royal-Athena Gallery in New York and acquired it for the museum.

Another gallery on the second floor is dedicated to later Roman sculpture. There, you can inspect the Getty Commodus , a bust of Emperor Commodus.

The Getty acquired the bust in 1992 believing it was a late 16th century copy mimicking the Roman style. But today, most experts think it’s an ancient carving, dating from 180-185 A.D.

The bust is the fifth “type” of Commodus portrait and was likely created when Commodus became sole ruler after the death of his father Marcus Aurelius.

Guide To The Getty Villa: Tips For Visiting

Here are some must know tips for visiting the Getty Villa.

17985 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades CA 90272.

You cannot make a left turn into the villa driveway, so try to approach from the south and keep your eye out for the sign and driveway.

2. Getting To The Getty Villa: Tickets & Parking

Tickets are free, except that you have to pay $20 for parking (or $15 after 3:00 pm). You can’t visit on a walk in basis and no street parking is available. Parking in the neighborhood is only by permit.

You can also take a taxi in. The attendant will direct you to the drop off center.

To visit, you need to make a timed entry reservation online . If you miss your reserved time, you may still be able to enter, if it’s off season or not busy.

Once you’re parked, walk up hill to the museum entrance.

If you are visiting both the Getty Villa and the nearby Getty Center on the same day, you only have to pay for parking once. Stop by the visitor center to get a parking pass for the Getty Center before leaving the Getty Villa. 

3. Collection Information & Tours

There is plenty of informational signage explaining the exhibits .You can also pick up an audio guide or download the Getty App .

You’ll need to leave your driver’s license or ID to pick up the audio guide. Punch in the number of the artifact you’re admiring to get information on it.

In addition, the Getty Villa offers quite a few themed tours that range from 20 to 45 minutes. The “highlights” tour is a free 50 minute tour of the museum’s greatest hits, which I recommend.

Click here to check out the tours. You need to sign up 15 minutes in advance and tours are limited to 10 per group.

4. Museum Hours

The Getty Villa is open Wednesday through Monday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. It’s closed Tuesdays and on January 1, July 4, Thanksgiving, and December 25.

The best time to visit is around 3:00 pm. You’ll get the reduction in parking and have the museum largely to yourself.

5. How Long To Spend At The Getty Villa

The Getty Villa recommends you spend 60-90 minutes visiting. I was there 90 minutes and could definitely have stayed longer. So, if you’re iterested in Greco-Roman history, budget more time.

6. Cafes & Facilities

There’s also an onsite cafe, museum store, and outdoor Roman-style theater. You should hike up the steps of the theater for views down over the villa.

The cafe offers Mediterranean style food with indoor and outdoor seating. Near the cafe is the Espresso Cart for caffeinated beverages and pastries.

You can also have afternoon tea at the villa. The “Garden Tea” features a menu of sweet and savory flavors inspired by the villa’s Herb Garden. Reservations are required and you can make one on Open Table .

7. Getty Villa Theater

The villa has a Roman-style classical amphitheater near the entrance. The villa hosts concerts and versions of classic Greek and Roman dramas. Click here to check the schedule or purchase tickets.

8. Places To Visit Nearby

You can combine a visit to the Getty Villa with a visit to the Getty Center , Santa Monica, and Venice Beach.

The Getty Center is just 15-25 minutes away (depending on traffic) and makes a nice pairing with the villa. The center is a beautiful modern building designed by world famous architect Richard Meier.

It houses the rest of the Getty Collection. You can see Van Gogh’s Irises and a plethora of old masters from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The beach town of Santa Monica is just 15 minutes from the Getty Villa. You can relax on the golden sand beach, sample the pier attractions, and stroll the Third Street Promenade.

Venice Beach is on the south side of Santa Monica. You can walk the iconic boardwalk and enjoy the street performers.

For more information, check out my one day in Santa Monica itinerary .

I hope you’ve enjoyed my guide to visiting the Getty Villa. You may enjoy these other United States travel guides and resources:

• 2 days in Santa Barbara itinerary
• 1 day in La Jolla itinerary
• 2 days in San Diego Itinerary
• 3 day itinerary for Boston
• 1 day itinerary for Denver
• 2 day itinerary for Cleveland Ohio
• 10 day itinerary for New Hampshire
• 10 day itinerary for coastal Maine
• 7-10 day itinerary for Vermont
• 25 most beautiful towns in New England
• 45 amazing destinations in the United States

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2 thoughts on “Guide To The Getty Villa In Los Angeles, What To See + Tips”

Absolutely amazing place. I was so intrigued. Leslie, your writing is an art in itself.interesting, colorful, informative and well done

Thank you so much!

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Last Updated on August 31, 2023 by Leslie Livingston

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The Getty Villa’s Top Ten Things to See and Do

• Destinations

The Getty Villa lies halfway to Malibu atop a cliff, with magnificent views of the Pacific. The recreation of a Roman villa is filled with Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities. Parking should be reserved before a visit; be sure to allow yourselves time to explore the grounds and enjoy a delicious meal at the cafe.  Visit the website  for directions on parking reservations (easy to secure) and to time your visit in time for tours you might want to join. The Family Room has wonderful  art activities for children  and, like the Getty Center, the Art Detective Cards and audio tours are geared for kids.

1. Audio Tours:  One of the best ways to get the most out of your visit to the Getty Villa is by renting out a free audio guide. They include in-depth information about the majority of art housed at the Villa, as well as a map of the grounds and history of the museum. Thematic Family Audio Tours are also available, with a focus on topics like gods, heroes, and athletes that cater to kids’ interests.  Pick up your audio guide just beyond the information desk; you’ll see it after you make a right before the impulvium , or pool in the middle of the atrium.

2. Temple of Herakles:  Keep heading clockwise through the rooms around the atrium until you reach the Temple of Herakles, known as the most important area to J. Paul Getty himself. The story of young Herakles is quite an impressive one, and is told in part by the marble sculpture itself. The victorious Herakles holds a lion skin in his right hand, as a trophy he acquired after killing the Lion of Nimea, which had been terrorizing a village. To get a more involved story of Herakles, continue in to the next room and read the panels on the far right hand wall.

3. Family Forum:  As you continue to make your way around the atrium, be sure to stop in the “Foro Familiar”. It’s the perfect spot for kids to apply the kinds of designs they find around the Villa. Your children can become part of a vase decoration themselves by donning some of the costume pieces provided and striking a pose behind a screen that dominates the room. If they prefer the fine arts to the performing arts, have them decorate a plastic vase with a dry-erase marker. Or, they can have fun making rubbings by placing a piece of paper over the designs etched into one of the tables, and (as the name suggests) rubbing a crayon over it.

4. Reflecting Pool:  Just beyond the Family Forum, this iconic pool dominates the Outer Peristyle and may be the highlight of your entire visit. The scene could have been taken directly from a painting, complete with sparkling blue water, blooming trees and flowers, and picturesque bronze sculptures dotting the landscape. Take your time—especially in this section of the museum—to walk around the entire perimeter and through the center to take in all the garden has to offer. If you’re feeling particularly relaxed, grab a bench and spend as much time as you please just taking in the scenery.The garden makes it wonderfully easy to forget about anything else you may have on your mind.

5. ArtQuest:  The ArtQuest program at the Getty Villa provides a range of fun, educational, kid-friendly activities for you and your family to enjoy together. Activities differ per session, but always involve a craft table set up for hands-on learning. ArtQuest activities are held on Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

6. The Café:  If your tummy starts growling during your visit, head to the café located on the entrance level. It’s the perfect casual spot to satisfy your stomach with delicious Mediterranean-inspired cuisine, which complement the Villa’s architecture perfectly. Menu items are seasonal, and use plenty of fresh local ingredients. Offerings include dishes like a generous Mediterranean platter, salads, sandwiches, some pastas, special options for the bambini , and alcoholic beverages for parents. No reservations are required, but if you feel like having “Tea by the Sea” on a Thursday or Saturday at 1:00 p.m., making reservations is recommended.

7. Art Odyssey : On Saturdays from 11-11:30 a.m., the Villa gives you and your family the opportunity to explore the monsters, gods and goddesses, and famous heroes of antiquity in a more interactive fashion than your traditional museum tour. Led by a Villa educator, the Art Odyssey program incorporates fun family teamwork to create a very informative and educational museum experience. Be sure to sign up 15 minutes before the tour starts, and meet your group at the Tour Meeting Place.

8. Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theatre:  Outdoor views from the café look out on to the Villa’s gorgeous outdoor amphitheater. Classical dramas are performed here during the summer, and it is an excellent location to soak up some sunshine even when performances aren’t in progress.

9. Auditorium:  Just across from the store lies the Getty Villa’s indoor auditorium. Upon entering, you’ll be met by an impressive Roman mosaic floor portraying Medusa, which has now been mounted on the wall. The auditorium is the site for a variety of performances and lectures throughout the year, so be sure to check out the Villa’s event calendar before your trip to find out if there’s a performance in particular that might be of interest to your family.

10. Museum Store:  At the bottom of the amphitheater and to the right is the merchandise hub of the Villa. Items include everything from fun postcards to fine jewelry and how-to children’s books. We were particularly fond of the “Build Your Own Kaleidoscope” handbook. If you don’t feel like splurging on some of the pricier publications, in-depth information on classical antiquity can also be found in the Reading Room, located on the upper level of the museum among the changing exhibitions.

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The Getty Villa Museum: Antiquities on Display

 TripSavvy / Christian Hundley

The Getty Villa

If you visit Los Angeles, you might be surprised to find that there are two Getty Museums in LA: the Getty Villa and the Getty Center.

Before you start planning, you should know what's where. If you're looking for the big museum with white buildings, sitting on top of a hill and designed by architect Richard Meier, that's the somewhere else. Use the Getty Center guide to find out how to visit it .

The Getty Villa in Malibu is the original museum started by J Paul Getty, filled with antiquities from Greece and Rome. It's very enjoyable if you like those things. If you aren't interested in the Roman architecture or the ancient art, it may not be the place for you.

 TripSavvy / Christian Hundley

Things to Do at the Getty Villa

The museum complex includes a 450-seat outdoor classical theater, the villa, and a cafe.

You can go to the Getty Villa just to see their building. It's like stepping back a couple of thousand years into a Roman-style villa. To be precise, it's a reproduction of the Villa dei Papiri; a first-century Roman country house unearthed at Herculaneum which was buried when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.

You can also go to see the villa's collection which is one of America's finest holdings of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art. You'll see objects created over 7,000 years between the end of the Stone Age and the fall of the Roman Empire.

Besides the artwork, the Getty Villa stages performances that include re-imagined versions of classic Greek and Roman dramas, as well as new and adapted works inspired by the museum's holdings or the ancient world.

How to Plan Your Getty Villa Visit

Admission is free, but you need an advance, timed-entry ticket and they charge for parking.

The Villa is magically quiet shortly before the official opening time. Reserve the earliest entry time of the day, arrive a half hour or so before that to enjoy the grounds.

If you wait too late to reserve, you may find they are filled up. To avoid that, get your parking reservation as far ahead as you can on their website . At the last minute, you might get lucky. They sometimes release a few same-day tickets at 9:00 a.m. Check for them online or call 310-440-7300.

Tips for Visiting the Getty Villa

Take the orientation tours and weekend gallery tours to learn more about what you're seeing. Before plunging into the museum itself, look over the daily schedule of tours, gallery talks, and events, and plan your visit around them. Then sign up for them right away. Some tours will only take a limited number of people, and on others, they can run out of audio headsets.

Get more out of the museum with a GettyGuide. It's like getting a private tour with the museum's curators and conservators. You can pick up a multimedia player free of charge at the GettyGuide Desk just inside the main entrance.

Don't take big bags or packages. You'll just have to check them at the entrance. You'll also have to leave your umbrella in the cloakroom, but the museum provides plenty of them for you to use if you need them. And don't carry anything embarrassing. Your bags may be searched.

