Moscow Review

Once upon a time, excursions around Moscow were the most important state matter, because they introduced the citizens of the Soviet country to the capital of their great Motherland. (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )

The first thing a guest of the capital who enters the Moscow City Travel and Excursions Bureau LLC sees is the bright posters hanging on the walls inviting them to Cyprus, Turkey and Greece. Upon closer inspection, among all these exotic posters, you can see old stands with yellow and red inscriptions: “The Moscow Travel and Excursion Bureau offers trips around the capital.”

- Can I sign up for a bus tour of Moscow? - I ask the girl who is bored under the “Turkish” posters.
- No.

- And since when?
- Yes, about ten years.

Actually this is not true. If you are “not a group”, then, however, they will not sign you up for the excursion, but they will send you to a “patch” near Red Square, where busloads of single enthusiasts gather. So you will still be able to see Moscow.

But once upon a time this institution took at least half the population of the entire Soviet Union around Moscow, many of them several times!

This is how Soviet glory passes
“In those days, we transported up to one and a half thousand tourist groups a day around Moscow,” says the bureau’s senior tour guide, Marina Voloshina, who worked here for decades. “The trip certainly ended with laying flowers at the Lenin monument in the Kremlin.” It is not surprising that in all corners of the former USSR, people over thirty, when they hear the word “Moscow,” first of all remember the Mausoleum and the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.

Trips to Moscow were then organized by trade unions and everything was paid for - hotel, bus, food.

“After 1991, we ceased to be a monopoly,” says Alexander Egorov, director of the City Travel and Excursions Bureau. “A lot of companies and small businesses appeared - about two thousand in total. But at first they dealt mainly with foreigners - in those days they were only interested in currency. Then, "After the stabilization of the ruble, about 20 companies emerged that focus on Russian citizens. However, these companies mainly send wealthy Muscovites on trips around the provinces. Residents of, say, Vologda or Rybinsk have less money, and it is simply not commercially profitable to attract them to Moscow."

To stay afloat, the bureau transformed into a joint-stock company and expanded the scope of its activities - it became involved in the tourism business in Turkey and Cyprus, cruises on the Volga, etc. As a result, the best room in the office is occupied by “Turks”, the worse room is occupied by “Volzhans” and “Crimeans”, and the cramped and most distant room is occupied by those who work with Russian guests of the capital.

“In order to recruit excursion groups for a sightseeing trip around Moscow, we are forced to keep the price at 70 rubles,” says Alexander Egorov. “Our compatriots from other cities are not able to pay more.”

“The tourist went inquisitive,” says tour guide Svetlana. “Previously, “on a trade union ticket,” people simply sat in the back seat of the bus and poured it into glasses. But now everyone asks and is interested. They really need it, otherwise they wouldn’t have paid a lot for the excursion money for yourself." In addition to the old “ideological” programs (which, by the way, successfully survived) such as “The Dear Feat of the Unknown Soldier” or “The Feat of the Unfading Glory of Moscow,” many new routes have been added. On the excursion “Peoples, Religions, Temples” you will be shown Orthodox monasteries, mosques, and synagogues. The guides are usually the same ones. “It’s just that earlier we started our story about the Danilovsky Monastery with the phrase that there is no God, and now with a story about saints and relics,” explains Alexander Egorov.

Excursions “to order” also appeared - on a specific topic. An excursion “Natives from Germany in Moscow” was organized for the Germans, and in the future Egorov dreams of launching a new super-project “Jews in the capital of Russia”. I'm not even talking about the many literary routes - "Bulgakov in Moscow", "Moscow in the fate of Marina Tsvetaeva".


If you are a guest of the capital and want to go on a sightseeing tour, you should not painfully search for travel agencies or travel agencies. It’s easier to go to three train stations or to Red Square - there are barkers there in any weather inviting you on bus excursions. (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )

Stereotypes of the past and present
Alas, all this diversity is enjoyed daily by an incomparably smaller number of people than in Soviet times. Instead of one and a half thousand groups, today an average of only 10 are sent to the opening of the capital every day. The reason is that Moscow excursion companies do not have reliable partners locally - in Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg. Tourists traveling to the capital do not have the necessary information and the opportunity to plan their visit in advance. As a result, almost every excursion begins with the question of whether the Mausoleum is open and how to get there.

“I was there 15 years ago, when I first came to Moscow,” says elderly Sverdlovsk resident Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, getting on the bus. - Now I wanted to show it to my granddaughter.

- Yes, it’s high time to bury him! - other tourists respond indignantly.

Further discussion is reminiscent of last year's Duma debate on this issue.

Before the fire, excursions to Central Television were especially popular among tourists. There was no shortage of people wishing to visit Ostankino or participate in talk shows, but getting there was not so easy for a “savage” tourist - sometimes it was necessary to sign up several weeks in advance. How can people who come to Moscow for 3-4 days do this (only a negligible percentage of provincials are able to pay for a week’s stay in expensive Moscow hotels)?

There are, however, among the guests of the capital those who want to go beyond the “television” or traditional Soviet idea of ​​Moscow. Natasha came to Moscow from Novosibirsk. I spent half of my vacation in St. Petersburg, and for the remaining five days I decided to stop by Moscow. I came on this sightseeing tour by accident. “I really wanted to go on some kind of thematic excursion,” says Natasha. “But there was no group, and an individual trip is very expensive.”

As a result, Natasha’s cultural program looks “statistically average”: a tour of the Kremlin, and in the evening - a theater (tickets, as a rule, are “from hand” with a huge overpayment). The choice of theater is traditional: Lenkom, Bolshoi, Maly and Moscow Art Theater. There is neither time nor information to search for exotic studios or fashionable performances.

The Moscow government, which spends huge amounts of money on “prestige projects” like the monument to Peter the Great or the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, does not care about showing these monuments to tourists. There are no special information centers where, as in other world capitals, tourists could receive information about transport, hotels, excursions and city attractions. Yes, and guides to Moscow in Russian are inferior to their counterparts in English and French, and are often more expensive.

One of the most popular excursions is “Moscow-850”, called “Moscow Luzhkovskaya” by guides. The route includes all of Yuri Mikhailovich’s most ambitious projects - starting from Victory Park and ending with the recently consecrated chapel near the Ministry of Internal Affairs building. The end of the route is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.


(Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )