What to do in Moscow

As a tourist or foreigner coming to Moscow or Russia, you should have a to do list in mind. As living nearly three years in Moscow, from my experiences and likes i would advice you my to do list.






1. See Red Square, Kreml and St.Vasily's Cathedral : These places reflect the heart of Moscow, in which you can see in all TV news which tell about Moscow.

2. Walk in Arbat and Tverskaya Streets : These are the two most famous and touristic streets of Moscow, where you can find many restaurants, cafes and souveiner shops. Different then Russia, you can feel yourself in a European environment.


3. See Cathedrals And Churchs : I can offer you Novodevichy Monastary, Cathedral of Saviour.








4. See Museums : Most famous museums are Pushkin Museum and Tretikovskaya Galeria.


5. See Moscow Clubs And Bars : Moscow is one of the best cities in the world in night life (maybe the best). You can find many clubs, bars on different preferences, luxury, with crowdy young people waiting in queues to enter these clubs. I can offer Club Fabrique, Club Opera, Most, Rai, Paris, Papa John's, Karma, B2, Hard Rock Cafe.

6. See And Make Walk in Parks : Moscow is also famous with its parks. The famous and nice parks are; VDNH, Park Pabedi, Tsaritsano, Gorki Park, Kolomenskoe, Alexandrovski Sad.


7. See Vorabievy Gory and Moscow State University : This place located on high hills of Moscow has a nice view of Moscow.

8. See Striptease Club : If you are man and would like to see how such places are, Moscow has many alternatives about it. Some of them are : Bordo, Safari, 911, Rasputin, Night Flight.

9. Go to Casino : Moscow is also famous with its casinos. You can go and play with 100 dollars, where all drinks, alcohol and others are free inside. I can offer Casino Arbat, at new Arbat Street.

10. Go to Circus: Russian circuses are also famous in the world. There is two big circuses in Moscow. You can easily buy tickets, which is not much expensive and see the 2 hour show.

11. Try Russian Food and Kitchen : Famous Russian foods are borch soup, pelmeni, harcho soup, sashlik, salo, selyodka

12. Make a Boat Tour at Moscow River : These boat tours start near Kievskaya Metro station and boat travels nearly 2 hours on the Moscow River.

13. Eat Sushi : If you are interested in sushi or have not tried it yet, Moscow is the right place to try it. There is plenty of alternative restaurants for sushi.

14. See Moscow Zoopark: If you have enough time and the weather is nice, you can visit the Moscow zoo Park

15. Try Russian Sauna: Sauna is traditional thing for Russians. In city you can find and rent a sauna room for a few hours. Hot room and after that cold water pool makes you feel stronger and relax.

16. See Moscow Metro: Every station is designed differently and has own history. Specially the ones in the center are very nice.

17. Go to Balshoy Theater : You can see opera, balet and plays there. You can feel the Russian culture better.

Of course everybody's likes changes and there are other things to do, but if you do and see these things i can say, you have done the best and most of the things in Moscow as a tourist ;)

Vladimir

Vladimir is one of the cities in golden ring of Russia, which is located nearly 200 kms east of Moscow. By a car trip from Moscow you can reach there in nearly 3-4 hours, depending on the traffic. It is famous with its old history, churches. A small city with one main street, one central square.

There is not much things to do in the city, but you can spend a nice weekend, by staying there one night. In the town after asking to people and searching i can advice you the places Dejve restaurant, Orion hotel; to see the main street, city center and churchs part, main shopping center.

Gus-Hrustalniy

Gus-Hrustalniy is a small city nearly 230 km far from Moscow, located in north-east part of Moscow, which can be reached with 3-4 hour trip by car. It is located near Gus river and famous with its crystal factory. The name of the city also means as 'crystal goose' in English. It is a very calm, not developed small Russian town. Mostly houses are small village houses or 5 floor Stalin type old Russian buildings.

People in the town are usually old Russians or people who preferred to have a calm, small village life. The economic situation of the town is not very well, which can be seen from the general view of the town. It is surrounded by huge Russia forests and have a nice nature.

Not a touristic city, but with its crystal factory and to buy special crystal presents can be given a small stop while travelling through, if its on your route.

