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CHANEL CHANCE EAU TENDRE Eau de Toilette Twist And Spray

Item 2512068

The delicate and radiant CHANEL CHANCE EAU TENDRE Eau de Toilette in a portable Twist and Spray that goes with you anywhere.

Composition

• A green and fruity Grapefruit-Quince Accord intertwines with the softness of Jasmine and the smoothness of White Musks for an intoxicatingly light, floral trail.
• CHANCE EAU TENDRE Eau de Toilette Twist and Spray (3 x 0.7 oz)

Art of Perfuming

The easy-to-use spray rotates to dispense a fine mist anytime, anywhere. To refill, twist open to expose the atomizer. Pull up on the atomizer to remove the empty fragrance canister and replace it with a new fragrance canister. Gently press the canister into the case and twist down the top to close.

Ingredients

ALCOHOL, PARFUM (FRAGRANCE), AQUA (WATER), ALPHA-ISOMETHYL IONONE, LINALOOL, CITRONELLOL, LIMONENE, HYDROXYCITRONELLAL, HEXYL CINNAMAL, GERANIOL, BENZYL BENZOATE, ETHYLHEXYL METHOXYCINNAMATE, BUTYL METHOXYDIBENZOYLMETHANE, ETHYLHEXYL SALICYLATE, CI 60730 (EXT. VIOLET 2), CI 14700 (RED 4), IL36-1.

Disclaimer: Please be aware that ingredient lists may change or vary from time to time. To confirm that a CHANEL product is suitable for your personal use, please consult the list of ingredients that is included on the product packaging.

Shipping & Coupon Restrictions

Shipping Restrictions : This item cannot be shipped via air.

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CHANEL CHANCE EAU TENDRE

Eau de toilette twist and spray travel gift set.

Featuring the Eau de Toilette and a convenient, refillable purse spray, this delicate pairing expresses a romantic harmony of Grapefruit, Quince, Jasmine and White Musk. SET INCLUDES: 3.4 oz. Eau de Toilette Spray and 0.7 oz. Eau de Toilette Twist and Spray.

Web ID: 2715269

• Our Normal Gift Boxing is not available for this item.

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CHANEL CHANCE EAU TENDRE 3.4 oz. eau de toilette twist and spray set

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Ratings & Reviews

I've Got Chanel on the Brain: 11 $100-and-Under Beauty Products I'm Coveting

People tend to think they have to drop an incredibly large sum of money to purchase anything that has the iconic Chanel logo on it. That might be true for fashion (which is why I still haven't purchased one of the brand's Classic Handbags , even though I've been eyeing them for years), but it's not for beauty.

Sure, there are a few Chanel beauty products that we'd call expensive (such as the $195 lipstick Camila Morrone wore to the Critics Choice Awards ), but overall, you can snag quite a few gems for $100 and under. I'm talking about such gems as a classic French-girl red nail polish, a perfect nude lip color, and a sophisticated hair mist. Don't believe me? Keep scrolling to see (and shop) the proof!

This hand cream would make for the perfect gift. It has a rich texture and offers eight hours of hydration with iris pallida, May rose wax, shea butter, and glycerin. Plus, its minimalist, egg-shaped packaging looks incredibly chic sitting in your bag.

Not only is this lipstick incredibly comfortable to wear thanks to a hydrating formula, but it also provides the prettiest color and shine. You can't really go wrong choosing any shade, but this pink-beige one is a personal favorite.

Is there anything better to behold than a Chanel eye shadow palette? I don't think so. This one contains four different neutral shades, which makes it a foundational base for any eye look.

A mascara that does it all, this formula provides volume, length, curl, and definition. It's enriched with provitamin B5 to protect lashes, and the formula even contains an imperceptible hint of red for added color depth and drama.

This iconic red nail polish is one of my all-time favorite shades to wear no matter the season or situation. It's eternally chic.

Do you know what's even lovelier than perfume? Hair perfume. It's the best-kept secret to making a scent last. Plus, it's so sophisticated to have each strand of hair linger with scent when it gets tousled in the breeze.

I'll let you in on a little secret: This is one of my all-time favorite Chanel lipsticks. The sheer, beige color makes the lips look plump and healthy without screaming, "I'm wearing lipstick!" I first learned about it from Margot Robbie's makeup artist, and I've been using it ever since.

Don't sleep on navy blue nail polish, especially when it's this rich shade from Chanel. I like it because it's less edgy than black, and even more rich-looking. Consider it an elevated way to wear dark nail polish.

The perfect gift for someone you love (or yourself!), this hand cream trio includes a hand cream scented with Chanel's Chance fragrance, Chance Eau Tendre, and Chance Eau Fraîche. You can mix and match them depending on your mood.

This face mask contains red camellia extract, red camellia oil, and alpha hydroxy acids. Together, these ingredients exfoliate, minimize signs of aging, and refine the appearance of pores and skin texture. Take this as a sign to treat yourself (and your skin) to a luxurious at-home treatment.

Leave it to Chanel to make a chic top coat. Use it on bare nails or as a glossy finish to extend your manicure. It's all thanks to moisturizing camellia oil and protective camellia eco-ceramides. Best of all, you only need one coat.

Kaitlyn McLintock is an Associate Beauty Editor at Who What Wear. Although she covers a wide range of topics across a variety of categories, she specializes in celebrity interviews and skincare and wellness content. Having lived in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, she recently relocated back to her home state of Michigan where she works remotely. Prior to Who What Wear, she freelanced for a variety of industry-leading digital publications, including InStyle, The Zoe Report, Bustle, Hello Giggles, and Coveteur. Before that, she held a long-term internship and subsequent contributor position at Byrdie. When she's not writing, researching, or testing the latest and greatest beauty products, she's working her way through an ever-growing book collection, swimming in the Great Lakes, or spending time with family.