Got questions? Look for the people in white shirts and vests. They have answers.

The Cafe serves casual Mediterranean fare, which is quite tasty.

You can take photographs for personal use only, but no tripods or flashes are allowed. You can use your selfie stick, but only in public outdoor spaces. Child-carrying backpacks can't go into the galleries.

You can get their hours and more information on the Getty Villa website .

Driving to the Getty Villa

Most visitors arrive in a private vehicle. Vehicles over 6'10" high and standard car length/width aren't allowed, and there is no oversized vehicle lot.

The Getty Villa address is 17985 Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades, California. It's easy enough to put that address into your GPS, but if you overshoot the driveway entrance, you'll end up frustrated. So pay attention.

The only entrance is from the right lane of southbound Pacific Coast Highway. If you are driving north on PCH, you can't make a left turn into the entrance and will have to drive to Sunset Boulevard and make a u-turn.

The Getty Villa is less than a mile north of the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Boulevard. It's worth it to pay extreme attention for that entire mile. If you miss your turn, here's what to do but it will take a while: Continue south to Topanga Canyon Boulevard, turn back north there. Go all the way north to Sunset to make another u-turn.

On your way to the parking garage, you may wonder why the driveway is so rough. This place is so authentic that the road is paved with large stones similar to the ones found in the streets of ancient Herculaneum and Pompeii.

If someone is dropping you off, the entrance gate staff will direct you to the drop-off area. If you are using a ridesharing service, don't let the driver drop you off outside the entrance. If you walk in from there, they won't let you enter. They're not snooty, but just following the conditions of their permits.

Pay attention to where you park. After a few hours of museum-browsing, it's easy to forget where you started. Write the location down or take a photo.

Don't be lazy. Walk up the hill from the parking garage to the museum entrance if you can, to enjoy the gardens and views.

Other Ways to Get to the Getty Villa

No matter how hard you try to get around this, you can't walk into the Villa. The museum's permits forbid that.

The one exception is if you take Metro bus line 534, which stops at Pacific Coast Highway and Coastline Drive, directly across from the Getty Villa entrance. You will still need an advance, timed ticket and you will have to show your bus receipt or transfer at the gate.

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9 Tips To Get Most Out of Your Visit to the Getty Villa in Los Angeles

The Getty Villa in Los Angeles is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the city. And I had the most fun touring its grounds. However, with so much to see and do, it can be tough to know how to make the most of your visit. 

This blog post will give you an overview of what to expect at the Getty Villa, as well as some tips and tricks for getting the most out of your experience.

What to Expect at the Getty Villa

The Getty Villa is a museum located in Los Angeles that focuses on art and culture from the ancient world. The villa is situated atop a hill in Pacific Palisades, with sweeping views of the city below. The villa was modeled after the Villa dei Papiri, an Italian country house that was discovered in Herculaneum in the 18th century.

The stone driveway, the walkways leading you in, and the epic estate hovering over the ocean make every view and vista amazing.

The Getty Villa first opened to the public in 1974, and underwent a significant renovation and expansion project from 2004-2006. Today, the villa houses two museums: the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute. The villa is also home to gardens, courtyards, fountains, and sculptures.

Visitors can expect to see a variety of artwork and artifacts on display at the Getty Villa, including Roman mosaics, Greek and Etruscan sculptures, jewelry, pottery, and more. The museum also offers rotating exhibitions of various topics related to ancient art and culture.

The collections are incredible, but in the opinion of this humble writer, the garden and grounds are where it’s at.

Museum Exhibits

The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa features two floors of permanent galleries with exhibits on Roman life, architecture, sculpture, painting, pottery, glassware, metalwork, coins, jewelry, and daily life objects from antiquity. There is also an outdoor gallery with Roman sarcophagi (burial chests).

In addition to the permanent galleries, there are also several changing exhibitions at the museum throughout the year. Recent exhibitions have included “Naked Truths: Women Reclining in Art” (2019), “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of Hellenistic Greece” (2015-2016), “Luxuriae: Luxury Objects From Antiquity” (2014), among others.

Gardens and Grounds

The Getty Villa features beautifully manicured gardens with plantings that are indigenous to Southern California as well as replicas of ancient Roman garden features such as fountains and sculptures. Visitors can stroll through gardens filled with olive trees, cypresses, palms trees, herbs, roses; or relax on one of the many benches scattered throughout the grounds.

One highlight of the gardens is definitely the replica of an ancient Roman pool called a nymphaeum which features statues of nymphs surrounded by greenery – it’s truly a oasis within Los Angeles!

Tips for Making the Most of Your Visit

When packing for your visit to the Getty Villa, be sure to pack comfortable shoes as you will be doing a lot of walking. If you plan on visiting the gardens, pack a hat and sunscreen as well. It is also recommended that you bring a water bottle to stay hydrated throughout the day.

Consider Timing and Transportation–Golden Hour!

But the real tip to behold, is to go toward the end of the day when the light is not its most epic and golden hour can bless you. The Getty Villa is located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles and is only accessible via car or bus. There is no public parking at the Villa, but there is a paid parking lot on site which you can buy in advance online and present on your smartphone at the gate. 

The closest Metro station is 17th Street/Santa Monica College, which is about a 20-minute walk from the Villa. Keep in mind that the Villa is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so plan your visit accordingly.

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Take advantage of guided tours… or just wander.

Guided tours are available daily at the Getty Villa and are included with admission. These tours provide an overview of the history of the Villa and its collections, as well as insights into specific exhibits. But like I said, a contemplative walk wandering around in meditation is highly recommended as well.

Exploring the Getty Villa Further

The Getty Villa hosts a variety of events and programs throughout the year that visitors can take advantage of. From family-friendly activities to educational lectures, there is something for everyone at the Villa. Check the website in advance of your visit to see what events will be taking place during your stay.

Dining Options at the Villa

The Getty Villa has several dining options available for visitors, including a café, a casual restaurant, and a more formal dining room. The café is a great option for grabbing a quick bite to eat, while the restaurant is perfect for a leisurely lunch or dinner. The formal dining room is only open for dinner and reservations are required in advance.

That said, I recommend you just stay hydrated and keep driving up the PCH to Broad St Oyster Company in Malibu. Have the Lobster Roll, thank me later.

Shopping for Souvenirs and Gifts

The Getty Villa also has a shop where visitors can purchase souvenirs and gifts. The shop carries a wide variety of items, from books about the history of the villa to replica Roman artifacts. 

There is sure to be something for everyone on your list!

The Getty Villa in Los Angeles is a must-see for anyone interested in art, history, or gardens. With so much to see and do, it’s important to plan your visit ahead of time. Use these tips to make the most of your experience at the Getty Villa:

• Know what to expect by familiarizing yourself with the Villa’s history and exhibits.
• Plan ahead by packing appropriately and considering transportation options.
• Make the most of your visit by taking advantage of guided tours and events… or just wander, meditate, and reflect on your own!
• Explore the Getty Villa further by dining on-site (or just head to Broad St) and shopping for souvenirs.

By following these tips, you’ll be sure to have a memorable and enjoyable experience at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles!

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Explore Ancient Art at the Getty Villa

August 8, 2022

On our last trip to the Los Angeles area we decided to do a museum day. This time, we opted to check out the Getty Villa museum , a place that I've always wanted to visit. Located on a hillside above the ocean in Pacific Palisades, the Getty Villa is unique in that it's a replica of an ancient Roman country house, modeled after the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum.

With its cool ocean breezes, amazing ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian art, tranquil gardens, and views of the Pacific, the Getty Villa is a welcome respite from the bustle of LA. Best of all, admission is entirely free! It's really a must-visit destination when you're in the area.

The Getty Villa is a short trip from Los Angeles north on the Pacfic Coast Highway. The setting is absolutely spectacular, and you really feel like you've stepped back into the ancient world. Built in the early 1970s, the villa was created for oil tycoon J. Paul Getty to house his personal collection of art. After extensive renovations, the Getty Villa reopened in 2006 as a museum dedicated to ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art.

Ancient art is what this museum is all about, and you'll see plenty of Roman, Greek, and Etruscan sculptures and decorative arts. Come face-to-face with larger-than-life Roman statues, an Etruscan warrior's armor, a Roman-period Egyptian mummy (complete with realistic mummy portrait), colorful Assyrian mosaics, and much more.

There's almost too much to take in, but everything's well identified and explained on signage and labels. When you need a break from looking at art, you can explore the expansive villa gardens, which are truly amazing. Plants and trees, pools, fountains, and outdoor statuary make the setting truly magical.

It's really an amazing experience — an incredible journey through art and history — and it's a lovely place to spend an afternoon by the ocean. We can't wait to visit again on our next trip to Southern California.

The Getty Villa museum is located at 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272, It's open Daily from 10 am–5 pm; closed Tuesdays. Admission is free, and timed entry tickets are required for admission, and you can reserve them online . Note that the Getty Villa is  not  the Getty Center in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, which also offers free admission and contains a collection of art from the middle ages to the modern day.

There's a $20 fee for parking on site. No street parking is available. Your parking fee can be used for same-day parking at the Getty Center, too; check at the museum information desk for more information. Bikes can park for free, and the Metro bus line 534 stops on the Pacific Coast Highway directly across from the Getty Villa.

Food and drink are available at the museum cafe, which offers Mediterranean-inspired food. The Coffee Kiosk offers drinks and boxed lunches, and you can even make reservations for an afternoon tea in the garden — a children's menu is available.

Learn more about visiting the Getty Villa at  www.getty.edu/visit/villa

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What’s the Value of a Museum Field Trip?

Critical thinking, connection to the past, and self-discovery are just three of the (proven) benefits of a class visit to the museum.

Erin Branham | July 16, 2015 | 3 min read

We all hear the news—the U.S. is behind in education. Our kids are having trouble mastering reading, math, and science. Schools lack teachers’ aides, computers, reliable internet, sometimes even basic classroom supplies. Can kids really afford to take a whole day, or even half a day, out of school to visit a museum? What’s the point?

Many people feel instinctively that there is value to a museum field trip, but struggle to articulate exactly what it is. It’s good for kids to get out of the classroom a couple of times a year. It’s good for them to see knowledge at work in the real world. It’s good for them to experience subjects like the arts that are frequently absent from the classroom.

As the school programs manager at the Getty Museum, I know museum field trips have value, and it’s more than any of these things. The mission of the Getty’s school programs is to ignite interest in and foster discoveries about works of art by K-12 students. We facilitate experiences in which students learn how to explore their own perceptions and the possible meanings of works of art. They learn to make connections to other artworks, but also to their own lives, knowledge, and feelings, and to society both past and present. These are all aspects of learning that students themselves have identified as important.

Evidence from a recent study shows that even a single field trip can increase students’ ability to think critically about art, as well as their ability to appreciate and understand what life was like for people from other time periods. Each work of art is a window onto new worlds for students. Those worlds offer students a broadening of their own worlds.

During the 2014–15 school year, we welcomed over 160,000 K–12 students to the Getty Center and the Getty Villa. Of those, 73% came from Title I schools , and over 80% of those came to the Museum on buses paid for by the Getty. When we surveyed teachers, we learned that the cost of transportation is the number-one barrier to taking field trips. So today, any Title I school that is within a 30-mile radius of the Museum and can fill a bus with 50 students can get a free bus for their field trip.

The Museum is also committed to providing as many students as possible with a guided lesson in the galleries. This school year, our amazing, dedicated corps of 150 school-group docents provided over 100,000 students with guided tours.

High school students in conversation with docent Barbara Atherton as they examine the Bust of Commodus.

A guided lesson lasts one hour and consists of stops in four galleries. From time to time we receive comments from teachers who urge us to make kids see as much of the Museum as possible, but we value time spent with single works of art–time that allows students to look, contemplate, and form opinions and perceptions about art.

