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      All day with kids: space, VDNKh and the Ostankino Tower

      ⏱ 11 h🚶 7 km + 🚕🍽 2📍 11 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      The Cosmonautics Museum, VDNKh, Moskvarium and an evening at the Ostankino Tower viewing platform.

      👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture
      👶 7–12, 13+ years · ✗ hard with a stroller

      The finale is the Ostankino Tower, which doesn't admit children under 6. With a stroller you can manage the Cosmonautics Museum (lift), VDNKh, Moskvarium and the Japanese Garden; you'll have to skip the tower.

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      1. 1
        ☕️ Vzlyot Space Café at the Museum of Cosmonautics
        проспект Мира, 111 (цокольный этаж музея)
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        Breakfast: the café opens at 10:00
        🍴 A space-themed café on the lower level of the Museum of Cosmonautics, open daily from 10:00, with a kids' menu. What to order: "Space borscht", a cutlet or sausages with potato wedges, pizza for kids, and space food in tubes as a souvenir.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Monument to the Conquerors of Space
        A titanium rocket-shaped stele at VDNKh, a 1964 monument to space exploration.
        The rocket monument
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Monument to the Conquerors of Space
        © Vasilii Martynov · CC0
        Monument to the Conquerors of Space
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • At first the obelisk honoring the satellite was to be placed near Moscow State University; the 1958 competition drew over a thousand designs.
        • It was Sergei Korolev who suggested cladding the monument in polished titanium, and he also secured supplies of the scarce metal.
        • During design the height grew from 50 to 107 m.
        • The frame is a steel lattice weighing 250 tonnes, assembled by hand on the ground and raised with cranes.
        • Korolev, seeing himself in the bas-relief at the base, was angry: he thought there were worthier heroes.
        • The monument is stamped on the 10-kopeck coin of 1967.
        • It is the second-tallest monument in Russia after the Victory monument on Poklonnaya Hill.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🖼 Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
        пр-т Мира, 111
        🎟 ticket
        A museum in the base of the monument with real rockets, satellites and capsules.
        Capsules, spacesuits, Belka and Strelka
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
        © Clockedok · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
        © Clockedok · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The museum was Sergei Korolev's idea; it opened on 10 April 1981, for the 20th anniversary of Gagarin's flight.
        • The halls were originally underground, five meters deep, in the base of the monument.
        • After renovation the museum reopened on 12 April 2009, with Valentina Tereshkova and Pavel Popovich at the ceremony.
        • The museum has a branch of Mission Control showing the ISS's movement live.
        • Inside you can walk into a mock-up of the base block of the Mir station.
        • The museum's collection holds more than 100,000 items.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🚶 Cosmonauts Alley
        A wide alley from the monument to VDNKh with monuments to Korolev and the first cosmonauts.
        The avenue to VDNKh
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Cosmonauts Alley
        © Александр Сигачёв · CC0
        • The alley opened on 4 October 1967, for the 10th anniversary of the first satellite launch.
        • It was laid out to continue Prospekt Mira and to open up a view of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space.
        • At the end of the alley stands a monument to Tsiolkovsky by Andrei Faydysh-Krandievsky.
        • At the center of the Solar System model is a sundial; among the planets is Pluto, which by then had already lost its planet status.
        • In 2017 busts of Alexandrov, Lebedev, Savitskaya and Solovyov appeared, and all four came to the unveiling.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 VDNKh Main Entrance
        A monumental 1950s triumphal arch topped with the Tractor Driver and Collective Farm Girl sculpture, with a wide main avenue behind it.
        The Main Arch
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        VDNKh Main Entrance
        © Don-vip · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The arch was built in 1954 to a design by Innokenty Melchakov during the post-war reconstruction of the exhibition.
        • The five-span gate was conceived as a triumphal arch in honour of victory in the war.
        • The earlier main entrance of 1939, designed by Leonid Polyakov, is now called the North Entrance.
        • The arch is crowned by Sergey Orlov's Tractor Driver and Collective Farm Girl sculpture, clad in gold smalt.
        • The restoration begun in 2017 was the first in the arch's history.
        • The exhibition itself opened on 1 August 1939 and now covers 240 hectares.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🏛 Friendship of Peoples Fountain
        A big 1954 fountain at the centre of VDNKh: gilded statues around a sheaf of grain in a granite bowl.
        Friendship of Peoples Fountain
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Friendship of Peoples Fountain
        © Dmitry Ivanov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Friendship of Peoples Fountain
        © Don-vip · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The fountain was built for the opening of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in 1954; the architect was Konstantin Topuridze.
        • The 16 gilded girls in national costumes symbolise the Union republics; in 1954 there were 16, including the Karelo-Finnish SSR.
        • In the centre, on a granite pedestal, is a sheaf of wheat, industrial hemp and sunflowers.
        • The fountain has 800 jets that constantly change their pattern.
        • The fountain was restored in 2018–2019: about 5 kg of gold went into regilding the figures.
        • The opening of the VDNKh fountain season in spring and its closing in autumn are notable city events with concerts.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        🖼 Kosmos Pavilion
        🎟 ticket · VDNKh grounds are free, the pavilion exhibition is ticketed
        A pavilion with an arched glass dome and a Vostok rocket at the entrance, with authentic spacecraft inside.
        Kosmos Pavilion
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Kosmos Pavilion
        © Евгений Самарин · CC BY 4.0
        Kosmos Pavilion
        © AlixSaz · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The pavilion was built in 1939 to a design by Ivan Taranov, Viktor Andreev and Nadezhda Bykova and showed agricultural machinery.
        • In 1951–1954 a hall with a glass dome was added to it.
        • The pavilion got the name Kosmos in 1967, when rockets and satellites began to be shown here.
        • After restoration, the Cosmonautics and Aviation centre opened here on 12 April 2018.
        • The exhibition has more than 120 examples of aviation and space technology from dozens of industry enterprises.
        • In front of the pavilion stands a model of the Vostok rocket on which Gagarin flew.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        ☕️ Shokolot family café at Moskvarium · 🧸 play area
        пр-т Мира, 119, стр. 23 (Москвариум)
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Lunch
        🍴 A family café right inside the Moskvarium building, with a big sea-themed play area and a mini cinema showing cartoons. What to order: desserts, homemade lemonades, ice cream.
      16. 🚶 on foot
      17. 9
        ✨ Moskvarium
        🎟 ticket
        One of Europe's largest oceanariums, at VDNKh: tanks with sharks and rays, plus marine animal shows.
        Oceanarium; buy tickets online
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Moskvarium
        © MBH · CC BY 4.0
        Moskvarium
        © MBH · CC BY 4.0
        • Moskvarium opened on 5 August 2015 on the site of former VDNKh greenhouses.
        • The complex covers 53,000 m² and is home to about 12,000 animals.
        • The 80 tanks on the ground floor hold more than 600 species, from sharks and moray eels to Baikal seals.
        • The main tank holds 1.49 million litres of water.
        • Launching it took more than 700 tonnes of sea salt, and about 80 tonnes are used every month.
        • The show hall seats 2,300 people, and there are seven pools for swimming with dolphins.
        • Residents include an orca, belugas, dolphins and Baikal seals.
      18. 🚶 on foot
      19. 10
        🌳 Japanese Garden of the Botanical Garden
        🎟 ticket · open from late April to mid-October
        A garden in the Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the traditional Japanese style, with a pond, stone lanterns, pavilions and little bridges.
        Japanese Garden
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Japanese Garden of the Botanical Garden
        © Andrey Korzun · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Japanese Garden of the Botanical Garden
        © Carbonkidka · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Japanese Garden of the Botanical Garden
        © Andrey Korzun · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The idea of the garden was proposed by the botanical garden's deputy director Pyotr Lapin and the Japanese ambassador Akira Shigemitsu; negotiations began in 1978.
        • The garden was designed by the Japanese master Ken Nakajima, who created Japanese gardens in many countries.
        • Nakajima and three assistants worked almost by hand: stones of 3–5 tonnes were set with a tripod and winch.
        • The stones were brought from Western Ukraine, since the rounded boulders of the Moscow region were not suitable for a Japanese garden.
        • The garden has a thirteen-tier pagoda and more than 100 plant species, including the momo maple from Hokkaido.
        • The sakura blooms here in May for about a week, and that is when the garden gets the most visitors.
      20. 🚕 taxi, about 10 min to the foot of the tower (the pavilion entrance is on Akademika Korolyova Street)
      21. 11
        🌅 Ostankino TV Tower
        🎟 ticket · guided tours only, passport required
        The tallest structure in Europe at 540 m, with a glassed-in observation deck at a height of 337 m.
        Viewing platform; bring your passport
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Ostankino TV Tower
        © Gennady Grachev from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0
        Ostankino TV Tower
        © Alexander Grebenkov · CC BY 4.0
        • Designer Nikolai Nikitin claimed he came up with the tower in a single night, and that the shape of the base was suggested by an upside-down lily he saw in a dream.
        • The tower's concrete shaft is compressed by 149 steel cables.
        • The foundation is shallow, 3.5 to 4.6 m; because of doubts about it, construction was halted in 1961.
        • The first TV signal from the tower went out on 4 November 1967, for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution.
        • The observation deck and restaurant opened in 1969.
        • In the fire of 27 August 2000 three floors burned out and three people died.
        • The Seventh Heaven restaurant at 328–334 m reopened only in 2016, after the fire.

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