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CHANEL No 5, RED MOSCOW, AND THE SCENT OF TOTALITARIANISM

NO FRAGRANCE, HOWEVER POPULAR OR LUXURIOUS, CAN MASK THE MALODOROUS HISTORIES OF IMPERIAL EUROPE. A NEW BOOK BY HISTORIAN OF TOTALITARIANISM KARL SCHLÖGEL UNRAVELS THE HISTORY OF TWO OF THE WORLD’S BEST-KNOWN PERFUMES – AND THE POLITICAL LEGACIES OF THE WOMEN BEHIND THEM: PARIS’ COCO CHANEL , AND MOSCOW’S POLINA ZHEMCHUZHINA MOLOTOVA , TWO LEADERS OF INDUSTRY, CULTURE, AND STYLE AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF A CONTINENT DIVIDED. THEIR SIGNATURE PRODUCTS – CHANEL NO. 5 AND RED MOSCOW, RESPECTIVELY – SHARE AN UNLIKELY ORIGIN WITH THE ROMANOV DYNASTY, AND A UNIQUE CAPACITY TO EXPOSE HISTORY’S SECRETS.

To make this interview possible, Karl Schlögel invited me to his home, a bright and spacious apartment overlooking the Russian quarter in West Berlin. Only a few hundred meters away is a Russian Orthodox Church, the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral, whose three distinctive towers are sure to be noticed by anyone heading to the nearby Grunewald forest. Schlögel had politely declined the pandemic-compliant walk I had originally suggested. He reasoned, “I am able to think only while sitting or standing.”

So we sit across from each other in two armchairs. Placed on the bookshelf is a small bottle of the Soviet perfume Red Moscow – a gift to Schlögel from the East German journalist Jens Bisky. This flacon is central to the discussion that follows. Standing next to it, and given its own place of honor on the shelf, is a handsome pack of cigarettes, of the same brand favored by Joseph Stalin. But, as my partner in dialogue will later tell me, Stalin didn’t smoke them, as such – he would tear open the paper with his fingernail and fill his pipe with the makhorka tobacco inside.

Schlögel is an award-winning historian of the Soviet Empire, an inexhaustible topic on which he has published more than 15 books. His most recent venture, The Scent of Empires ( Der Duft der Imperien , 2020), is exceptional not only within Schlögel’s own œuvre but within the historical community at large, where few works have sought to describe a period of world history by way of its fragrance. In fact, only one other book comes to mind: The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination (1982) by Alain Corbin, who reconstructs the history of public space during the Enlightenment through its olfactory dimensions – providing a fertile background for Patrick Süskind’s famed novel, Perfume (1985), among other things. Yet the surreal but true story that comes together in Schlögel’s latest work smells more like something of Thomas Pynchon’s than it does of Süskind’s. In literary terms, The Scent of Empires might be described as the story of a pair of “perfume twins,” separated in incubation by the changing global landscape of their era. Both are descendants of a fragrance created for the 300-year anniversary of the arrival of the Romanov dynasty in France. One, named Chanel No. 5, becomes world famous. The other, Red Moscow, rises to stardom behind the Iron Curtain. Created by the Moscow-born perfumer Ernest Beaux of Alphonse Rallet & Co., a Russian house and the foremost purveyor of fragrance to the imperial courts, No. 5 is raised in Paris by fashion doyenne – and Nazi agent – Coco Chanel, growing her namesake label into a global luxury brand and making the designer one of the wealthiest women of the 20th century. Red Moscow is the ostensible older twin, first produced before the 1917 Revolution by Rallet & Co.’s top competitor, Henri Brocard, as Le Bouquet Préféré de l’Impératrice (The Empress’ Favorite Bouquet). It was then given a Russian name and taken under the wing of Polina Zhemchuzhina Molotova: USSR perfume commissioner; wife of foreign minister and Stalin protégé Vyacheslav Molotov; “friend” of Israeli ambassador Golda Meir; and a Jew, imprisoned as the result of a purge campaign in 1949. (Zhemchuzhina survived and remained a staunch Stalin supporter.) Making appearances in the parallel stories of Schlögel’s perfume powerhouses are Tsarina Catherine II, Russian suprematist Kazimir Malevich, and Joseph Stalin himself.

A woman who wears no fragrance, as Coco Chanel famously said, “has no future.” But dropped upon the throbbing pulses of Europe’s western and eastern centers by the women who shaped its style, the continent’s perfume is also the expression of its secret past.

In 1944, Chanel was interrogated by the Free French Purge Committee. After her release, she said to her grandniece, “Churchill had me freed.” Historians have speculated that Churchill was worried Chanel would expose Nazi sympathizers among the highest echelons of British elites – including the royal family.

Photo: George Hoyningen-Huene, 1939

Polina Zhemchuzhina went to the USA in 1934 to study the country’s cosmetics industry, visiting 25 plants and stopping for tea with Eleanor Roosevelt. American women, Zhemchuzhina later said, applied cosmetics “freely, but never without a personal touch of taste.” Upon her return, she set to work on building up the manufacture and use of cosmetics in the USSR, receiving the Order of Lenin – the highest Soviet decoration – for her work.

Photo: Official Soviet portrait, 1943

How did you arrive at this topic?

It’s a simple story. I was in Moscow in the early 1980s to study and conduct research. I noticed a particular scent every time I went to the theater or attended some festive event there. I’m no expert in scents, but I stumbled upon the same smell later, when I was in the GDR – or, rather, in the officers’ casinos that were technically outside the realm of the GDR. In any case, the scent was always present at festive occasions. I did some preliminary research and discovered that it was the very same one I had encountered before, and the most prominent and popular perfume in the Soviet Union: Red Moscow. The perfume’s formula originates in 1920 but evidently goes back to prerevolutionary times. As my goal in the book The Soviet Century had been to shed light on certain rather astonishing continuities that undermined the great rupture in 1917, this particular history about perfume suddenly became a very thrilling subject to me.

You “caught the scent,” as it were. In your latest book, you write that one of the leading historians on the history of Soviet perfumes, Natalya Dolgopolova, described the 1950s and 1960s as the “Golden Age of Soviet perfumery.” The then-new Seven Year Plan (1958–65) had exceeded expectations. The gross weight of manufactured perfume, eau de cologne, and eau de toilette totaled around 30,300 tons in 1965, surpassing industry production in leading capitalist states in the second half of the 1960s.