About a third of the Getty’s school visitors come on self-guided visits, which means that their teachers (not Getty docents) guide their visit. While we offer teachers many ideas and activities to use in our galleries, just as often teachers apply their own talents and devise their own creative lessons.

When we survey students, they almost always ask for more time to explore on their own, so we encourage even teachers who have booked guided lessons to allow time for students to do some unstructured exploration of the galleries.

For yet another great benefit of a museum field trip is simply letting students discover that free-choice learning environments like museums exist in their communities – places they can use for the rest of their lives to learn, to play, and to reflect. Places they can make their own. Every student who visits the Getty receives a free parking pass so that they can return with their families in the next few months, and each year thousands of people take advantage of a return visit.

Field trips have enormous benefit to museums as well. Museums are nonprofit organizations, and their public value has been the subject of essays, blogs , conferences , and books . Providing students with experiences connecting them to their cultural heritage, to beauty, and to thought-provoking works of art is one clear way museums provide value to society. Not only will many of these kids become the visitors and patrons of the future, but among them are also the future curators, conservators, educators, and, of course, artists, who will fill and operate museums for the next generation.

And not least for those of us who work in museums, the chance to meet and interact with the thoughtful, curious students flooding our galleries is one of the most exciting and joyful parts of our work.

• arts education
• J. Paul Getty Museum
• K-12 programs

About The Author

Erin branham.

I'm the education specialist for family programs at the Getty Villa. In addition to the Villa Teen Apprentice program, I oversee tours, workshops, and drop-in programs designed for parents and children to enjoy together as they learn about art of the ancient world. I've been in museum education for over 20 years and hold a master's degree in art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Comments on this post are now closed.

I am happy for those kids who get to see the Getty – even if it is four items at a time. I was taken to museums as a child and for the most part hated it. As an adult I took my kids to museums and they loved it!!!! I was able to figure out as a child our visits were too long…. and my blood sugar plummeted and I would feel awful. Why did my kids love them….. they loved learning…. of all kinds and had each other to “discuss” what they were looking at. To master reading, math, and science there needs to be a love a learning… too bad we can’t pass a law and tax people for a love of learning. Keep up the work and if you can figure out a way to get more parents in your buildings – Go for It! The parking pass is a great start. I would love to see the Getty but am thousands of miles away. Will keep reading the blog!

I would like to bring a group of 70 students on a field trip to the museum. I would like to know the cost and is the date Tuesday May 30, 2017 a good day.

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Sun Print: Family Workshop

GETTY CENTER

Sunday, April 14, 2024, at 11 am

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Sunday, May 26, 2024, at 11 am

Sunday, June 16, 2024, at 11 am

Sunday, June 30, 2024, at 11 am

Museum Courtyard

Get free tickets to the Getty Center

Harness the power of the sun to make one-of-a-kind photographic prints called cyanotypes by arranging flowers, leaves, and stencils on light-sensitive material. No cameras required to make these fun, family-friendly keepsakes! This workshop complements the exhibitions Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer and Nineteenth-Century Photography Now. This is a free, drop-in program. Impresión solar: taller familiar Domingos 14 y 28 de abril, 5 y 26 de mayo, 16 y 30 de junio 11:00 a.m. a 2:30 p.m. Patio interior del museo Este es un programa gratuito y no requiere de reservación previa. Aproveche el poder del sol para hacer impresiones fotográficas únicas, conocidas como cianotipos, colocando flores, hojas y esténciles sobre material sensible a la luz. ¡No se necesitan cámaras para crear estos divertidos recuerdos familiares! Este taller complementa las exposiciones Hippolyte Bayard: un pionero persistente y La fotografía del siglo XIX en la actualidad .

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Total solar eclipse April 8, 2024 facts: Path, time and the best places to view

In the U.S., 31 million people already live inside the path of totality.

Scroll down to see the list of U.S. cities where the April 8 total solar eclipse will be visible, the duration of the eclipse in those locations and what time totality will begin, according to GreatAmericanEclipse.com .

"Eclipse Across America," will air live Monday, April 8, beginning at 2 p.m. ET on ABC, ABC News Live, National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Disney+ and Hulu as well as network social media platforms.

On April 8, 2024, a historic total solar eclipse will cast a shadow over parts of the United States, prompting a mass travel event to the path of totality -- from Texas to Maine and several states and cities in between.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth and, for a short time, completely blocks the face of the sun, according to NASA .

The track of the moon's shadow across Earth's surface is called the path of totality, and to witness the April 8 total solar eclipse, viewers must be within the 115-mile-wide path. To discover when to see the solar eclipse in totality or the partial eclipse in locations across the U.S. outside of the path, check out NASA's Eclipse Explorer tool .

Eclipse travel

In the U.S., 31 million people already live inside the path of totality, bringing the celestial phenomenon to their doorsteps, Michael Zeiler, expert solar eclipse cartographer at GreatAmericanEclipse.com told ABC News.

MORE: Eclipse glasses: What to know to keep your eyes safe

But for individuals outside of the path, investing time and money are needed to experience the event in totality.

Eclipse chasers, or umbraphiles, are individuals who will do almost anything, and travel almost anywhere, to see totality, according to the American Astronomical Society .

"There's a very active community of solar eclipse chasers and we will go to any reasonable lengths to see solar eclipses anywhere in the world," Zeiler said. "All of us are united in pursuing the unimaginable beauty of a total solar eclipse."

MORE: The surprising reason why a Texas county issued a disaster declaration ahead of April total solar eclipse

Bringing together both eclipse experts and novice sky watchers, the total solar eclipse on April 8 is projected to be the U.S.'s largest mass travel event in 2024, according to Zeiler, who likened it to "50 simultaneous Super Bowls across the nation."

"When you look at the number of people expected to come to the path of totality for the solar eclipse, we estimate those numbers are roughly the equivalent of 50 simultaneous Super Bowls across the nation, from Texas to Maine," he said.

Eclipse map, path of totality

In the U.S., the path of totality begins in Texas and will travel through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Small parts of Tennessee and Michigan will also experience the total solar eclipse, according to NASA.

Best times, places to view eclipse

Below is a list of some American cities where the April 8 total solar eclipse will be most visible -- pending weather forecasts -- the duration of the eclipse in those locations and what time totality will begin, according to GreatAmericanEclipse.com.

• Eagle Pass, Texas, 1:27 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 23 seconds
• Uvalde, Texas, 1:29 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 16 seconds
• Kerrville, Texas, 1:32 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 23 seconds
• Austin, Texas, 1:36 p.m. CDT: 1 minute, 53 seconds
• Killeen, Texas, 1:36 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 17 seconds
• Fort Worth, Texas, 1:40 p.m. CDT: 2 minutes, 34 seconds
• Dallas, Texas, 1:40 p.m. CDT: 3 minutes, 47 seconds
• Little Rock, Arkansas, 1:51 p.m. CDT: 2 minutes, 33 seconds
• Jonesboro, Arkansas, 1:55 p.m. CDT: 2 minutes, 24 seconds
• Poplar Bluff, Arkansas, 1:56 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 8 seconds
• Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 1:58 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 6 seconds
• Carbondale, Illinois, 1:59 p.m. CDT: 4 minutes, 8 seconds
• Mount Vernon, Illinois, 2:00 p.m. CDT: 3 minutes, 40 seconds
• Evansville, Indiana, 2:02 p.m. CDT: 3 minutes, 2 seconds
• Terre Haute, Indiana, 3:04 p.m. EDT: 2 minutes, 57 seconds
• Indianapolis, Indiana, 3:06 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 46 seconds
• Dayton, Ohio, 3:09 p.m. EDT: 2 minutes, 46 seconds
• Wapakoneta, Ohio, 3:09 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 55 seconds
• Toledo, Ohio, 3:12 p.m. EDT: 1 minute, 54 seconds
• Cleveland, Ohio, 3:13 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 50 seconds

Pennsylvania

• Erie, Pennsylvania, 3:16 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 43 seconds
• Buffalo, New York, 3:18 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 45 seconds
• Rochester, New York, 3:20 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 40 seconds
• Syracuse, New York, 3:23 p.m. EDT: 1 minute, 26 seconds
• Burlington, Vermont, 3:26 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 14 seconds
• Island Falls, Maine, 3:31 p.m. EDT: 3 minutes, 20 seconds
• Presque Island, Maine, 3:32 p.m. EDT: 2 minutes, 47 seconds

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The Red Square and beyond: a guide to Moscow’s neighbourhoods

Apr 23, 2019 • 6 min read

The Red Square, Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow at night © Mordolff / Getty Images

One of the world’s largest cities, Moscow is a true metropolis whose ancient neighbourhoods are interspersed with newly built high-rises, inhabited by people from all over the former Soviet Union.

It’s also the city of rings: the innermost is the Kremlin itself; further away are the former defensive rings, Boulevard Ring and Garden Ring; still further are the Third Ring Road and the MKAD, which delineates the city’s borders. There’s an ongoing joke that Moscow Mayor is the Lord of the Rings. Most sights are contained within the Garden Ring, although for some more authentic neighbourhoods one has to venture further out. To help you explore Moscow’s diversity, we picked our favourite ’hoods – but this list is by no means exhaustive.

The Red Square and around

It can be argued that Moscow, or even the whole of Russia, starts at the  Red Square  – it’s an absolute must-see for any visitor. After standing in line to check out Lenin’s granite  mausoleum , go to GUM , Moscow's oldest department store. Full of luxury shops, it’s famous for the glass roof designed by one of Russia’s most celebrated architects, Vladimir Shukhov. Apart from architectural wonders, GUM has several places to eat including the Soviet-style cafeteria Stolovaya No 57 where you can sample mysterious-sounding delicacies such as the ‘herring in a fur coat’.

On the opposite side of GUM, Kremlin ’s walls and towers rise above the Red Square. Walk through the Alexander Garden  and past the grotto to the Kremlin’s entrance. It’s a treasure trove for any art and history lover: ancient gold-domed churches, icons galore and the resting place of Moscow tsars.

On the other side of the Red Square is Moscow's symbol,  St Basil's Cathedral with its multi-colored domes. Right behind it is the newly built Zaryadye Park , which showcases flora from all over Russia; another attraction is the floating bridge jutting out above the embankment and the Moscow river. A glass pavilion nearby hosts Voskhod , a space-themed restaurant with dishes from all 15 former Soviet Union republics. It’s a perfect spot for a classy evening meal and there’s often live music.

Patriarch’s Ponds

The Patriarch’s Ponds (aka Patriki) is a historical neighbourhood, celebrated in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita . Located right off Tverskaya street, Moscow’s main thoroughfare, Patriki recently became the city’s most happening quarter. It has some of the most elegant architecture, including several buildings by art-nouveau genius Fyodor Shekhtel. Narrow streets here have a cozy feel, with recently widened sidewalks and bike lanes. In the summer it becomes party central.

Start by checking out free exhibitions or one of the cutting-edge performances at the experimental theatre Praktika . But make no mistake, the neighbourhood’s main attraction are its bars and restaurants. Patriki’s residents are well-off Russians and expats, so it’s no wonder that  Moscow’s recent culinary revolution started here. Uilliam’s , one of the pioneers of this foodie movement, still rules over the scene with its floor-to-ceiling windows. Also try AQ Chicken  for everything chicken-related, Patara  for a taste of Georgian cuisine, and Cutfish for some great sushi. Finish your gastronomic tour with original cocktails at Pinch or the Moscow outpost of NYC restaurant Saxon+Parole .

Around Kursky train station

For a long time, Kursky train station was surrounded by semi-abandoned factories and the area was best avoided. It all changed in the late 2000s, when a dilapidated wine factory was turned into Winzavod , a mecca for fans of contemporary art. Today these red-brick buildings are occupied by some of Moscow’s leading galleries. After taking in all the art, pop in the small wine bar Barrell  for a glass from burgeoning wineries of Russia’s south or grab a bite at Khitrye Lyudi  cafe.

