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City Guide  - Moscow  - Excursions
Excursions

For a Half Day

Ostankino:
Built by the Sheremetyev family in the eighteenth century around an earlier theatre, Ostankino Palace, Ostankinskaya 1-aya 5A (tel: (095) 283 4645), has elegantly furnished rooms and an art collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works by minor European painters. Also in this area is the TV Tower - at 540m (1772ft), it is the second tallest free-standing structure in the world. There used to be an observation platform and restaurant at 337m (1106ft) elevation but are no longer operational since the tower caught fire in August 2000. However the tower continues to transmit TV to Muscovites. A visit to the nearby All-Russian Exhibition Centre (a rather bizarre former showcase of communism that is now a cross between a bazaar and world's fair of capitalist goods) can easily make this a full-day outing. The nearest metro is VDNKh; from where tram 11 leads to the palace.

For a Whole Day

Sergiyev Posad:
One of the most magical sights in Russia is the monastery of Troitsko-Sergieva Lavra (The Trinity - St Sergius Lavra) (tel: (095) 284 3164 or 281 6020). Onion domes in gold and bright blue with gold stars come into view from the last rise in the road from Moscow. The monastery is one of Russia's most important pilgrimage sites and one of only four in the Russian Orthodox Church to have the honorific 'Lavra'. It is part of the Golden Ring, a group of ancient Russian towns to the northeast of Moscow that are, in effect, open-air museums. The monastery complex, begun in the 1340s by St Sergius of Radonezh (the Russian Orthodox Church's greatest saint), comprises churches, cathedrals and monastic buildings that are once again in use. Troitsky Sobor (Trinity Cathedral) is the oldest (1422-23) and finest of the churches, and its iconostasis included paintings by Rublyov, some of which are now visible in the Tretyakov Gallery. The monastery is 80km (50 miles) north of Moscow and can be reached by train from Yaroslavsky Vokzal station in Moscow.



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