All of these social realities – and the upheavals in particular – also played out on an olfactory stage, in the world of fragrance. The second discovery I made was that Chanel No. 5 was also of Russian origin. Previously, I never had anything to do with perfumes or Chanel. But I discovered that No. 5’s perfumer came from Russia and had previously worked at a French perfume factory in the Russian Empire. Knowledge of this shared origin was something we lost because of the way the world became divided after 1917. This similitude endowed the story with a dynamic I was not prepared for: it became clear to me that the course of the 20th century could be told through this story.

This lens would reveal facets of world history that had previously been undetected.

Before this research, I had no idea that Polina Zhemchuzhina had had anything to do with the perfume industry. I knew the name only as a defendant in the trials from the end of the 1940s, and as the wife of Vyacheslav Molotov. I also didn’t know that Kazimir Malevich had designed a flacon for Red Moscow. All of this came together gradually and could later be congealed.

No one has told this story before you?

When you work in this field, you quickly realize that you’re never on your own. There’s a whole Russian discourse on perfume. It’s like railway enthusiasts: there’s a sophisticated and specialized scene that engages with this cosmos on the Internet. Yet what’s decisive for me is the intellectual approach. I am someone who rigorously pursues that which is visible, what’s tangible – the artifacts. I’ve mostly worked on places and cities. To me, architecture and urban sites are documents. As such, my actual aim is to give the senses their due place – but not theoretically! Not as an “olfactory turn,” but as self-evident fact. The sense of smell plays a decisive role in memory. By the way, I only read Patrick Süskind’s novel post festum. What can I say? Fiction is not my forte. All the same, Perfume left a lasting impression on me – not only as a literary work but also because every sentence shows that the author delved deep into the history of perfume production. I didn’t have a clue about perfumes until I made my discovery.

Not even for personal use?

After the initial spark of Red Moscow, I started looking at perfume within the context of Soviet history. I was in Munich at the time, and I went to a cosmetic shop to ask whether they carried Red Moscow. They didn’t, of course. So, I bought myself a small bottle of Chanel No. 5 as a consolation prize.

Chanel’s perfume of choice was No. 5, but her agent number was F-7124. Her code name was “Westminster,” after her former lover the Duke of Westminster.

You dedicated your book to the late Karl Lagerfeld, which is probably unique within historical scholarship. Lagerfeld, who really turned Chanel into the global brand it is today, revealed in a book published alongside his 2008–9 Metiers d’Arts Paris–Moscou collection that the secret of No. 5’s success had to do with France’s “Russian connection” – a cultural and commercial lineage that was buried by the Second World War and Stalinism. He alludes to the friendship between Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who founded the Russian fashion house Kitmir. It was a clever move on Lagerfeld’s part to focus on the era before National Socialism. Coco’s reputation had been severely damaged by the discovery of her love affair with Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, a Nazi functionary and official confidant to Hitler. It’s an extremely interesting issue, and Lagerfeld plays a role in reshaping the modern historical narrative by sidestepping it. You note early on in your book that fragrances disappeared from historical narratives when the eye became the organ of reason during the Age of Enlightenment. You write about a historical scholarship that’s been deodorized. One thing that’s remarkable about your approach is that the book itself is composed like a perfume: it has light, almost bright overtones, but also a heavy, musty chord that fortifies the whole. I don’t want to talk about skatoles necessarily, but the book’s contents are also concerned with the stench of history – with the scents of the concentration camps and in the gulags of the Stalinist Soviet Union.

This is also something that simply happened. I always have faith in the potency of the material. Nothing needs to be invented, everything can be discovered – or revealed. If all of your senses are activated, the Russian Revolution is not merely a story of directives, decrees, appeals, programs, and so on. Rather, it’s a simple and yet incredibly complex story. The story of the Russian Revolution could be told as one of an entirely new world of fragrance encroaching on an ancient one – that is, on the cordoned-off aristocratic realms of the theater, the opera house, and the salons of grand bourgeois residences. The work is also about these spaces, and their transformation into places of entirely different olfactory connotations.

Alain Corbin also wrote on perfume in the context of the leadup to the French Revolution. You write that the names of perfumes from the new era you describe are political – that the world of fragrances became semantically Bolshevized when cosmetics were given names such as Golden Era, New Way of Life (Novy byt), Red Poppy (Krasny mak), Spartakiada, Hero of the North (Geroy Severa), and Avantgarde. Later, during the Sturm und Drang era of the first Five Year Plan, these goods would bear the names of communism’s construction sites: Stratostat (a kind of tethered balloon), On Guard, Our Answer to the Kolkhoz Farmers (Nash otwjet kolchosnikan), Pioneer, Tank, White Sea Canal (Belomorski kanal), Kolkhoz Victory (Kolkhoznaya pobeda), and Greetings to the Chelyuskins (Privet Chelyuskinam) – the [last one] named after the Soviet expedition ship that was trapped in the Arctic Ocean’s pack ice in 1933 but whose crew was rescued. Each new fragrance thus became a hallmark of the new class of social climbers.

Suddenly, an apartment where a family of four once lived with three service personnel became one where 40 people were living – and this was reflected in terms of smell. Not to reduce history to the nose again – I object to such simplifications. The issue is about expanding the register of perception, expanding the repertoire for models of description. The work is about a social upheaval in soundscapes as well as scentscapes, which have not been depicted so far. It’s a history of perception. And if you want to delve into the complexity of such a history during an upheaval, then you need to go about it like Alain Corbin did – in this case, for the 20th century.