Right next to Winzavod is Artplay , another refurbished factory full of design and furniture shops and large exhibition spaces.  It’s also home to  Pluton , one of the latest additions to Moscow’s dance scene. Other Pluton residents are the multimedia art gallery Proun  and another lunch option,  Shanhaika , with authentic Chinese cuisine.

A short walk away is Arma, where a cluster of circular gas holders has been turned into offices, restaurants and clubs including Gazgolder  (it belongs to one of Russia’s most famous rappers, Basta). Apart from hip-hop concerts, Gazgolder organises regular techno parties that sometimes go non-stop from Friday to Monday.

If you’re interested in religious architecture, Taganka is the place to go. First of all, see the old Moscow at Krutitskoye Podvorye – one of those places where nothing seems to have changed in centuries. The monastery was founded in the 13th century, but in the 16th century it became the home of Moscow metropolitans and most of the surviving buildings are from that epoch. Take a tour of the grounds, and don’t miss the interior and icons of the Assumption Cathedral.

Your next stop is the Rogozhskoe settlement of ‘old believers’, a branch that split from Russian Orthodoxy in the 17th century. The settlement is dominated by an 80m-tall bell tower. The yellow-coloured Intercession Church, built in neoclassical style with baroque elements, has an important collection of icons. Next to the church grounds is the popular Trapeznaya cafeteria, with Russian food cooked using traditional recipes – a perfect spot for lunch.

A short ride away is Andronikov Monastery, which today houses the Rublyov Museum  in the old monks’ quarters. There’s a great collection of ancient Orthodox icons although none by Andrei Rublyov, who was a monk here in the 15th century. The main attraction at the monastery is the small Saviour’s Cathedral, considered the oldest surviving church in Moscow.

Finish the day at the craft-beer cluster around Taganskaya metro station. Varka offers both Russian and imported labels, with the Burger Heroes stand serving arguably the best burgers in town. Craft & Draft looks more like a respectable old-fashioned pub, with decent food, 20 beers on tap and a hundred types of bottled brews.

Khamovniki is Moscow’s ancient textile district, named after the word kham  (a type of cloth). Two main thoroughfares, Ostozhenka and Prechistenka, cut through the neighbourhood parallel to each other. The former turned into the so-called ‘Golden Mile’ of Moscow in the 1990s, with the highest real-estate prices and some of the best examples of new Russian architecture, while the latter is still mostly lined up with impressive 19th-century mansions.

Khamovniki is somewhat of a literary quarter, as several museums devoted to Russia’s best-known writers – among them  Leo Tolstoy , Alexander Pushkin  and Ivan Turgenev – popped up here during the last century. There’s also plenty to see for an art lover. The  Multimedia Art Museum regularly hosts exhibitions by some of the best photographers from all over the world, as well as contemporary art. Several galleries, including RuArts  and Kournikova Gallery , have also found home in Khamovniki.

When you’ve had your fill of literature and art, stop by Gorod Sad on Ostozhenka, an outpost of a local health-food chain, and order dishes such as pumpkin soup or grilled vegetables salads. Afterwards, head to Dom 12 , which is located just off Ostozhenka street. This restaurant and wine bar is frequented by the city’s intellectuals and its schedule includes lectures, book presentations and film screenings, while in the summer guests migrate to a lovely courtyard.

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Things to do in Moscow: how to visit Moscow | Unmissable, cool & unusual

• September 2, 2023

What are the best things to do in Moscow? What to do in Moscow? First, I will list the main places to visit by theme, passing by the must-sees, but also more unusual places in Moscow. Then, I will describe what to see in Moscow in one day and how to visit Moscow in 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 days. Let’s go!

Good to know. For more information, click on the places to open the dedicated blog posts.

Main places to visit in Moscow & best things to do in Moscow

I worked in Moscow and I loved this city for its dynamism and energy. We find there from time to time to see friends, remember good memories and enjoy this giant city! Then the time has come for us to share with you our practical guide.

TOP 5 must-see places in Moscow

• Moscow Red Square
• St. Basil’s Cathedral
• Cathedral of Christ the Savior
• Bolshoi Theatre

Places of cultural, historical and religious interest in Moscow

• Novodevichy Convent and cemetery
• Tretyakov Gallery
• Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
• Kremlin Izmaïlovo (pseudo-historic place, recently built in the image of the old, one of the best things to do in Moscow for your Instagram account 😉 )
• Park and ancient village of Kolomenskoye

Visit Moscow of the Soviet era

• Moscow State University and Sparrows Hill
• VDNKh and the Museum of Astronautics, one of the key landmarks of the Soviet era in Moscow
• GULAG Museum
• Metro stations
• The Stalinist skyscrapers, scattered all over the city

Less touristy places in Moscow

• Gorky Park and the GARAGE museum
• The old Krasny Oktyabr factory
• Zaryadye Park
• Center for Contemporary Art, WINZAVOD
• Business center, Moscow City

Main districts of Moscow to visit

• Patriarch Ponds
• Tchistye Prudy
• Kuznetsky most
• Arbat Street

However, regardless of the length of your stay, whether you are going to visit Moscow in 4 days or in 2, you need a visa. The article Obtaining a tourist visa for Russia could then be useful in any case.

What to do and see in Moscow in one day?

List of things to see and do in Moscow in one day:

• Go to Red Square
• Visit St. Basil’s Cathedral
• See Kremlin walls (but not to visit)
• Visit Cathedral of Christ the Savior
• Discover Kuznetsky most districts and see Bolshoi Theatre building
• And if you have time at the end of the day: go to the Sparrows Hill or to the Moscow City for a beautiful view

Things to do in Moscow in 2 days

If you want to visit Moscow in 2 days, there are 2 purposes: do not miss the essential places of Moscow and optimize travel.

• First day: Red Square , Saint Basil’s Cathedral , Zariadye Park, Bolshoi Theatre , Kremlin
• Day 2: Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the former Krasny Oktyabr factory on Balchug Island, Gorky Park, Moscow State University (one of the Seven Sisters buildings ) and Sparrow Hill

As 2 days os really short, be sure to choose an accommodation in the best districts where to stay in Moscow .

Walking on Red Square in Moscow: one of the unmissable things to do in Moscow

Iconic place and one of the must-see places in Moscow and even in Russia! Besides, if there was only one place to visit in Moscow in 2 days, this place would then be Red Square, without hesitation. Therefore, starting the city tour with Red Square is ideal . Several buildings are on the square, but not all of them have to be visited. Check out my blog post about Moscow’s Red Square in detail to learn more and not miss anything.

Visiting Saint-Basil’s Cathedral inside

Even more emblematic than Moscow’s Red Square! Built in the middle of the 16th century under the orders of Tsar Ivan Le Terrible, this cathedral is one of the most beautiful monuments of Orthodox art, and definitely one of the unmissable places in Moscow. Visiting Saint-Basil’s Cathedral inside is one of the most beautiful things to do in Moscow!

• Visit estimate time : 1h30
• Entry ticket : 700 RUB. Tickets can be purchased on the cathedral’s official website 45 days before the tour.
• Audio guide (recommended): 500 RUB
• Opening hours : June to August 10 am-6pm; from November to April: 11 am-5pm; May, September, October 11 am-5pm. Cathedral closed on Wednesdays. Entrance is closed 45 minutes before closing.
• Find out more in the dedicated article: Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow

Take a walk in Zariadye park: one of the coolest things to do in Moscow after visiting Red Square

Zaryadie Park is just a 10-minute walk from St. Basil’s Cathedral, so it’s easy to include in your itinerary if you’re going to visit Moscow in 2 days. From its heights, you can see the red walls of the Kremlin. But, the most impressive point of view is the platform which overlooks the Moskva river. A must see! And clearly one of the coolest things to do in Moscow!

• Open 24 hours a day
• Good to know! Park Zaryadye is also a place to visit in Moscow in winter. Find out more here: What to do in Moscow in winter?

See the Bolshoi Theatre and discover the Kuznetsky Most district

The Bolshoi Theatre is the most famous Russian theater in the world. The most economical way to see a presentation at the Bolshoi Theater is to take the tickets on the theater’s official website in advance, so here is our tutorial to help you: How to buy entrance tickets to the Bolshoi? In addition, several pedestrian or one-way streets

The Bolshoi Theater is the most famous Russian theater in the world. The most economical way to see a presentation at the Bolshoi Theater is to take the tickets on the theater’s official website in advance, so here is our tutorial to help you: How to buy tickets to the Bolshoi? In addition, several pedestrian or one-way streets are located north of the theater. It is therefore very pleasant to find them to leave the main axes of the megalopolis.

Visit the Moscow Kremlin

Visit Kremlin is on top of things to do in Moscow. A place of power for centuries, the Kremlin then shows us a whole different image when viewed from the inside. If you want to visit Moscow in 2 days, the Kremlin is certainly one of the must-see places in Moscow.

• Opening hours : Daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Thursday.
• See our blog post about visiting the Moscow Kremlin

Visit the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

This impressive Moscow Cathedral is the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is a must see if you visit Moscow in 2 days and clearly one of the things to do in Moscow. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior was first built in 1883 in memory of Russia’s victory over Napoleon’s Grand Army. Then in 1931 Stalin ordered its destruction. It was then rebuilt again (identically) only in 2000.

• Where? Ulitsa Volkhonka 15. At the foot of the Kropotkinskaya metro station.
• Opening hours . Daily: 10: 00-17: 00, except Monday: 13: 00-17: 00
• Free entry (some closing restrictions, for example a short)

Good to know! In orthodox religious places, one must avoid excessively uncovered clothing. Women should cover their heads. After visiting the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, you can explore Bolotny Island and Gorky Park. This is one of the routes our guide to Moscow.

The old Krasny Oktyabr factory: one of the coolest things to do in Moscow

If you cross the Moskva River by a pedestrian bridge which is located just in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, you will enjoy a beautiful view of the city and at the same time you can discover Balchug Island. Furthermore, if you want to visit Moscow in 2 days, you can include this island in your itinerary between the cathedral and Gorky park. Here is the old confectionery factory Krasny Oktyabr, which has gradually turned into a fashionable micro-district. There are then some elements of street art, cafes and restaurants and some Moscow bohemian side. At the end of the island you can see a gigantic 98-meter-high monument dedicated to the Russian reforming tsar Pierre The Great.

Good to know! You can find on this island are the trendiest nightclubs in Moscow. On weekends, there are taxi caps after midnight so there are so many people. On the other hand, if you go there in winter and during the day, the island is quite empty and less interesting to see.

Gorky Park is one of the TOP places to visit in Moscow, because it allows you to better understand the life of the locals and their rhythm. In fact, it’s a huge entertainment park. For example, in winter there is a giant ice rink and in summer – free dance or yoga lessons, sandy beaches for playing volleyball, an outdoor cinema. So, like the locals, have a Stakantchik (ice cream or cooked corn), and enjoy the atmosphere of the place: that’s one of the interesting things to do in Moscow to discover the city.

• Where? Krymsky Val 9. 20 minutes’ walk from Krasny Oktyabr, along the quays.

Sparrow Hill and Moscow State University

The Sparrow Hill, Vorobiovy Gori in Russian, is the highest point in Moscow. It is rather known to Russians, but less to travelers. A nice view on Moscow opens from the hill, and in particular on the Luzhniki Stadium. In addition, on the hill itself is the Moscow State University: an impressive skyscraper from the Soviet era.

• How to get there? By bus T7 (35 min) from Oktyaborskaya station, near Gorki Park. By metro (Vorobiovy Gorki station) + climb the hill on foot. On foot along the Moskva along the Gorky Park (1h30) + climb in funiculars.

Good to know! It is possible to cross the Moskva river by funicular. We actually tested it and it was pretty cool! That is one of our favorite things to do in Moscow!

What to do in Moscow in 3 days?

