Group A, 14 June; Group F, 17 June; Group B, 20 June; Group C, 26 June;\u00a0Round of 16, 1 July; Semi-final, 11 July; Final, 15 July.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The centrepiece stadium for this World Cup, the Russian authorities tore down the old Luzhniki Stadium in 2013 and have rebuilt a new 81,000-capacity ground while trying to preserve the historical facade and architecture of the old one.<\/p>\n The former ground hosted the 1980 Olympic Games, the 2008 Champions League final, which saw Manchester United defeat Chelsea on penalties, and also the 2013 World Athletics Championships.<\/p>\n Capacity:<\/span>\u00a045,360\u00a0Opened:<\/span>\u00a02014\u00a0Team:<\/span>\u00a0Spartak Moscow and some Russia games<\/p>\n Group D, 16 June; Group H, 19 June; Group G, 23 June; Group E, 27 June; Round of 16, 3 July.<\/span><\/p>\n Also in Moscow, the Spartak Stadium (or Otkrytiye Arena for sponsorship reasons) will be hosting five matches during the early part of the tournament.<\/p>\n The home of Spartak Moscow has only been standing a few years after quite a long-winded construction process that saw the plans redrafted a few times.<\/p>\n It opened in September 2014 and beat the building of CSKA Moscow’s VTB Arena, which was originally intended to be a World Cup venue.<\/p>\n The exterior is certainly impressive, with hundreds of little diamonds in red and white making up the Spartak club crest. However, these colours can be changed depending on who is playing there, rather like Munich’s Allianz Arena<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To get a good look at the Kremlin, walk across the Bolshoy Kamenny Most (Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge) that in the Middle Ages used to house residential houses, shops and offices. The bridge was given its modern-day makeover by the architects Vladimir Shchuko, Vladimir Gelfreich and Mikhail Minkus. The view from the bridge can be found as a sketch on the reverse of the cover of the Internal Russian passport.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The majestic Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow’s most readily recognizable temple, a must-see landmark for all tourists and visitors in Moscow, dominates the Red Square. It has a second name: Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, or Pokrovsky Cathedral. Saint Basil’s is not one, but nine churches with 11 domes. The church was ordered to be built by none other than Ivan the Terrible to commemorate his victory over the Kazan Khanate. The multicoloured domes, as most historians believe, were created and built in 1561 by two architects: Barma and Postnik Yakovlev. However, some argue that Barma was simply an alias of Postnik Yakovlev, and the domes were a one-man job. Yet another hypothesis asserts that the church complex was created by some unknown Italian architect. They say that Postnik and Barma (or Postnik alone) were blinded once the construction was finished, to make sure they never build something as beautiful again somewhere else. But historians will not buy this, knowing that Postnik would build the Kazan Kremlin after St. Basil’s was built. Saint Basil’s Cathedral has museum status. Visitors are admitted with or without a tour guide.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Muscovites go to the GUM to have a good time, not just to shop. There are a few caf\u00e9s and a cinema on the third floor. It is customary to eat the delicious ice cream, sold in the GUM, by the fountain in the middle of the shop. It is also customary to schedule dates by the fountain.<\/p>\n The classical ice cream, which is familiar to any Muscovite from early age, can be definitely found in GUM. The sales of this ice cream started on July 3, 1954. In the basement of the store a special ice cream workshop was opened. In the beginning, only plombir (rich ice cream) and cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e were prepared there, later on some other kinds of ice cream were introduced. The workshop is still operating, people who work there thoroughly keep the recipes and the production secrets of the ice cream in waffle cups.<\/p>\n Some time ago in GUM there were elegant saleswomen with ice cream wagons, where you could see a lot of crunchy waffle cups with traditional flavours: rich cream, cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e, cream with chocolate crisps, melon. Now you can see big kiosk in GUM, where the assortment has become bigger: along with the classic flavours you can find cherry, pistachio, and Eskimo ice cream in foil paper. There is a big line in front of the kiosks even during wintertime.