Class consciousness is also generated from odors – a point you make when quoting George Orwell: “The lower classes smell .... No feeling of like or dislike is quite so fundamental as a physical feeling.” You note that people in the East were thinking along similar lines when they spoke of the “crystalline purity of the party,” the “rotting bourgeois intelligentsia,” or even about “purges.” The scent of lavender, as it appears in the chansons of Alexander Vertinsky for example, signifies decay, decadence, and degeneracy in the eyes of those tasked with guarding Bolshevik morality. It wasn’t long until political adversaries started being called “Trotskyite Pyatakovian degenerates” who belonged in the “ manure heap,” in the “trash heap of history.” An awareness of scent bolsters one of class struggle – and you sniff your way into that psyche.

Anyone here in Berlin who used to walk across Friedrichstraße and enter East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie would have immediately smelled that they [had] entered another sphere. You could smell the disinfectant Wofasept, which was ubiquitous in the GDR. Incidentally, this is an odor that has since been eradicated: although the disinfectant is still produced, its scent has been diminished. But back then, the smell of Wofasept, like that of Red Moscow, was an indication of the partition. One’s memory of such indications [is] just as powerful as the recollection of the crossing of the borders themselves.

Even today, coming from Germany, there is a change of scent when you cross the bridge from Görlitz into Poland. This has to do with the different way that the radiators are constructed: the pipes in pubs in Poland give off a different heat than those in Germany.

I believe it would be tremendously beneficial if the senses were restored, if they were included as one of the instruments for historical scholarship. This would be a gain in complexity – in our understanding of reality. It would also be a gain in possibility, in the potential of penetrating the experiential space of the past, which remains barred to us. The question is: why aren’t specialized knowledge and specialized perspective given complete expression in the sphere of historical scholarship? Likewise, and seen from the other side, scholars of history don’t grant things like fragrances the value and import that they deserve.

Perhaps it’s because the discipline of history considers them to be trifling, fleeting, even? You also write about the complicated issue of “luxury and fashion” at times. Perhaps this isn’t significant enough from the perspective of the ivory tower, either?

This idea appeared recently in an article by Hans Magnus Enzensberger in his magazine Transatlantik . Enzensberger is someone who has always paid a great deal of attention to everything those in that ivory tower have overlooked. And from aesthetics and media scholar Bazon Brock I learned that it is just as feasible to tell the history of a given society through a history of luxury – and perhaps it can even be done better, more concisely through that lens – as it is through a history of everyday life.

The second reason I think your book is so remarkable is that in a number of places I was sure that I was reading fiction .... I was reminded of a novel by Thomas Pynchon. It’s incredible how many elements and people come together and are connected as a result of the history of two perfumes. You write that a bottle of Chanel No. 5 was actually walled in as a founding stone for the French pavilion at the 1939 World Fair in Paris. Not long afterward, the Second World War broke out. Only a few years later, Polina Zhemchuzhina was released from an internment camp, and [she] asked whether Joseph was still alive. When she was told that Stalin, the very person who had sent her into exile in the camp, was “no longer with us,” that he had died in the meantime, she suffered a nervous breakdown. This is the same woman who is responsible for the production of the Red Moscow perfume, as well as soaps – soaps that you describe as being shaped like cornichons. All of this is said to be true, but it’s a truth stranger than fiction.

In my experience – and this happens almost every day – there are things that take place that go beyond our for-the-most-part-limited imagination. Who among us could say they had foreseen that a figure like Trump would be able to shake America so deeply, or were prepared for the explosion of malice, lies, deception, agitation, and hatred. This would have been inconceivable to me even a year ago. Then there’s Putin: if you observe his press conferences, his staged appearances dispatched from a bunker, and particularly the statements his press officer Dmitry Peskov makes, terms like “cynicism” hardly do it justice. We have grown up in a world that lacks experience of war and revolutions. Maybe all of this is still to come. But such figures, such acts of disgrace, of malice, or even of heroism and bravery, have never appeared on the horizon in my own lifetime. This is why great literature is immensely valuable to me. I am of the opinion that it is impossible to understand a time or an epoch without activating its finer registers – the registers of poets, artists, musicians, and so on. This isn’t the opinion of every historian. We need to brace ourselves – and I don’t mean this psychologically, but rather in the sense of the great historian Reinhart Koselleck – for things that Europeans alive today have never had anything to do with. Riots, brawls, torture – our sensory apparatus hasn’t been properly educated for such things. I would also say that our language is lacking. We need to learn. One can protest, of course. But protests often only serve the function of relieving one of one’s guilty conscience. If you yourself do nothing, if you’re not able to do anything, then you want to rid yourself of this feeling of paralysis. It’s always easy to blame the political classes for everything, with regard to the people who are responsible for finding a language for everything that’s happening. As is always the case in such situations, this is particularly true for the journalists who are reporting from the front lines of the present world. For me, the people who are involved in the current turmoil, who look and listen carefully, and who keep their cool in moments of grave danger and ample distraction, these people are those who are capable of transforming our worldview.

“No elegance is possible without perfume. It is the invisible, ultimate, and unforgettable accessory.” – Coco Chanel

Yet we’re currently living in a time that’s almost a dream state, where we’re unwilling to leave the old world we know behind. You can pretend that this is only a brief crisis. Sure, the Capitol was stormed; okay, there’s a man there who is half-naked and has a Thor hammer tattoo near his groin and who painted his face in red, white, and blue before praying in Congress’ legislative chamber. You can pretend that this will pass and that we will return to some kind of order – but there’s no guarantee.

This is the condition that’s the most difficult to bear: that a situation remains entirely undecided. And I don’t mean this in relation to the American upheaval. In dismantling the old world order, we’ll once again be confronted with the task of rethinking everything. Nothing is self-evident. This sense of basic trust accumulated during the relative stability of the postwar period is dissolving. This is why a sense of orientation is needed, why there’s an incredibly strong demand for a steady hand. Whoever is able to meet this demand will prevail. All of us are implicated in a process of reorganization that we can’t turn our backs on. When those familiar and customary certainties are no longer valid, then it’s a very risky situation – but also one that has the potential to be incredibly rewarding, intellectually speaking. It’s actually a splendid situation! To face it without fear, without taking common sense or everything that’s become customary into account – there’s a monumental story in there. And this is why I believe we’re not keeping pace with the times.