If you are going to visit Moscow in 3 days, it would be interesting to dive into the Soviet era which strongly marked the country and the city. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the capital was transferred from Saint Petersburg to Moscow, in order to mark the change of power. Moscow then became the world showcase for communist ideology. Here are the best things to do in Moscow for 3-day-trip!

VDNKh, visit Moscow of the Soviet era

VDNKh is a large exhibition center in the north of Moscow, where there are still several striking witnesses of the USSR. The most interesting are the Museum of Cosmonauts and the Statue of the Worker and the Kolkhozian , which will certainly impress you with its size!

GULAG History Museum

The explanations of the museum are very well done. We really have the feeling of going back in time. If you are going to visit Moscow in 3 days and you are interested in history and this subject in particular, I recommend this museum. Visit the GULAG History Museum is one of the most interesting things to do in Moscow.

Discover the Patriarche Pounds district

It’s a nice neighborhood in Moscow where you can come across rather affluent locals, but not necessarily very bling-bling. Take a walk in this area is really a cool thing to do in Moscow! In addition, the Ponds of Patriarch is one of the places of Bulgakov’s novel “Master and Margarita”. As this is an interesting area to see, we have included it in a walking tour of Moscow. The route ends at the Moscow Kremlin, which is very convenient, because you will be able to visit Moscow in 3 days by optimizing your trips.

What to visit in Moscow in 4 days: TOP things to do in Moscow in 4 days

If you want to visit Moscow in 3 days, you will already see a lot of things. On the other hand, if you stay one more day, you have plenty to do! The Novodevichy Convent, the Tchistie Proudy district and the Izmaylovo Kremlin are very good candidates for you, if you are going to visit Moscow in 4 days.

Visiting Novodevichy Convent in Moscow

The Novodevichy Convent is one of the most brilliant examples of Russian architecture, according to UNESCO. This beautiful complex was built in 1524 and today consists of the convent, but also of a cemetery whose status could be compared to that of Père-Lachaise in Paris. Visiting Novodevichy Convent is one of the great things to do in Moscow, if you want to go a little bit outside of the center!

Discovering Tchistye Proudy district

It’s one of the most popular areas of Moscow, with many cafes, restaurants and bars nearby. It is therefore a place to discover if you want to visit Moscow in 4 days. It is just as pleasant for a stroll as for the discovery of local life. For example, in winter the pond turns into an ice rink.

Visiting the Izmaylovo Kremlin, one of the coolest things to do in Moscow!

The Izmaylovo Kremlin is more of a tourist than a historic place. On the other hand, it is a pretty impressive place to discover, especially on weekends. Inside the Kremlin, there is a flea market where you can find a little bit of everything, but mostly good souvenirs to bring from Moscow. For example, chapka, traditional Russian scarves or matryoshka (Russian dolls). Add the Kremlin and the Izmaïlovo market to your itinerary if you are going to visit Moscow in 4 days, because it is a nice and very colorful place! Visiting the Izmailovo Kremlin is one of the things to do in Moscow, if you want to put colors in your Instagram account! 😉

In 4 days, we will have the opportunity to see several Moscow: Classic Moscow, Moscow of old Russia, Soviet Moscow and a little bit of the new Moscow. So what to visit in Moscow on the 5th day of travel?

What to visit in Moscow in 5 days?

Art lovers will be delighted to discover the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, while others will prefer to stroll along Arbat Street, see the buildings of Moskva-City or visit Bunker 42.

Admiring Russian art at Tretyakov Gallery

Founded in 1856 by an industrialist and great lover of art, the gallery has grown over the decades, and then bequeathed to the state. Today the collection includes more than 140,000 pieces, 15,000 of which are paintings. Visiting the Tretyakov Gallery is one of the things to do in Moscow if you want to discover Russian art!

• Where? Pereoulok Lavrouchinski 10. A 5-minute walk from Tretiakovskaya station
• Opening hours. Open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Closed on Mondays.
• Entry tickets. 500 RUB.

Visiting the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts presents the treasures of ancient Egypt, the paintings of Rembrandt and Cézanne, a fine collection of Impressionism.

• Where? Ulitsa Volkhonka 12
• Opening hours. Daily: 10: 00-20: 00, except Thursday: 11: 00-21: 00. Closed on Mondays. The boxes close an hour before closing.
• Entry tickets. The prices vary according to the collections from 300 to 750 RUB.

Walking on Arbat Street

All Russians know Rue Arbat. So, walking on Arbat street is one of the things to do in Moscow. However, after the years, little by little it became very touristy. This is a pedestrian street only. There are souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes there, but it is no longer the most authentic neighborhood in the city.

Seeing the buildings of Moskva-City (Moscow City)

Moskva-City is Moscow’s business center, much like Paris’s Defense district. The skyscrapers of Moskva-City are among the tallest in Europe: 373 meters high! Very nice place to see at dusk.

Good to know! You can admire a nice view of Moscow City from the docks of Tarasa Shevchenko. It’s especially beautiful in the evening with all the lights on.

Bunker 42, one of the most unusual things to do in Moscow

Bunker 42 is a secret military complex which was to be used by the Soviets in the event of a nuclear attack: a space of 7000 m² 65 meters underground!

• Where? 5 Kotelnitcheski Lane, 11.
• Prices. 2200 RUB per person
• Opening hours. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Restaurant inside. Original, but rather a tourist trap.

What to visit in Moscow in 6 days or more?

There are still so many places to see, because Moscow is a big megalopolis and there is always something exciting to do there. For example: the ancient Kolomenskoye village or the WINZAVOD contemporary art center .

If you are interested in history and want to see Russian cities on a rather “human scale”, it would certainly be interesting for you to discover the cities of the Golden Ring . For example, it is very easy to get to Sergey Posad from Moscow (less than 2 hours in train). Visiting the Golden Ring is one of the best things to do in Moscow if you are staying more than a 5-6 days.

There are still plenty of places to see in Moscow, however I did my best to list here the best things to do in Moscow, what to see in Moscow in one day, but also in 2, 3, 4 or 5 days in Moscow!

Moscow travel tips:

• Airport transfer: how to go to Moscow?
• Where to stay in Moscow (hotels, districts)?
• Tourist voucher for Russian visa
• Christmas and New Year in Moscow
• What is the best time to visit Moscow?

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Earthquake showed Taiwan was well prepared for a big one — more so than parts of U.S.

The powerful earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday shook an island that was well prepared for a seismic catastrophe — likely more so than some regions of the U.S., several experts said. 

Nine people have been reported dead, though Taiwanese officials said the death toll could rise in the coming days . More than 1,000 were injured and at least 100 were feared trapped. But given the size of the quake — magnitude 7.4 — seismology experts said it appeared the dense island had fared as well as could be expected in initial reports.

That’s no fluke: Taiwan uses a robust early-warning system and has modern seismic building codes, experts said, and its population is accustomed to frequent seismic activity. Following the devastating 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, the island significantly upgraded much of its infrastructure.

“Two thousand four hundred people died. And this time, we only have nine people reported dead. You see the progress,” said Larry Syu-Heng Lai, a geologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington who grew up and studied in Taiwan. “Our buildings are stronger. Our facilities are better. You can say we take it seriously — but it’s part of life every day.” 

Experts said U.S. cities in earthquake-prone areas along the West Coast are making varying levels of progress to prepare for temblors. But none measure up to Taiwan’s capital.

“Seattle isn’t doing as much to prepare — or Portland — as Los Angeles or San Francisco. And neither are doing as much to prepare as Taipei,” said Harold Tobin, the director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and a professor at the University of Washington.

Officials and researchers in Taiwan are still evaluating the earthquake’s characteristics, impacts and casualties. The lessons they learn could provide U.S. scientists and political leaders a measuring stick for how buildings and communities here might fare. 

“These events always give us information to evaluate how well we’re doing here in California,” said John Wallace, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

In a review of early images and reports from Taiwan after the earthquake, Wallace said it appeared that much of the damage was in older concrete buildings that were five to 10 stories tall and had first floors with open commercial space. Many were on street corners, where buildings can be subjected to twisting forces that heighten damage. 

“There’s a weak first story that collapses. It concentrates the damage in that first story,” Wallace said. 

He added that older, concrete buildings would be expected to struggle with an earthquake and are the targets for retrofits in Taiwan and the U.S. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s tall buildings — which have a higher level of engineering — appeared to have performed admirably, as expected, Wallace said.

That includes Taipei 101, the island’s tallest tower, which features a 660-metric-ton steel ball suspended with cables in its upper stories — a system designed to dampen movement from heavy winds and earthquakes. 

“If what looks like it happened holds up — for the magnitude of this earthquake and its proximity to land, overall they did quite well there. I hate to say that when people were killed,” Tobin said.

Nearly 25 years ago, the magnitude-7.7 Chi-Chi earthquake catalyzed Taiwan toward better preparation.   

Lai was 11 when the quake struck and can still recall how the temblor shook him awake at his family’s apartment in TaiPei and nearly threw him out of bed. 

After that, he noticed the island slowly transforming to better mitigate risk. At school, there was a new emphasis and training on earthquake safety. And over the next decade, political leaders instituted new building codes, reclassified seismic zones and designated emergency command centers in rural areas, Lai said. 

Wallace flew to Taiwan a week after the Chi-Chi quake and helped inspect bridges in its aftermath. In the years that followed, he said, the island started by evaluating and retrofitting school buildings and then moved on to the oldest buildings most at risk for collapse. 

The initiatives resemble Southern California’s, Wallace said: “We’ve basically been doing kind of the same thing.” 

He added, though, that he thinks Taiwan has moved more quickly because frequent, smaller earthquakes kept the issue top of mind. 

Other West Coast states lag behind California. Washington only began to systematically evaluate its schools in the past 10 years , and many of Seattle’s old brick buildings are not retrofitted and are likely to collapse in a large earthquake .

Taiwan’s sophisticated early-warning system is also an important part of its safety infrastructure. The system relies on a islandwide network of seismic instruments; when a large quake happens, the system sends messages to people’s phones and automatically cuts into live TV programming to give residents seconds of warning.

Some aspects of it are similar to the systems used in California, Oregon and Washington.

“In the U.S., our ShakeAlert system has the capability to send out an Amber Alert-style messages to all our phones, but it isn’t wired in broadcast media in the same way,” Tobin said. 

Video on social media showed TV footage of Taiwanese news programming in which on-screen warnings arrived before shaking began, according to Tobin.  

In Taiwan, “there is a more comprehensive warning capability,” he said. 

The systems in both Taiwan and the U.S. work by detecting “P-waves” from an earthquake and calculating their strength before sending alerts through internet networks. 

“Earthquakes send different waves — ripples on a pond — from the epicenter,” Tobin said. “The ripples that spread the fastest are not the damaging ones, they’re a harbinger, a Paul Revere rider.” 

Lai said Taiwan’s progress on earthquake safety was gradual and required public education, as well as trust in government and faith in scientists. 

“We took 25 years to get to this point,” he said.

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].

Three decades after the Soviet era, this Moscow street echoes what was.

And hints where russia is heading., welcome to tverskaya street.

MOSCOW — Thirty years ago, the Soviet Union ceased to be. The flag was lowered for the last time on Dec. 25, 1991. That moment still raises deep questions for the U.S.S.R.’s heirs: “Who were we as Soviets, and where are we going as Russians?”

Many of the answers can be found on Moscow’s main thoroughfare — named Gorky Street, after writer Maxim Gorky, from 1932 to 1990, and renamed Tverskaya Street, a nod to the ancient city of Tver, as the Soviet Union was awash in last-gasp reforms.

It was the Soviet Union’s display window on the bright future that Kremlin-run communism was supposed to bring. It was where the KGB dined, the rich spent their rubles, Vladimir Lenin gave speeches from a balcony, and authorities wielded their power against one of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In the 1990s, Tverskaya embodied the fast-money excesses of the post-Soviet free-for-all. In later years, it was packed with hopeful pro-democracy marchers. And now , under President Vladimir Putin, it is a symbol of his dreams of reviving Russia as a great power, reliving past glories and crushing any opposition to his rule.

