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The city is full of entertainments designed to brighten the long Muscovite winters. The puppet shows at the Obratsov theatre are famous for their elaborate costumes…
Lori
Go one stop further on the metro and you can step off straight into The All-Russia Exhibition Centre, known as VDNKh, was a 1930s agricultural show, full of golden fountains and ornate pavilions. The surviving architectural wonderland has its own circus, fairgrounds and seasonal ice rink. It is also the home of the Cosmonautics and Ice Age museums, the monorail, a butterfly house, and kiosks full of lava lamps and energy balls.
ITAR TASS
Interactive science center, Experimentarium represents the new breed of galleries.
Kommersant
Factory-conversions, like the twenty-odd galleries at Vinzavod with its brightly-colored graffiti and conceptual art is also a top choice.
PhotoXPress
But sometimes what you need is a tiny bite-sized museum like the Museum of Valenki (known as the warmest boots on earth, boiled-felt valenki are now also considered stylish) near Paveletskaya railway station. It’s only one room, but the guide speaks English and you can see the huge woolly shape that boils down into durable footwear before trying on sauna hats in the factory shop next door.
Lori
The Central Museum of the Armed Forces is captivating not only for adults. It allows kids to climb all over the tanks and rocket launchers in the garden.
RIA Novosti
…or the coaches in the Kremlin’s Armory can appeal to kids too.
Lori
Some of the more impressive parts of the Moscow’s biggest attractions, like the Egyptian gallery in the Pushkin Arts’ Museum…
ITAR TASS
…and the Bolshoi ballet’s annual “Nutcracker” sells out every Christmas.
RIA Novosti
Moscow has several animal theatres, including one (Kuklachev's theatre) where all the performers are cats, or the Durov Animal Theatre, with its “mouse railway”, founded a century ago in 1912 by clown and animal trainer Vladimir Durov.
ITAR TASS
The newer “Bolshoi (Great) Circus”, near the Moscow State University, also continues to attract huge audiences with its mixture of animal acts and human skill.
Phoebe Taplin
Clown Yuri Nikulin joined it immediately afterwards and worked there for fifty years. Since Yuri’s death in 1997, his son Maxim has run the show, now known as the “Nikulin circus”. Yuri Nikulin's memorial sculpture is popular with kids of all ages--and a great photo op.
ITAR TASS
Moscow’s oldest circus is on Tsvetnoi Boulevard, just twenty minutes’ walk north of the Kremlin. Albert Salomonsky a bareback rider-turned-businessman, built it in 1880 and framed his first ever ruble of profit to put on the wall of the box office for luck. His catch phrase was “clowns are good; ticket sales are good”.
PhotoXPress
A city built on an inhuman scale, with towering skyscrapers and gridlocked traffic, Moscow may not sound like a child-friendly destination. Though in fact there is plenty here to amuse kids and new venues open all the time.