I can only speak for myself, but I am overcome with a feeling of powerlessness – intellectually, verbally, and as a writer – whenever I am supposed to give an adequate response to what should be done about Russia. Of course, one could express oneself with the language of protest, of condemnation, which is also necessary. But in order to face the array of imperial power alongside a state intelligence that is criminally motivated and driven and a parallel increase of entirely new media resources – that is, in order to face this postmodern mixture of Hollywood, KGB, and tradition – it’s by no means useful to make reference to historical analogies. This is where the line of show trials during the 1930s emerges – and all that isn’t wrong. But in order to get to the core of why this particular figure has been able to rise to dominance, and why we only ever react – well, something is still wanting. What is needed, for example, is the realization that Putin, as immensely powerful as he is, is also incredibly ridiculous at the same time. This man is simply too small for this wonderful and rich country.

Are you suggesting that Putin isn’t cruel enough?

No. By “too small,” I mean someone who is not keeping pace with the times. The empire is over. What’s needed is someone who will face up to the tasks of sweat and tears, someone who takes his people as seriously as they deserve, instead of treating them like infants and seeking refuge in a phantasmagoria of threats coming from outside. Like the idea that Germany or the USA [is] hatching plans to overthrow him, that revolutions should be instigated – that whole repertoire. By “ big,” I mean someone who is daring, someone who has the courage to tell his nation what’s happening. Who doesn’t always blame others, who takes responsibility to put the country in order. And by that, I mean what everyone in Russia already knows, what Mikhail Gorbachev and everyone else had already said: to finally become a normal country. No more utopias. Instead, simple things that the rest of the developed world, to which Russia belongs, has become accustomed should also gain traction. From someone in Vladimir Putin’s position, I expect courage, fortitude ...

... statesmanlike behavior?

Statesmanlike, yes, not only in terms of a foreign policy agenda, but in addressing the citizens of his own country. After the coup in 1991, I was actually quite confident. For me, one of the greatest moments at the time was when Boris Yeltsin addressed thousands of people who had gathered together – “Citizens of Russia!” This was a provocation: it said, we’re going to deal with this right now! But the fact that the balance of power was much more complicated at the time is another story.

The affiliation between Paris and Moscow is a major focus in your book, as something that both sides invoked. The Russian perfume industry tries to imitate the French, while Coco Chanel alludes to the magic of the Tsarist era. When the bond broke, that shared history was forgotten.

The connection you refer to was very strong – and it took a very long time to dismantle. Russia had an incredibly strong cultural presence in France before the Russian Revolution. This was epitomized by Sergei Diaghilev – who, by the way, I consider to be one of the most significant cultural figures of all time – and his “Saison Russe.” Then there was the entire 1920s, the milieu of fellow travelers and of the emigrés. It was a given that people such as Ilya Ehrenburg drifted between cultural worlds. And it took the total devastation of war to bury all of this under ruins. Add to that the very long Cold War – half a century – and you have generations where something simply went missing.

The image of France became commodified in Russia during the Cold War. People coveted Chanel No. 5 and dreamed of the Moulin Rouge. But no cultural connection existed outside of the market. And it was no longer reciprocal: to western Europe, Russia was seen as an empire of scarcity with a toilet paper shortage.

The French were icons of luxury and refinement. That remains true today in terms of the country’s brand. In the world of luxury and fashion, France remains a global force. Russia’s appeal lies in the reserves of its literature. There’s also Russian engineering. For me, Russia is a country of engineers – somewhat like America, in fact. An exhibition about Russian engineers – real ones, not the “engineers of the soul,” as Stalin called his writers – is something I can well imagine.

Is that quote really from Stalin?

It might have been Maxim Gorky. It’s often said that great culture is only created from suffering. It’s somehow fitting: the writer as the spokesman for his people, for his nation; literature as a sacrifice that’s associated with self-sacrifice, far from literature as an industry. There are representative figures for this in Russia: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, for instance; Varlam Shalamov; Vasily Grossman. Such literature is associated with the experience of suffering and sacrifice, and, above all, with the knowledge of what the Germans did in Russia.

This is often noted, but there was an immense number of victims under Stalin.

Yes, but this is a German problem. The history of violence within Russia has disappeared behind the shadows of the violence of world war. That’s how it is being told today. In Putin’s politics of memory, the war is mostly a heroic story. It’s also a story about the victims of German violence.

Has there ever been a Russian version of the German “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” – a concept understood as the process of coming to terms with the past?

Certainly! But under completely different conditions. There were several attempts, first during the so-called thaw. The prisoners returned from the camps, but they weren’t allowed to talk about it, and they were ashamed of having served time as traitors. This is why Solzhenitsyn is so significant: as the author of The Gulag Archipelago , he was the first person to describe the experience in the camps. The three-volume account was an intellectual atom bomb. Vasily Grossman’s novels, which I consider to be some of the greatest books of all time, were all written during this time, but had to be smuggled out of the country in order to be published. Shamalov also wrote stories after returning from the camps – but his were published. One has to imagine: intellectual work in these issues was being done the entire time, but much of it was never allowed to come to light. At least not until perestroika, when the earth-shattering things were surfacing on a daily basis – a period of wild thinking, excavation, and discovery lasted throughout the 1990s. Then, as things restabilized, an old guard made up of former secret service agents and oligarchs returned to power, and returned to discipline. They began by making it more difficult to access archives, closing entire departments and persecuting historians who had anything to do with such business. At the same time, they started to take history in their own hands. Putin himself was present at the inauguration of the “Wall of Grief,” a monument to the victims of political persecution. The only major event in Russian history that has been retained is the Great Patriotic War against Napoleon I. Everything else has been redacted. The Russian Revolution doesn’t even exist anymore. There’s no Great Terror. It’s all been cast aside, relegated to thick leather-bound volumes found in small editions in Russian bookstores – which are fascinating places, by the way. You can find literally everything there.