Join a tour of Moscow’s famed Tverskaya Street.

Hotel National: Where the Soviet government began

The window in Room 107 at the Hotel National faces Red Square and the Kremlin. It offers a perfect view of Lenin’s tomb — fitting, since he was Room 107’s most famous guest.

The Kremlin was damaged during the Russian Revolution in 1917. So Lenin and his wife moved into Room 107 for seven days in March 1918, making the hotel the first home of the Soviet government.

The Hotel National in Moscow, from top: Artwork in the Socialist Realist style — which artists were ordered to adopt in the 1930s — still adorns the hotel; Elena Pozolotina has worked at the hotel since 1995; the hotel, which contains a restaurant, was built in 1902; the National has hosted notable guests, including Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and actor Jack Nicholson. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

The National, built in 1902 during the era of Imperial Russia, also accommodated other Soviet leaders, including Leon Trotsky and Felix Dzerzhinsky, chief of the secret police. The building continued to be used by the Soviet government as a hostel for official party delegates and was renamed First House of Soviets in 1919.

Guests can now stay in the same room Lenin did for about $1,300 a night. In more recent years, the hotel has hosted notable guests including Barack Obama (when he was a senator) and actor Jack Nicholson.

“This hotel feels a little like a museum,” said Elena Pozolotina, who has worked at the National since 1995.

“We have rooms that look onto Tverskaya Street, and we always explain to guests that this is the main street of our city,” Pozolotina said. “This corner of Tverskaya that we occupy, it’s priceless.”

Stalin’s plan: ‘The building is moving’

When Soviet leader Joseph Stalin demanded a massive redevelopment of Moscow in 1935, an order came to transform modest Gorky Street into a wide, awe-inspiring boulevard.

Engineer Emmanuel Gendel had the job of moving massive buildings to make way for others. Churches and monasteries were blown up, replaced by newspaper offices and a huge cinema.

The Moscow Central Eye Hospital was sheared from its foundation, rotated 97 degrees, jacked up, hitched on rails and pushed back 20 yards — with surgeons operating all the while, or so official media reported at the time.

Gendel’s daughter, then about 8, proudly stood at a microphone, announcing: “Attention, attention, the building is moving.” Tatiana Yastrzhembskaya, Gendel’s granddaughter and president of the Winter Ball charity foundation in Moscow, recalls that Gendel extolled communism but also enjoyed the rewards of the elite. He drove a fine car and always brought the family the best cakes and candies, she said.

The largest Gorky Street building Gendel moved was the Savvinskoye Courtyard. The most difficult was the Mossoviet, or Moscow city hall, with a balcony where Lenin had given speeches. The building, the former residence of the Moscow governor general, had to be moved with its basement. The ground floor had been a ballroom without central structural supports.

Moving buildings on Gorky Street in 1940, from left: A mechanic at a control panel regulates the supply of electricity while a house is being moved; a postal worker passes a moving house; a specialist unwinds a telephone cable during a building move to maintain uninterrupted communication; 13 rail tracks were placed under a house, on which 1,200 metal rollers were laid. (Photos by RGAKFD)

Gendel’s skills were used all over the U.S.S.R. — straightening towers on ancient mosques in Uzbekistan, inventing a means to drag tanks from rivers during World War II and consulting on the Moscow Metro.

Like many of the Soviet Union’s brightest talents, Gendel found that his freedom was tenuous. His ex-wife was called by the KGB internal spy agency in 1937 and asked to denounce him. She refused, and he avoided arrest.

“I believe he was not arrested and sent to the camps because he was a unique expert,” said Yastrzhembskaya. World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, interrupted the Master Plan for Gorky Street.

Aragvi restaurant: A haunt of the KGB

In the 1930s, the head of the elite NKVD secret police, Lavrenty Beria, one of the architects of the Stalin-era purges, ordered the construction of a state-owned restaurant, Aragvi, to showcase food from his home republic of Georgia.

One night, NKVD agents descended in several black cars on a humble Georgian canteen in Moscow that Beria had once visited. The agents ordered the chef, Longinoz Stazhadze, to come with them. The feared NKVD was a precursor to the KGB.

Stazhadze thought he was being arrested, his son Levan told Russian media. He was taken to Beria, who said that he had agreed with “the Boss” (Stalin) that Stazhadze would run Aragvi. Stazhadze had grown up a peasant, sent to work in a prince’s kitchens as a boy.

Aragvi opened in 1938. It was only for the gilded set, a reminder that the “Soviet paradise” was anything but equitable. The prices were astronomical. It was impossible to get a table unless the doorman knew you or you could pay a hefty bribe.

Aragvi, at No. 6 Tverskaya, was a favorite of the secret police; government officials; cosmonauts and pilots; stars of theater, movies and ballet; directors; poets; chess masters. Beria reputedly dined in a private room. Poet Sergei Mikhalkov said he composed the lyrics of the Soviet national anthem while sitting in the restaurant in 1943.

It was privatized in the 1990s and struggled, before closing in 2002. It reopened in 2016 after a $20 million renovation. But the new Aragvi closed abruptly in 2019 amid reports of a conflict between its owner and the building managers.

“You put your entire soul into cooking,” said the former head chef, Nugzar Nebieridze, 59, celebrated for his khinkali, a meaty dumpling almost the size of a tennis ball. He was devastated to find himself unemployed. But other doors opened. He now prefers to travel, giving master classes around Russia.

Stalin’s funeral: A deadly street crush that never officially happened

On March 6, 1953, the day after Stalin died of a stroke, an estimated 2 million Muscovites poured onto the streets. They hoped to catch a glimpse of his body, covered with flowers and laid out in the marbled Hall of Columns near Red Square.

Yulia Revazova, then 13, sneaked from her house with her cousin Valery without telling their parents. As they walked toward Pushkin Square, at one end of Gorky Street, the procession turned into a scene of horror. They saw people falling and being trampled. Some were crushed against metal fences. Valery, who was a few years older, grabbed Yulia by the hand and dragged her out of the crowd.

“He held my hand really tight and never let it go, because it was pure madness,” she recalled recently. “It took us four or five hours to get out of there. People kept coming and coming. I couldn’t even call it a column; it was just an uncontrollable mass of people.”

“I still have this feeling, the fear of massive crowds,” added Revazova, 82. “To this day, if I see a huge group of people or a really long line, I just cross the street.”

Neither Revazova nor her cousin knew about Stalin’s repressions.

“People were crying. I saw many women holding little handkerchiefs, wiping away tears and wailing,” she recalled. “That’s the psychology of a Soviet person. If there is no overarching figure above, be it God or Lenin, life will come crashing down. The era was over, and there was fear. What will we do without Stalin?”

Officials never revealed how many people died that day. The Soviet-approved archival footage of the four days of national mourning showed only orderly marches and memorials.

No. 9: The ruthless culture minister

The Soviet culture minister, the steely Yekaterina Furtseva, was nicknamed Catherine the Third, after the forceful Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Furtseva destroyed writers, artists or anyone else who challenged Soviet ideas. She lived at an elite 1949 apartment building for government officials at No. 9 — an ultra-prestigious address with a view of the Kremlin.

Furtseva, a former small-town weaver, made sure that No. 9 was only for the cream of party officials and other notables, such as famous Soviet actress Natalia Seleznyova, scientists, conductors and architects.

Riding the coattails of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Furtseva was the only woman in the Politburo and later became the Soviet Union’s cultural gatekeeper despite her provincial sensibilities. She once infamously mixed up a symphony with an opera, and critics were quick to notice.

“She had little in common with the artistic leaders of her country except a liking for vodka,” Norwegian painter Victor Sparre wrote in his 1979 book on the repression of dissident Soviet writers, “The Flame in the Darkness.”

Furtseva was famous for previewing performances and declaring anyone even subtly critical of Soviet policies as being anti-state. Director Yuri Lyubimov described one such visit to Moscow’s Taganka Theater in 1969, when she turned up wearing diamond rings and an astrakhan coat. She banned the play “Alive,” depicting a cunning peasant’s struggle against the collective farm system. She “was livid, she kept shouting,” he told L’Alternative magazine in 1984. She stormed out, warning him she would use her influence, “up to the highest levels,” against him.

He was expelled from the party and in 1984 was stripped of his citizenship. She vehemently denounced Solzhenitsyn, and banned the Bolshoi Ballet’s version of “Carmen” in 1967 over prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya’s sensual performance and “un-Soviet” costumes that did not cover enough leg.

“The ballet is all erotica,” she told the dancer. “It’s alien to us.” But Plisetskaya, whom Khrushchev once called the world’s best dancer, fought back. The ballet went on with some excisions (the costumes stayed) and became a legend in the theater’s repertoire.

Furtseva was nearly felled by scandal in 1974, ordered to repay $80,000 spent building a luxurious dacha, or country home, using state labor. She died months later.

Where Solzhenitsyn was arrested

The Nobel Prize-winning Solzhenitsyn exposed the Soviet system’s cruelty against some of its brightest minds, trapped in the gulag, or prison camps.

Solzhenitsyn was given eight years of hard labor in 1945 for privately criticizing Stalin, then three years of exile in Kazakhstan, a Soviet republic at the time. His books were banned. After release from exile in 1956, he was allowed to make only 72-hour visits to the home of his second wife, Natalia, at 12 Gorky St., Apt. 169. Solzhenitsyn had to live outside the city.

“People knew that there were camps, but not many people, if any, knew what life was like in those camps. And he described it from the inside. He had been there himself, and that was shocking to a lot of people,” said Natalia Solzhenitsyna during a recent interview at the apartment, which became a museum in 2018.

“Many people say that he did make a contribution to the final fall of the Soviet Union.”

Solzhenitsyn, who died in 2008, called Russia “the land of smothered opportunities.” He wrote that it is always possible to live with integrity. Lies and evil might flourish — “but not through me.”

The museum displays tiny handwritten copies of Solzhenitsyn’s books, circulated secretly; film negatives of letters smuggled to the West; and beads made of compacted bread that he used to memorize poems in prison.

“He spent a lot of time here with his children. We were always very busy. And we just enjoyed ourselves — being together,” Solzhenitsyna said. They had three sons.

No. 12 Gorky St., from top: Natalia Solzhenitsyna lived in the apartment for years, and her husband, Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was allowed only short visits; the site now houses a museum displaying items connected to him, such as negatives containing a copy of a novel he wrote; another exhibit includes Solzhenitsyn’s clothes from when he was sent to the gulag and beads made of compacted bread that he used to memorize poems; the Nobel Prize-winning writer’s desk is featured at the museum. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

Because of KGB bugs, if the couple were discussing something sensitive, they wrote notes to each other, and then destroyed them. Two KGB agents usually roosted in the stairwell on the floor above, with two more on the floor below.

“The Soviet authorities were afraid of him because of his popularity among intellectuals, writers, people of culture and the intelligentsia.”

Her favorite room is decked with black-and-white photos of dissidents sent to the gulag, the Soviet Union’s sprawling system of forced labor camps. “It’s dedicated to the invisibles,” she said, pointing out friends.

Sweden planned to award Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 literature prize in the Gorky Street apartment, but the writer rejected a secret ceremony. A Swedish journalist in Moscow, Stig Fredrikson, was Solzhenitsyn’s smuggler. He carried Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel lecture on tightly rolled film disguised as a battery in a transistor radio, and he took other letters to the West and transported photos taped to his back.

“I felt that there was a sense of unfairness that he was so isolated and so persecuted,” Fredrikson said in a recent interview. “I got more and more scared and more and more afraid every time I met him.”