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Up until the end of the 13th century, this was a road leading to the city of Vladimir; the street’s current history did not begin until the 14th century. Nikolskaya Ulitsa (Nikolskaya Street) is one of Moscow’s oldest streets and quite representative of the city’s character: the shops, hotels and tenement houses of the 19th century stand side by side with monastery buildings of the 17th century. The predecessor of the first Russian university \u2013 the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy \u2013 was established in late 17th century next to Nikolskaya Ulitsa, in the Bogoyavlensky Pereulok (Bogoyavlensky Lane), thanks to the efforts of writer Symeon Polotsky. Russia’s first naturalist scientist Mikhail Lomonosov (the founder of Moscow State University) and poet and scientist Vasily Trediakovsky studied at the academy. Back in 1553, house No. 15 at Ulitsa Nikolskaya, was a print yard, which happened to be the birthplace of Russia’s first printed book, Apostolos. Before Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow in 1812, almost every building at Nikolskaya Ulitsa housed a bookshop.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Bolshoi’s history began in 1776, when Catherine II allowed Prince Pyotr Urusov to open a theatre in Moscow, but Urusov’s Petrovsky Theatre (so named due to its location at Ulitsa Petrovka (Petrovka Street)) was not meant to be. The building burned down before the theatre could open. The effort was resumed by an Englishman, Michael Maddocks. His theatre stood for 25 years, but then also burned down in 1805. Following the 1812 war with Napoleon, the theatre was included in the general restoration plan for Moscow. However, the new building (1825) designed by Joseph Bov\u00e9, was again destroyed by fire in 1853. The theatre was hastily reconstructed for the coronation of Alexander II (1856, architect: Albert Kavos). The building would subsequently see a few more renovations, but only minor external changes were made. The most recent and most serious renovation was from 2005 to 2011. The company continued to give performances at its New Stage next door, specially built in 2002 to keep the theatre in business during the renovation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moscow’s main park, Gorky Park boasts a long and eventful history and a plethora of amusements. It has been Muscovites’ favourite park for nearly a hundred years. This land was designated as the central municipal dump in 1900, and remained a dump for 20 years. Vladimir Lenin ordered the dump removed in 1921, and the land here and in the neighbouring Neskuchny Garden made suitable for the 1st National Agricultural and Primary-Industrial Exhibition. The area was cleaned and landscaped, and pavilions were built for the exhibition, shaping the current outline of Gorky Park. The park was intended as a spacious recreation and amusement spot for locals and visitors. There were amusement rides in the park from the mid-1980s on, but they were relocated elsewhere in the city in 2012, and Gorky Park was re-conceptualized as a family recreation spot with sports fields, bike and boat rental, Pioneer summer cinema, ping-pong tables and countless caf\u00e9s. Celebrations and festivals are staged here during the warm season, devoted to culinary arts, kids’ education, sports and many other subjects.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a serious museum of space exploration, boasting an incredible collection of exhibits that people of any age will find interesting. There are thousands of items on display: from archive documents to lunar soil samples to the first Sputnik. You can feel like a real cosmonaut here when you visit the Mir space station core module or learn how to steer a Soyuz TMA spacecraft on a link-up simulator (you have to sign up in advance). Here you will find the spacesuits of famous cosmonauts, stuffed dummies of the legendary dog cosmonauts Belka and Strelka (their real names were Vilna and Kaplya), and the favourite amusement of all visitors \u2013 space food in cans, tubes and vacuum packs. You can also buy canned space foods in the museum gift shop, which opened a couple of years ago. If visiting the museum on your own, you are strongly advised to rent an audio guide, or take a free tour on izi.TRAVEL. Space documentaries run non-stop in one of the rooms. <\/p>\n This is Moscow’s and Russia’s main square, the immediately recognizable cityscape few foreign films about Russia do without. Surrounding the square are the Kremlin with its Nikolskaya and Spasskaya Towers overlooking the square, the State Historical Museum, GUM department store with multicoloured windows and outdoor caf\u00e9, and Pokrovsky Cathedral (Saint Basil’s Cathedral), behind which there opens up a peaceful view of the Moskva River and the tranquil Zamoskvorechye District beyond. Also in the square or facing it are the Lobnoye Mesto (execution spot), Lenin’s Mausoleum, the monument to Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, the leaders of the second people’s militia, which freed Moscow from Polish occupation in 1612, and a part of the Kremlin Wall with entombments of famous Soviet political and cultural figures, including Joseph Stalin and the writer Maxim Gorky.