There’s an incredible, Pynchonesque moment in your book where an 85-year-old Coco Chanel receives a visit from an ambassador from the Soviet Union in her suite at the Ritz, where Chanel resided throughout the German occupation, despite its being reserved for military officers – an arrangement brokered by her aristocrat lover Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage. The Soviet ambassador gifts her some Russian perfumes and suggests that Chanel start redesigning Russian merchandise. One perfume is called White Lilac, and the other is Stone Flower, which is named after a Stalin-era fairy tale movie. Both scents pleased Madame Chanel, who apparently also told Roland Barthes about it. The French theorist reported that Chanel was planning to travel to Moscow, to help a society that was in need of “aesthetic innovation.” That was in 1968. But nothing came of this plan.

Coco Chanel – and this has been verified – had an interest in sitting out the period that followed the Allies’ Anti-Hitler Coalition and the beginning of the Cold War. She would benefit simply by letting the time of isolation pass, waiting on things to thaw. The American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959 suggested that such a thing might actually happen. It was a remarkable event for this generation: there was the state visit of Richard Nixon and his famous “kitchen debate” with Nikita Khrushchev; Buckminster Fuller, Raymond Loewy, and Duke Ellington were all there, as was the Paris fashion scene. Dior hosted a fashion show in Moscow, where there was local interest in reestablishing a common culture, and in catching up with France’s leadership in style and design. During this relatively relaxed period under Khrushchev, enough openness existed that people were able to learn as much as possible. The goal was to eventually exceed its freedoms, of course, but the Khrushchev Thaw was already over by the mid-1960s. Another short span of time sadly faded, then [was] lost from memory. It’s important to speak about the entire generation that ended up being deprived as a result – of their career and of an important period in life. Today, images of Moscow show a city and country that has changed yet again – and fashion remains in the political backdrop. Rows of thugs they call “Cosmonauts,” dressed in head-to-toe riot armor, march through the pedestrian passages of Moscow, past Gucci, Dior, and Chanel storefronts, to beat up protestors.

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Travel Itinerary For One Week in Moscow: The Best of Moscow!

I just got back from one week in Moscow. And, as you might have already guessed, it was a mind-boggling experience. It was not my first trip to the Russian capital. But I hardly ever got enough time to explore this sprawling city. Visiting places for business rarely leaves enough time for sightseeing. I think that if you’ve got one week in Russia, you can also consider splitting your time between its largest cities (i.e. Saint Petersburg ) to get the most out of your trip. Seven days will let you see the majority of the main sights and go beyond just scratching the surface. In this post, I’m going to share with you my idea of the perfect travel itinerary for one week in Moscow.

Moscow is perhaps both the business and cultural hub of Russia. There is a lot more to see here than just the Kremlin and Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Centuries-old churches with onion-shaped domes dotted around the city are in stark contrast with newly completed impressive skyscrapers of Moscow City dominating the skyline. I spent a lot of time thinking about my Moscow itinerary before I left. And this city lived up to all of my expectations.

Travel Itinerary For One Week in Moscow

Day 1 – red square and the kremlin.

Metro Station: Okhotny Ryad on Red Line.

No trip to Moscow would be complete without seeing its main attraction. The Red Square is just a stone’s throw away from several metro stations. It is home to some of the most impressive architectural masterpieces in the city. The first thing you’ll probably notice after entering it and passing vendors selling weird fur hats is the fairytale-like looking Saint Basil’s Cathedral. It was built to commemorate one of the major victories of Ivan the Terrible. I once spent 20 minutes gazing at it, trying to find the perfect angle to snap it. It was easier said than done because of the hordes of locals and tourists.

As you continue strolling around Red Square, there’s no way you can miss Gum. It was widely known as the main department store during the Soviet Era. Now this large (yet historic) shopping mall is filled with expensive boutiques, pricey eateries, etc. During my trip to Moscow, I was on a tight budget. So I only took a retro-style stroll in Gum to get a rare glimpse of a place where Soviet leaders used to grocery shop and buy their stuff. In case you want some modern shopping experience, head to the Okhotny Ryad Shopping Center with stores like New Yorker, Zara, and Adidas.

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To continue this Moscow itinerary, next you may want to go inside the Kremlin walls. This is the center of Russian political power and the president’s official residence. If you’re planning to pay Kremlin a visit do your best to visit Ivan the Great Bell Tower as well. Go there as early as possible to avoid crowds and get an incredible bird’s-eye view. There are a couple of museums that are available during designated visiting hours. Make sure to book your ticket online and avoid lines.

Day 2 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Tretyakov Gallery, and the Arbat Street

Metro Station: Kropotkinskaya on Red Line

As soon as you start creating a Moscow itinerary for your second day, you’ll discover that there are plenty of metro stations that are much closer to certain sites. Depending on your route, take a closer look at the metro map to pick the closest.

The white marble walls of Christ the Saviour Cathedral are awe-inspiring. As you approach this tallest Orthodox Christian church, you may notice the bronze sculptures, magnificent arches, and cupolas that were created to commemorate Russia’s victory against Napoleon.

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Unfortunately, the current Cathedral is a replica, since original was blown to bits in 1931 by the Soviet government. The new cathedral basically follows the original design, but they have added some new elements such as marble high reliefs.

Home to some precious collection of artworks, in Tretyakov Gallery you can find more than 150,000 of works spanning centuries of artistic endeavor. Originally a privately owned gallery, it now has become one of the largest museums in Russia. The Gallery is often considered essential to visit. But I have encountered a lot of locals who have never been there.

Famous for its souvenirs, musicians, and theaters, Arbat street is among the few in Moscow that were turned into pedestrian zones. Arbat street is usually very busy with tourists and locals alike. My local friend once called it the oldest street in Moscow dating back to 1493. It is a kilometer long walking street filled with fancy gift shops, small cozy restaurants, lots of cute cafes, and street artists. It is closed to any vehicular traffic, so you can easily stroll it with kids.