In 1971, the Soviet Union allegedly tried to poison Solzhenitsyn using a secret nerve agent, leaving him seriously ill. Early 1974 was tense. The prosecutor subpoenaed him. State newspapers railed against him.

The morning of Feb. 12, 1974, the couple worked in their study. In the afternoon, he walked his 5-month-old son, Stepan, in the yard below.

“He came back here, and literally a minute later, there was a ring at the door. There were eight men. They immediately broke the chain and got in,” his widow said. “There was a prosecutor in his prosecutor’s uniform, two men in plainclothes, and the rest were in military uniform. They told him to get dressed.”

“We hugged and we kept hugging for quite a while,” she recalled. “The last thing he told me was to take care of the children.”

He was deported to West Germany. The couple later settled in Vermont and set up a fund to help dissident writers, using royalties from his book “The Gulag Archipelago.” About 1,000 people still receive money from the fund, according to Solzhenitsyna.

When the writer and his wife returned to Russia in 1994, they traveled across the country by train. Thousands of people crushed into halls to hear him speak.

Solzhenitsyn abhorred the shock therapy and unchecked capitalism of the 1990s and preferred Putin’s tough nationalism. He died of heart failure at 89 in August 2008, five months after a presidential election in which Putin switched places with the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, in a move that critics saw as a ploy to get around constitutional term limits.

No. 6: ‘Feasts of thought’

Behind a grand Stalin-era apartment block at 6 Gorky St. sits an ornate 1907 building famous for its facade, art nouveau glazed blue tiles, elegant arches and baroque spires. Once a monastery dormitory, it was a staple of pre-Soviet postcards from Moscow. But in November 1939, the 26,000-ton building was put on rails and pushed back to widen the street.

Linguists Lev and Raisa Kopelev lived in Apt. 201 on the top floor. Their spacious dining room became a favored haven for Moscow’s intelligentsia from the 1950s to the 1980s.

“People gathered all the time — to talk. In this apartment, like many other kitchens and dining rooms, at tables filled more often than not with vodka, herring and vinaigrette salad, feasts of thought took place,” said Svetlana Ivanova, Raisa’s daughter from another marriage, who lived in the apartment for nearly four decades.

Solzhenitsyn and fellow dissident Joseph Brodsky were Kopelev family friends, as were many other artists, poets, writers and scientists who formed the backbone of the Soviet human rights movement of the 1960s.

As a writer and dissident, Kopelev had turned his back on the Communist Party and a prestigious university position. The onetime gulag prisoner inspired the character Lev Rubin in Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle,” depicting the fate of arrested scientists.

“The apartment was a special place for everyone. People there were not afraid to speak their mind on topics that would be considered otherwise risky,” Ivanova said. “A new, different spirit ruled in its walls.”

Eliseevsky: Pineapples during a famine

The Eliseevsky store at No. 16 was a landmark for 120 years — born in czarist Russia, a witness to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, a survivor of wars, and a bastion during eras of shortages and plenty. It closed its doors in April.

Eliseevsky fell on hard times during the coronavirus pandemic, as international tourists dwindled and Russians sought cheaper grocery-shopping alternatives.

In the palace-like interior, two chandeliers hang from an ornate ceiling. Gilt columns line the walls. The front of the store, looking out at Tverskaya Street, has a row of stained glass.

The Eliseevsky store, which opened in 1901, is seen in April, with a few customers and some archival photos, as it prepared to close as an economic victim of the coronavirus pandemic. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

Denis Romodin, a historian at the Museum of Moscow, said Eliseevsky is one of only two retail spaces in Moscow with such pre-revolutionary interiors. But Eliseevsky’s level of preservation made it “one of a kind,” he said.

The building was once owned by Zinaida Volkonskaya, a princess and Russian cultural figure in the 19th century. She remodeled the house into a literary salon whose luminaries included Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin.

St. Petersburg merchant Grigory Eliseev opened the market in 1901. It quickly became a hit among Russian nobility for its selection of European wines and cheeses.

Romodin said it was Russia’s first store with price tags. Before Eliseevsky, haggling was the norm. And it was also unique in having innovative technology for the time: electric-powered refrigerators and display cases that allowed goods to be stored longer.

Even in the Soviet Union’s hungriest years, the 1930s famine, Eliseevsky stocked pineapples.

“One could find outlandish delicacies here, which at that time seemed very exotic,” Romodin said. “It was already impossible to surprise Muscovites with wine shops. But a grocery store with luxurious interiors, and large for that time, amazed and delighted Muscovites.”

The First Gallery: A glimpse of openness

In 1989, in a dusty government office by a corner of Pushkin Square, three young artists threw off decades of suffocating state control and opened the Soviet Union’s first independent art gallery.

That April, Yevgeny Mitta and two fellow students, Aidan Salakhova and Alexander Yakut, opened First Gallery. At the time, the Soviet Union was opening up under policies including glasnost, which gave more room for public debate and criticism.

Artists were ordered to adopt the Socialist Realist style in 1934, depicting scenes such as happy collective farmworkers. Expressionist, abstract and avant-garde art was banned. From the 1970s, underground art exhibitions were the only outlets to break the Soviet-imposed rules.

The First Gallery, from top: Yevgeny Mitta, Aidan Salakhova and Alexander Yakut opened the Soviet Union’s first independent art gallery in 1989 and received media attention; Mitta works on a painting that he displayed at his gallery; Mitta recalled recently that he “felt we had to make something new”; an undated photo of Mitta at his gallery in Soviet times. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post and courtesy of Yevgeny Mitta)

“I just felt we had to make something new,” recalled Mitta, 58, who kept his interest in contemporary expressionism a secret at a top Moscow art school in the 1980s.

“It was like nothing really happened in art history in the 20th century, like it stopped,” he said. “The Socialist Realism doctrine was invented and spread to the artists as the only one, possible way of developing paintings, films and literature.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, artists had to “learn how to survive, what to do, how to work and make a living,” he said.

McDonald’s: ‘We were not used to smiling’

In the Soviet Union’s final years, a mania raged for all things Western. Estée Lauder opened the first Western-brand shop on Gorky Street in 1989, after meeting Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in December 1988.

The Soviet Union’s first McDonald’s, located across Pushkin Square on Gorky Street, opened on Jan. 31, 1990 — a yellow-arched symbol of Gorbachev’s perestroika economic reforms. Pizza Hut opened later that year. (In 1998, Gorbachev starred in a commercial for the pizza chain.)

Karina Pogosova and Anna Patrunina were cashiers at the McDonald’s on opening day. The line stretched several blocks. Police officers stood watch to keep it organized.

The Soviet Union’s first McDonald’s opened in 1990 and eager customers lined up to enter; Karina Pogosova, left, and Anna Patrunina were cashiers at the fast-food restaurant on Gorky Street then, and they are senior executives with the company today. (Photos by Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images and Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

“The atmosphere was wonderful. The first day I had to smile the entire day and my face muscles hurt,” Patrunina said. “This is not a joke. Russians do not smile in general, so we were not used to smiling at all, not to mention for more than eight hours straight.”

Pogosova and Patrunina were students at the Moscow Aviation Institute when they learned McDonald’s was hiring through an ad in a Moscow newspaper. Interview questions included: “How fast can you run 100 meters?” It was to gauge if someone was energetic enough for the job.

Pogosova and Patrunina are still with the company today, as senior vice president of development and franchising and vice president of operations, respectively.

“I thought that this is the world of opportunities and this new world is coming to our country, so I must be in this new world,” Patrunina said.

The smiling staff wasn’t the only culture shock for customers. Some had never tried the fountain sodas that were available. They were unaccustomed to food that wasn’t eaten with utensils. The colorful paper boxes that Big Macs came in were occasionally saved as souvenirs.

McDonald’s quickly became a landmark on the street.

“I remember very well that the street and the entire city was very dark and McDonald’s was like an island of light with bright signage,” Pogosova said. “The street started to change after McDonald’s opened its first restaurant there.”

Wild ’90s and a missing ballerina

The end of the Soviet Union uncorked Moscow’s wild 1990s. Some people made instant fortunes by acquiring state-owned enterprises at throwaway prices. Rules were being written on the fly. The city was pulsing with possibilities for those with money or those desperate to get some.

“It was easy to get drunk on this,” said Alex Shifrin, a former Saatchi & Saatchi advertising executive from Canada who lived in Moscow from the mid-1990s until the late 2000s.

It all was on full display at Night Flight, Moscow’s first nightclub, opened by Swedish managers in 1991, in the final months of the Soviet Union, at Tverskaya 17. The club introduced Moscow’s nouveau elite to “face control” — who merits getting past the rope line — and music-throbbing decadence.

The phrase “standing on Tverskaya” made its way into Russian vernacular as the street became a hot spot for prostitutes. Toward the end of the 2000s, Night Flight had lost its luster. The club scene in Moscow had moved on to bigger and bolder venues.

Decades before, No. 17 had been famous as the building with the dancer: a statue of a ballerina, holding a hammer and sickle, placed atop the cupola during Stalin’s building blitz.

Muscovites nicknamed the building the House Under the Skirt.

“The idea was to have Gorky Street as a museum of Soviet art. The statues represented a dance of socialism,” art historian Pavel Gnilorybov said. “The ballerina was a symbol of the freedom of women and the idea that, before the revolution, women were slaves. It is as if she is singing an ode to the regime.”

The crumbling statues were removed by 1958. People forgot them. Now a group of Muscovites, including Gnilorybov, are campaigning for the return of the ballerina.

“It’s an idea that we want to give the city as a gift. It’s not political,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

Pushkin Square: For lovers and protesters

Pushkin Square has been Moscow’s favorite meeting place for friends, lovers and political demonstrations.

In November 1927, Trotskyist opponents of Stalin marched to the 27th House of Soviets at one end of Tverskaya Street, opposite the Hotel National, in one of the last public protests against the Soviet ruler.

In December 1965, several dozen dissidents gathered in Pushkin Square to protest the trials of two writers. It became an annual event. People would gather just before 6 p.m. and, on the hour, remove their hats for a minute.

In 1987, dissidents collected signatures at Pushkin Square and other locations calling for a memorial to those imprisoned or killed by the Soviet state. The movement evolved into Memorial, a leading human rights group. Memorial was declared a “foreign agent” in 2016 under Putin’s sweeping political crackdowns.

In January 2018, left, and January 2021, right, protesters gathered at Pushkin Square. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

Protests in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny were held at Pushkin Square earlier this year. And it is where communists and liberals rallied on a rainy September night to protest 2021 parliamentary election results that gave a landslide win to Putin’s United Russia party despite widespread claims of fraud.

Nearly 30 years after the fall of the U.S.S.R., Putin’s Russia carries some echoes of the stories lived out in Soviet times — censorship and repressions are returning. Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent in 2020 and later jailed. Many opposition figures and independent journalists have fled the country. The hope, sleaze and exhilaration of the 1990s have faded. Tverskaya Street has settled into calm stagnation, waiting for the next chapter.

Arthur Bondar contributed to this report.

Correction: A map accompanying this article incorrectly spelled the first name of a former Soviet leader. He is Vladimir Lenin, not Vladmir Lenin. The map has been corrected.

About this story

Story editing by Robyn Dixon and Brian Murphy. Photos and videos by Arthur Bondar. Archival footage from the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk; footage of Joseph Stalin’s funeral from the Martin Manhoff Archive, courtesy of Douglas Smith. Photo editing by Chloe Coleman. Video editing by Jason Aldag. Design and development by Yutao Chen. Design editing by Suzette Moyer. Maps by Dylan Moriarty. Graphics editing by Lauren Tierney. Copy editing by Melissa Ngo.

30 Frequently Asked Questions about Russia

Moscow Russia is flourishing in terms of tourism. Last Christmas and New Year holidays Moscow got into TOP 5 travel destinations in the world. Tourism in Russia will grow by 20% in 2019 as predicted by the Association of Tour Operators of Russia. The country will meet over 30 million tourists and this will be a record indicator for Russia.

