Day Schedule

➤Breakfast

➤The State Tretyakov Gallery

➤The Izmaylovo Kremlin

➤Stalin's skyscrapers tour

➤The VDNKh tour

The Tretyakov State Art Gallery

The art gallery is the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world. The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection, which might later grow into a museum of national art. In 1892, Tretyakov presented his already famous collection of approximately 2,000 works (1,362 paintings, 526 drawings, and 9 sculptures) to the Russian nation. The collection contains more than 130,000 exhibits, ranging from Theotokos of Vladimir and Andrei Rublev's Trinity to the monumental Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky and the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich.

Stalin's skyscrapers

The Seven Sisters are a group of seven skyscrapers in Moscow designed in the Stalinist style. They were built from 1947 to 1953, in an elaborate combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles. At the time of construction, they were the tallest buildings in Europe, and Main building of Moscow State University remained the tallest building in Europe until 1997. There were two more skyscrapers in the same style planned that were never built: the Zaryadye Administrative Building and the Palace of the Soviets.

VDNKh

Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva, VDNKh) is a permanent general-purpose trade show and amusement park in Moscow, Russia. Cosmonauts Alley and the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue are situated just outside the main entrance to VDNKh. It also borders Moscow Botanical Garden and a smaller Ostankino Park, and in recent years the three parks served as a united park complex.

In 1992, VDNKh was renamed, receiving the new acronym VVC, which remained in use until 2014. It occupies 2,375,000 square metres of which 266,000 square metres are used for indoor exhibits. The territory of VDNKh is greater than that of the Principality of Monaco and has approximately 400 buildings.

The Izmaylovo Kremlin

Kremlin is the Russian word for citadel or fortress, and they are found in many Russian cities. But the Izmailovo Kremlin, a wooden complex completed in 2007, was not built for protection as its name suggests. It was established as a cultural centre and marketplace loosely modelled after traditional Russian architecture and fairytale depictions of Old Russia.

Visiting the Kremlin gives you a rare opportunity to get into an atmosphere of the past, see masters of handicraft at work — blacksmiths, potters, wood carvers, and also participate in the process of producing artworks of the national applied and decorative arts.