Day 3 – Moscow River Boat Ride, Poklonnaya Hill Victory Park, the Moscow City

Metro Station: Kievskaya and Park Pobedy on Dark Blue Line / Vystavochnaya on Light Blue Line

Voyaging along the Moscow River is definitely one of the best ways to catch a glimpse of the city and see the attractions from a bit different perspective. Depending on your Moscow itinerary, travel budget and the time of the year, there are various types of boats available. In the summer there is no shortage of boats, and you’ll be spoiled for choice.

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If you find yourself in Moscow during the winter months, I’d recommend going with Radisson boat cruise. These are often more expensive (yet comfy). They offer refreshments like tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and, of course, alcoholic drinks. Prices may vary but mostly depend on your food and drink selection. Find their main pier near the opulent Ukraine hotel . The hotel is one of the “Seven Sisters”, so if you’re into the charm of Stalinist architecture don’t miss a chance to stay there.

The area near Poklonnaya Hill has the closest relation to the country’s recent past. The memorial complex was completed in the mid-1990s to commemorate the Victory and WW2 casualties. Also known as the Great Patriotic War Museum, activities here include indoor attractions while the grounds around host an open-air museum with old tanks and other vehicles used on the battlefield.

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The hallmark of the memorial complex and the first thing you see as you exit metro is the statue of Nike mounted to its column. This is a very impressive Obelisk with a statue of Saint George slaying the dragon at its base.

Maybe not as impressive as Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower , the skyscrapers of the Moscow City (otherwise known as Moscow International Business Center) are so drastically different from dull Soviet architecture. With 239 meters and 60 floors, the Empire Tower is the seventh highest building in the business district.

The observation deck occupies 56 floor from where you have some panoramic views of the city. I loved the view in the direction of Moscow State University and Luzhniki stadium as well to the other side with residential quarters. The entrance fee is pricey, but if you’re want to get a bird’s eye view, the skyscraper is one of the best places for doing just that.

Day 4 – VDNKh, Worker and Collective Farm Woman Monument, The Ostankino TV Tower

Metro Station: VDNKh on Orange Line

VDNKh is one of my favorite attractions in Moscow. The weird abbreviation actually stands for Russian vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva (Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy). With more than 200 buildings and 30 pavilions on the grounds, VDNKh serves as an open-air museum. You can easily spend a full day here since the park occupies a very large area.

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First, there are pavilions that used to showcase different cultures the USSR was made of. Additionally, there is a number of shopping pavilions, as well as Moskvarium (an Oceanarium) that features a variety of marine species. VDNKh is a popular venue for events and fairs. There is always something going on, so I’d recommend checking their website if you want to see some particular exhibition.

A stone’s throw away from VDNKh there is a very distinctive 25-meters high monument. Originally built in 1937 for the world fair in Paris, the hulking figures of men and women holding a hammer and a sickle represent the Soviet idea of united workers and farmers. It doesn’t take much time to see the monument, but visiting it gives some idea of the Soviet Union’s grandiose aspirations.

I have a thing for tall buildings. So to continue my travel itinerary for one week in Moscow I decided to climb the fourth highest TV tower in the world. This iconic 540m tower is a fixture of the skyline. You can see it virtually from everywhere in Moscow, and this is where you can get the best panoramic views (yep, even better than Empire skyscraper).

Parts of the floor are made of tempered glass, so it can be quite scary to exit the elevator. But trust me, as you start observing buildings and cars below, you won’t want to leave. There is only a limited number of tickets per day, so you may want to book online. Insider tip: the first tour is cheaper, you can save up to $10 if go there early.

Day 5 – A Tour To Moscow Manor Houses

Metro Station: Kolomenskoye, Tsaritsyno on Dark Green Line / Kuskovo on Purple Line

I love visiting the manor houses and palaces in Moscow. These opulent buildings were generally built to house Russian aristocratic families and monarchs. Houses tend to be rather grand affairs with impressive architecture. And, depending on the whims of the owners, some form of a landscaped garden.

During the early part of the 20th century though, many of Russia’s aristocratic families (including the family of the last emperor) ended up being killed or moving abroad . Their manor houses were nationalized. Some time later (after the fall of the USSR) these were open to the public. It means that today a great many of Moscow’s finest manor houses and palaces are open for touring.

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There are 20 manor houses scattered throughout the city and more than 25 in the area around. But not all of them easily accessible and exploring them often takes a lot of time. I’d recommend focusing on three most popular estates in Moscow that are some 30-minute metro ride away from Kremlin.

Sandwiched between the Moscow River and the Andropov Avenue, Kolomenskoye is a UNESCO site that became a public park in the 1920’s. Once a former royal estate, now it is one of the most tranquil parks in the city with gorgeous views. The Ascension Church, The White Column, and the grounds are a truly grand place to visit.

You could easily spend a full day here, exploring a traditional Russian village (that is, in fact, a market), picnicking by the river, enjoying the Eastern Orthodox church architecture, hiking the grounds as well as and wandering the park and gardens with wildflower meadows, apple orchards, and birch and maple groves. The estate museum showcases Russian nature at its finest year-round.

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If my travel itinerary for one week in Moscow was a family tree, Tsaritsyno Park would probably be the crazy uncle that no-one talks about. It’s a large park in the south of the city of mind-boggling proportions, unbelievable in so many ways, and yet most travelers have never heard of it.

The palace was supposed to be a summer home for Empress Catherine the Great. But since the construction didn’t meet with her approval the palace was abandoned. Since the early 1990’s the palace, the pond, and the grounds have been undergoing renovations. The entire complex is now looking brighter and more elaborately decorated than at possibly any other time during its history. Like most parks in Moscow, you can visit Tsaritsyno free of charge, but there is a small fee if you want to visit the palace.

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Last, but by no means least on my Moscow itinerary is Kuskovo Park . This is definitely an off-the-beaten-path place. While it is not easily accessible, you will be rewarded with a lack of crowds. This 18th-century summer country house of the Sheremetev family was one of the first summer country estates of the Russian nobility. And when you visit you’ll quickly realize why locals love this park.

Like many other estates, Kuskovo has just been renovated. So there are lovely French formal garden, a grotto, and the Dutch house to explore. Make sure to plan your itinerary well because the estate is some way from a metro station.