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is Moscow’s main repository of Russian art. In every room you will find paintings every Russian knows from childhood: Three Bogatyrs and Alyonushka by Viktor Vasnetsov, The Unknown Woman by Ivan Kramskoi, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin, Morning in a Pine Forest by Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky, The Apotheosis of War by Vasily Vereshchagin, Demon Seated by Mikhail Vrubel, and many other great works of art. Both the building and the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery, opened in the late 1800s, were constantly changed and expanded. The core collection is made up of the paintings collected by Pavel Tretyakov, an eminent local patron of the arts. When his private collection became too large for an ordinary home, the collector decided to have a gallery built, where to put all his art treasures on display for everyone to see. It is important to remember that Tretyakov collected the paintings of people he knew or was friends with, so consider hiring a tour guide. The State Tretyakov Gallery holds landmark exhibitions of Russian art, culled from the best private collections, and from the displays and storerooms of other museums.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the key Russian museums, the Pushkin National Museum of Fine Arts was the idea of art historian Ivan Tsvetayev, who would subsequently manage it. The museum opened on May 31, 1912, and was then named Emperor Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts.The “Museum of Private Collections” has no exhibits of its own, being fully reserved for exhibitions of artworks from Russian and foreign private collections, organized by the museum’s curators, which remain on display very long here. The Art Gallery is devoted to 19th and 20th-century European and American art and, accordingly, exhibits European and American art from the past three centuries. The famous impressionist collection is also here. Each of the buildings has one must-see exhibition or another on display all the time, for which queues start forming early in the morning. The museum has a lecture hall, for which one-time tickets are available in advance. Music concerts are given at the Pushkin Museum during holidays and festivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MOSCOW – Luzhniki Stadium Capacity:\u00a081,000\u00a0Opened:\u00a02017 (rebuilt original stadium, open 1955-2013)\u00a0Team:\u00a0Russia national team Group A, 14 June; Group F, 17 June; Group B, 20 June; Group C, 26 June;\u00a0Round of 16, 1 July; Semi-final, 11 July; Final, 15 July.\u00a0 The centrepiece stadium for this World Cup, the Russian authorities tore down the old Luzhniki Stadium in 2013 and have rebuilt a new 81,000-capacity ground while trying to preserve the historical facade and architecture of the old one. The former ground hosted the 1980 Olympic Games, the 2008 Champions League final, which saw Manchester United defeat Chelsea on penalties, and also the 2013 World Athletics Championships. MOSCOW – Spartak Stadium Capacity:\u00a045,360\u00a0Opened:\u00a02014\u00a0Team:\u00a0Spartak … Continue reading “DESTINATION RUSSIA 2018: FOCUS CITY MOSCOW”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[352,351,253],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-luzhniki-stadium","tag-moscow","tag-world-cup-russia-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}MOSCOW – Spartak Stadium<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/4517FD3E00000578-4954966-image-a-149_1507289012295-730x400.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1.Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n2.Saint Basil’s Cathedral (Pokrovsky Cathedral)<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n3.GUM (department store)<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n4.Nikolskaya Street<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n5.Bolshoi Theatre<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/5.jpg\")
<\/p>\n6.Gorky Park<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n7.Museum of Cosmonautics<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/7.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe memorial home of Sergey Korolev, the leading engineer of the Soviet space programme, deserves a separate tour.<\/p>\n8.Red Square<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/9.jpg\")
<\/p>\n9.State Tretyakov Gallery<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/99.jpg\")
<\/p>\n10.Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/06\/10.jpg\")
<\/p>\n