Sushi in Moscow

Sushi is one of the most popular foods in Moscow where you can find nearly every where: sushi restaurants, markets, shopping centers...The prices also are not expensive compared to Moscow standard prices of food. Usually these restaurants are set of restaurants located near different metro stations of Moscow.

As a person first time trying sushi in Moscow I didnt like it much at first time. But after going a few times you get to use and even like it. Now once a month I try to get to some sushi restaurant. In these restaurants, you can also find some chicken, meat, sea food as alternative. My favorites are california and tuna maki, green tea.

My preferences of sushi restaırants in Moscow in order are Tanuki, Yakitoria, Planeta Sushi, Yaposha Mama.

If you come to Moscow you should try sushi...

Tokat Restaurant - Moscow

One of the restaurants I was hearing for long time but hadn't been was Tokat Restaurant in Moscow. Some people were saying it was so good, others not a place to go at all. A few weeks ago I find the change to visit there with my friends. Compared to other Turkish restaurants in Moscow, it has a real feeling of a Turkish restaurant at side streets of Aksaray, Taksim; where nearly all clients are Turkish...In the restaurant Turkish league footbal mathes are shown from television. It is nearly full at match days. As a fan of Besiktas, I went to watch my team's match with Trabzonspor. But I was shocked to see that like %90 people watching the match was fans of Trabzonspor, even some of them with special Trabzonspor tshirts. I guess these people were mostly related with construction business who came form Trabzon.

The taste of food is similar to done in Turkey. Mercimek corbasi, adana kebap and coban salata were the most similar taste of Turkeys, comparing with other Turkish restaurants in Moscow. The prices are also cheap.

The atmosphere is man dominant and not nicely designed. The people coming there are mostly classical workers, middle business men in Moscow. You can hear slang words and Turkish style joking in the restaurant. Some days in restaurant they play live turkish music and songs.

It is located at metro Komsomolskaya, at the parallel street back of Kazanskiy Vakzal. Need to see sometimes for food and watching matches...

How to rent a flat in Moscow?

Renting a flat is a general problem in Moscow. Its hard to find a good house with the specifications in your mind, with a good house owner. Specially knowing little Russian, its a hard thing to do yourself where most of the agents and house owners do not know English.

To rent a flat, you need to find some agent phone numbers from your friends and colleagues. There are some Russian agents even knowing Turkish. In Russia, usually flat owners has his/her agent and the renter has his/her own agent. When the flat is found, 1 months renting price is given to these two agents as commision also. Usually flat owners want a one month price as deposit as well. So when doing contrat, three months renting money should be with you.

The flats in Russia is mostly rented with furnitures, so you don't need to buy or have many things for a new home. Also in Moscow, the flats are rented very fastly. In one week you should search detailly and rent the house you like' directly. Other day this flat can be already rented.

On the internet a popular flat searching site is : http://www.cian.ru/

How to buy a car in Russia as a foreigner?

As a foreigner, most of us are usually afraid to do new things which we don`t know, such as buying a car. We are mostly afraid of the diplomatical and procedural things. Instead, it is not such a hard thing and i can say that it is even easy after buyig it.

Firstly you have to decide which car to buy, as well as deciding buying a brand new car or used one. I would offer to buy a new car beacuse there is not much price difference. You should buy from the offical sellers in the city. The others sellers are mostly more expensive and they dont give a trustfull image to you. You have to give an order 3-4 months before to get the car with your specifications. or you can buy the car waiting in the saloon which will not fully satisfy or be over your expectations.

For foreigners there is a different place for car registrations. It is located near Tsaritsno Metro. To do prodecural thing you can find somebody(some Turks working in Moscow long time as driver for example) who would help you in such things with some money. Also in this process, payoff to some people is needed to get your things fastly done.

While driving car you have to carry 4 documents with you.
1) The translation of your driving license in Russian and the original driving license.
2) The OSAGO document, which is the govermental insurance of the car.
3) The registration document of the car to your name.
4) Ownership document of the car.

Also you may carry the private insurance document with you.

Buying car and registering is the only two steps firstly to buy a car. If you have money and will to have a car, i would offer you to buy a car and not to wait for it. Your life really changes in moscow after having a car...