Day 6 – Explore the Golden Ring

Creating the Moscow itinerary may keep you busy for days with the seemingly endless amount of things to do. Visiting the so-called Golden Ring is like stepping back in time. Golden Ring is a “theme route” devised by promotion-minded journalist and writer Yuri Bychkov.

Having started in Moscow the route will take you through a number of historical cities. It now includes Suzdal, Vladimir, Kostroma, Yaroslavl and Sergiev Posad. All these awe-inspiring towns have their own smaller kremlins and feature dramatic churches with onion-shaped domes, tranquil residential areas, and other architectural landmarks.

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I only visited two out of eight cities included on the route. It is a no-brainer that Sergiev Posad is the nearest and the easiest city to see on a day trip from Moscow. That being said, you can explore its main attractions in just one day. Located some 70 km north-east of the Russian capital, this tiny and overlooked town is home to Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, UNESCO Site.

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Sergiev Posad is often described as being at the heart of Russian spiritual life. So it is uncommon to see the crowds of Russian pilgrims showing a deep reverence for their religion. If you’re traveling independently and using public transport, you can reach Sergiev Posad by bus (departs from VDNKh) or by suburban commuter train from Yaroslavskaya Railway Station (Bahnhof). It takes about one and a half hours to reach the town.

Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is a great place to get a glimpse of filling and warming Russian lunch, specifically at the “ Gostevaya Izba ” restaurant. Try the duck breast, hearty potato and vegetables, and the awesome Napoleon cake.

Day 7 – Gorky Park, Izmailovo Kremlin, Patriarch’s Ponds

Metro Station: Park Kultury or Oktyabrskaya on Circle Line / Partizanskaya on Dark Blue Line / Pushkinskaya on Dark Green Line

Gorky Park is in the heart of Moscow. It offers many different types of outdoor activities, such as dancing, cycling, skateboarding, walking, jogging, and anything else you can do in a park. Named after Maxim Gorky, this sprawling and lovely park is where locals go on a picnic, relax and enjoy free yoga classes. It’s a popular place to bike around, and there is a Muzeon Art Park not far from here. A dynamic location with a younger vibe. There is also a pier, so you can take a cruise along the river too.

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The Kremlin in Izmailovo is by no means like the one you can find near the Red Square. Originally built for decorative purposes, it now features the Vernissage flea market and a number of frequent fairs, exhibitions, and conferences. Every weekend, there’s a giant flea market in Izmailovo, where dozens of stalls sell Soviet propaganda crap, Russian nesting dolls, vinyl records, jewelry and just about any object you can imagine. Go early in the morning if you want to beat the crowds.

All the Bulgakov’s fans should pay a visit to Patriarch’s Ponds (yup, that is plural). With a lovely small city park and the only one (!) pond in the middle, the location is where the opening scene of Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita was set. The novel is centered around a visit by Devil to the atheistic Soviet Union is considered by many critics to be one of the best novels of the 20th century. I spent great two hours strolling the nearby streets and having lunch in the hipster cafe.

Conclusion and Recommendations

To conclude, Moscow is a safe city to visit. I have never had a problem with getting around and most locals are really friendly once they know you’re a foreigner. Moscow has undergone some serious reconstruction over the last few years. So you can expect some places to be completely different. I hope my one week Moscow itinerary was helpful! If you have less time, say 4 days or 5 days, I would cut out day 6 and day 7. You could save the Golden Ring for a separate trip entirely as there’s lots to see!

What are your thoughts on this one week Moscow itinerary? Are you excited about your first time in the city? Let me know in the comments below!

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24 comments.

Ann Snook-Moreau

Moscow looks so beautiful and historic! Thanks for including public transit information for those of us who don’t like to rent cars.

MindTheTravel

Yup, that is me 🙂 Rarely rent + stick to the metro = Full wallet!

Mariella Blago

Looks like you had loads of fun! Well done. Also great value post for travel lovers.

Thanks, Mariella!

I have always wanted to go to Russia, especially Moscow. These sights look absolutely beautiful to see and there is so much history there!

Agree! Moscow is a thousand-year-old city and there is definitely something for everyone.

Tara Pittman

Those are amazing buildings. Looks like a place that would be amazing to visit.

Adriana Lopez

Never been to Moscow or Russia but my family has. Many great spots and a lot of culture. Your itinerary sounds fantastic and covers a lot despite it is only a short period of time.

What was their favourite thing about Russia?

Gladys Parker

I know very little about Moscow or Russia for the\at matter. I do know I would have to see the Red Square and all of its exquisite architectural masterpieces. Also the CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST THE SAVIOUR. Thanks for shedding some light on visiting Moscow.

Thanks for swinging by! The Red Square is a great starting point, but there way too many places and things to discover aside from it!

Ruthy @ Percolate Kitchen

You are making me so jealous!! I’ve always wanted to see Russia.

Moscow is in my bucket list, I don’t know when I can visit there, your post is really useful. As a culture rich place we need to spend at least week.

DANA GUTKOWSKI

Looks like you had a great trip! Thanks for all the great info! I’ve never been in to Russia, but this post makes me wanna go now!

Wow this is amazing! Moscow is on my bucket list – such an amazing place to visit I can imagine! I can’t wait to go there one day!

The building on the second picture looks familiar. I keep seeing that on TV.

Reesa Lewandowski

What beautiful moments! I always wish I had the personality to travel more like this!

Perfect itinerary for spending a week in Moscow! So many places to visit and it looks like you had a wonderful time. I would love to climb that tower. The views I am sure must have been amazing!

I was lucky enough to see the skyline of Moscow from this TV Tower and it is definitely mind-blowing.

Chelsea Pearl

Moscow is definitely up there on my travel bucket list. So much history and iconic architecture!

Thumbs up! 🙂

Blair Villanueva

OMG I dream to visit Moscow someday! Hope the visa processing would be okay (and become more affordable) so I could pursue my dream trip!

Yup, visa processing is the major downside! Agree! Time and the money consuming process…

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In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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