Here are 30 Frequently Asked Question s about Moscow, Russia, Russian people and everything else you wanted to know before visiting Russia. Our Moscow guide Nikita is covering some of them in his video that he recorded specially for you. A short 1-minute video with most interesting facts is in the end of the article.

1. Where does Putin live?

Ultimately, Putin has a lot of residences at his disposal – it is believed he has around 20 palaces, villas and residences.

The official residence of Putin has since 2000 been Novo-Ogaryovo, which is located in a forest on Rublevo-Uspensky highway near Moscow.

2. Where does Putin work?

The working residence of Putin is the Senate building (also known as 1st building) in Moscow City, Russia, but he can also use the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Previously the president could use the 14th Administrative Corpus Building, but it was demolished in 2016.

3. Is there any possibility to meet Putin in person?

Actually it is not very easy to meet the president of Russia not only for foreigners but even for Russian people .  Vladimir Putin is well-known by his security precautions, you can’t meet him just walking down the street, but there’s always a chance ;).

If you received a high-ranked honor or decoration from Russia, then it is possible since it will be Putin himself who will bestow the award on you. Another chance to see the president is to visit some important government events such as parades, football matches etc.

4. What is the average price for an apartment in Moscow city center?

Moscow today is one of the most expensive cities in the world – its not a secret. A square meter in the center is now an average of 520 thousand rubles. The most expensive options inside the Third ring road are located in the Arbat area (1 397 100 rubles per meter). Second place goes to Khamovniki with an average cost per square meter of 759 thousand rubles.

Arbat street in Moscow – one of the most expensive streets in Russia

5. What is the average salary in Russia?

The official statistics body GKS.ru reported the average monthly income of 31,506 rubles ($556) per person in the third quarter of 2017. In 2016, the average income per person in Russia was 30,744 rubles ($542) per month or 368,928 rubles ($6,511) annually.

In the city of Moscow , capital of Russia, the salaries have always been the highest and can be double and even triple of that in the regions.

6. What about Russian winter? Is it very cold and snowy?

Yes, Russian winter weather is  cold . Average temperature is about -20 -30 degrees – it depends on the region. This cold is usually accompanied by ice and snow that may be generously dropped on the city by winter storms. A few deaths from falling icicles happen every year in Russia, so it’s important to be aware of how severe the winter weather actually is. Anyway Russian winter is a very picturesque and fantastic time. it’s surely worth experiencing.

7. What do Russian people think about USA/Trump?

Ultimately Russian people are really friendly and it is correct to say that a reservoir of good will and friendliness toward Americans exists in the minds and the hearts of the Russian people. Of course there are some overly patriotic people who hostile to America and Trump. but they are not in the majority.

8. How many people support the Communist party? / Are you sure you are not a Communist country anymore?

It takes the former role of USSR Communist Party and is called United Russia. Communist party is a branch of United Russia for old people. To attract younger voters, the party supports various Komsomols (youth organizations). In the early 21st century, the support for the KPRF fell, though it continued to be the strongest opposition party in the State Duma.

9. Is it safe to walk in Moscow at night time? Are there a lot of criminals?

It is totally okay to walk round the city during the night time. But it is better to stay in the center of the city. Central parts are the safest. According to Moscow tour guide, most of the cafes, pubs, restaurants, clubs and other Moscow attractions that open at night are located in the central part of the city. So you don’t even need to go anywhere. The best locations for night pictures are also located in the city center. You will not really need to go outside of the center at night.

Is Moscow safe at night? Yes!

10. Where are all homeless people? Why is it so hard to find homeless in the Moscow city center?

You can still see them if you look closely, but officials have tried to hide them from view especially before the World Cup. Homeless people are reportedly being moved from outside train stations where they are given help by charities. Newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK) reported homeless people have been warned they will be “sent to special camps” ahead of the tournament which kicks off next week.

Is Moscow clean? YES!

11. Moscow streets are really clean and attractive. Did they make these renovations only because of the World Cup?

Not exactly. Of course Russian government paid attention on Moscow image before the World Cup but anyway it is not the only reason. During the last decade, the government is taking measures to clean the air, to plants trees and flowers, to get rid of trash and dirt, to make  Moscow streets  cleaner and more beautiful.

Is Moscow beautiful? Very!

12. What do Russians prefer to choose – renting an apartment or buying their own?

Everything depends on the region. In province people in most cases try to buy their own property but in Moscow the situation is controversial. The Moscow market is ever changing and growing. In Soviet times, property was state-owned and people only had the right to “use” them. Nowadays everyone can buy their own apartment but only in theory.

13. Are Moscow apartments expensive?

According to Easy Expat , prices for Moscow apartments are now among the highest in Europe, ranging from $10,700 to $20,500 US dollars per square meter in city center. So not everyone can really have their own apartment.

Moscow is a bit pricey, but way cheaper than most of Europe

14. Who was the first one – Stalin or Lenin? Why are they so popular?

Lenin and Stalin happen to be the most prominent and influential leaders of modern Soviet Union. The first one was Lenin and he totally changed the whole political system in Russia. While Stalin ruled for almost three decades and was the successor of Lenin, it was Lenin who remains the father figure and a creator of modern day communist USSR (which ended in 1990 though).

15. What is Moscow Russia known for?

Russia is known for being the largest country in the world, encompassing a total area of around 6.6 million square miles. It is situated in Northern Asia surrounding the Arctic Ocean, which stretches from the western section of the Urals to the North Pacific Ocean. Russia is famous for its rich history and cultural diversity in terms of literature, art, ballet and classical music. The country gave birth to influential and notorious world leaders, including Peter I, Ivan the Terrible, Lenin and Stalin.

Moscow is the capital of Russia, its administrative, economic, political and educational center. Moscow is known for its many historical buildings, museums and art galleries, as well as for the famous Bolshoi, Maly and Art Theatres.

Izmaylovo Flea Market in Moscow

16. Why did Stalin ruin so many churches and other cultural heritage?

During his time in power, Stalin had a complex relationship with religion. He claimed atheism and continuing the tradition of teaching atheism in schools and propagating the idea that religion was only damaging to a perfect communist society. Stalin initiated a nationwide campaign to destroy churches and religious property and even persecute and kill church officials.

Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow

17. What is people’s opinion about Gorbachov?

Opinion  on  Gorbachev  unites Russians with different political  views . Some people blame him for losing the Soviet.  Of course there are some people who are thankful for introducing perestroika, or restructuring, because for some Russians it was profitable.  But the statistics show that the majority of Russia – 42 %  – are completely indifferent to him.

18. Why is Ivan the Terrible called “Terrible”?

He was a very aggressive and despotic leader. He executed and exiled many prominent boyars on accusations of conspiracy. He made the first laws limiting the mobility of peasants, leading to serfdom. He beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, possibly leading to a miscarriage. He and his eldest son then engaged in an argument and Ivan struck him in the head with a staff, killing him.

19. Red Square is Kremlin?

Kremlin and Red Square are the most popular tourist attractions in the heart of Moscow, but they are separate sites. Kremlin is a historical fortress and Red Square is the most famous square in Russia, it hosts all official military parades, demonstrations and public events. Red Square is a city square (plaza) in Moscow, Russia. It separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and now the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitay Gorod.

Kremlin is Kremlin. Red Square is Red Square

20. Where can tourists buy cheap matryoshka and other souvenirs? What other Russian souvenirs are worth buying? Where are the best prices?

On our Moscow tours we do not recommend our tourists to buy souvenirs in the Moscow city center especially in the most common touristic places, nearby Moscow attractions such as Arbat, Red Square etc. The prices will be too high. The best decision is to find some flea markets. For example, Izmailovsky Market. The biggest and most popular flea market in Moscow sells almost every souvenir imaginable: from Soviet antiques, to paintings to Asian rugs. The further you go in, the lower the prices and the more likely you are to get great deals.

Neznayka – character from Russian fairy tales

21. What is the best season for visiting Russia? When to visit Moscow?

Moscow is a very beautiful city and every season has its own charm and beauty. Anyway the most comfortable weather conditions for people who want to visit Moscow are in spring and the beginning of autumn when it’s not extremely hot like in summer and not that cold like in winter. Besides there are not so many tourists like in summer.

What is the best season for visiting Russia? Spring

22. Moscow where is it? What regions is Moscow Russia in? Is Moscow Russia in Europe?

The absolute location of Moscow, Russia is 57 degrees north, and 30 degrees east.  In Russia there are twenty-one republics, nine territories, five autonomous circles, 46 regions and two cities that do not belong to any single entity – Moscow and St. Petersburg. About 75% of the Russian population live in European Russia. Population density in European Russia is around 27 people per square kilometer, whereas the population density in Asian Russia is just 2.5 people per square kilometer.

23. Why is Moscow the capital of Russia? Has Moscow always been Russian capital?

Moscow  used to be  Russia’s capital  before 1712 when Peter the Great moved the  capital  to his new city St. Petersburg. Moscow got its capital status back in 1918 when it became the  capital  of the Soviet Union after the  Russian Revolution.

Moscow – Russian capital

24. How many people live in Moscow Russia?

City of Moscow is home to 12.19 million people which makes it the 6th largest city in the world and the most populous city in Russia. Moscow has a density of 8,5 people per square kilometer.

The current population of  the whole country  is  about 144 million people.

13 million people live in Moscow, 144 million people live in Russia

25. Did many people visit Russia during World Cup? What nationalities came to Russia?

Quite a bit! During the World Cup, more than 1.8 million fan passports were issued (Fan ID), with which foreign guests could repeatedly visit Russia without a visa and stay in the country until July 25. Russian Fans got the most Fan IDs (980 000), in the second and third places – the citizens of China (67 000) and the USA (52 000). 44,000 Fan IDs were given to Mexicans, 37,000 to Argentines, 35,000 to Brazilians, 31,000 to Brits, 30,000 to Colombians and Germans, and 27,000 to Peruvians.

Brasil football fans in Moscow

26. Tourists from which countries travel to Russia most?

Tourists from Germany, China, Finland travel to Russia most often. Traveling to Russia is getting more and more popular among the tourists from India and Iran. The demand for tours to Russia is in Germany, Italy, France.

Mexican football fans in Moscow

27. Is it easy to get Russian visa?

Depends what country you are from and what places you want to visit in Russia. Getting a visa to Russia can be a bit pricey.

However, since August 2017, Primorsky Territory began to issue electronic visas for citizens of India, China, Mexico, Japan and some other countries. For such a visa, you can visit Primorye, Kamchatka and the Sakhalin region with no visa fee. By March 2018 about 9,000 electronic Russian visas have been issued.

28. Where to meet the most beautiful Russian women?

That’s a tricky one! According to a survey of foreign tourists visiting Russia during World Cup, most beauties were counted in Sochi and St. Petersburg – where local girls charmed 23% of football fans. Next comes Moscow – girls from the capital of Russia attracted 20% of foreign football fans. Among other cities, Nizhny Novgorod is #4 (12%) and Yekaterinburg is #5 (10%).

Most beautiful Russian women are in Sochi, St Petersburg and Moscow :)

29. What to see in Russia?

There is whole list of must-see places in Russia. Start with TOP 11 cities that hosted World Cup 2018: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Kazan , Samara, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Saransk, Rostov-na-Donu, Kaliningrad, Sochi. These cities are cultural and historical meccas in Russia.

TOP 11 Russian cities worth visiting: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Kazan, Samara, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Saransk, Rostov-na-Donu, Kaliningrad, Sochi

30. What was World Cup 2018 famous for? What were the records of World Cup 2018? Where was World Cup 2018 hosted?

This is the first time a tournament has taken place across two continents – Europe and Asia. Essam El-Hadary (45y 161d) from Egypt broke the record for the oldest player to appear at a World Cup. Brazil are the only nation to have played in every World Cup and have won the most titles (5).

World Cup 2018 Russian fans

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