GUM, the bronze dog and tea near Tverskaya

⏱ 1 h 5 min🚶 1.9 km🍽 2📍 4 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

It's warm under GUM's glass roof, the bronze figures by Manizer at Ploshchad Revolyutsii, then a chaban (Chinese tea ceremony) with a tea master. You can finish with dinner by windows onto the Kremlin.

🏛 History and architecture☔️ If it rains⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

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🏛 GUM
Late-19th-century trading rows under glass vaults, with openwork bridges over three arcades.
It's warm under the glass roof: a fountain at the crossing of the lines and GUM ice cream
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Marcin Konsek · CC BY-SA 4.0
© AlixSaz · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Upper Trading Rows building was built in 1890–1893 to a design by Alexander Pomerantsev, and trading began on 2 December 1893.
- The glass vaults over the arcades were made by the St Petersburg Metal Works using engineer Otto Krell's system; Shukhov's involvement is an urban legend.
- The name "State Universal Store" appeared in 1921.
- From the early 1930s the building housed people's commissariats and offices, and it became the GUM store again only in December 1953.
- The fountain in the middle of the first line is a long-time meeting place: Muscovites have been saying "meet me at the fountain in GUM" for generations.
- Since 2006 a skating rink has been flooded in winter by the GUM walls on Red Square.
🚶 on foot
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🏛 Ploshchad Revolyutsii metro station
Under the hall's arches are 76 bronze figures by Manizer: workers, soldiers, students, athletes and families of the Soviet era.
Rub the bronze dog's nose for luck
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Cossrad · CC BY-SA 4.0
- There were originally 80 figures, but in 1947 four were removed when a blast door was built; in all, the station has 20 different characters.
- In 1941 the sculptures were evacuated to Central Asia and returned in pieces in 1944.
- All the figures except the pioneers sit, kneel or lean over, otherwise they would not fit in the arches.
- The prototype of the student was the USSR high-jump record holder Arkady Gidrat, who died in 1941.
- Students rub the nose of the border guard's bronze dog before exams, which is why it shines.
- The end of the hall was decorated with Manizer's bas-relief "Stalin and Lenin"; it was removed in 1947.
🚶 on foot
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☕️ Chainaya Vysota Tea Club on Tverskaya
Тверская ул., 6, стр. 1
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Warm up: order a chaban and the master will show you how to brew; 18+ only
🍴 A tea club with hundreds of teas, brewing on a chabani with the master's story, its own tea ice cream; 18+ only. What to order: tea on a chabani, tea ice cream, tea sorbet.
🚶 on foot
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🍽 Doctor Zhivago restaurant
ул. Моховая, 15/1, гостиница «Националь»
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Dinner: Russian cuisine by windows onto the Kremlin; book for the evening
🍴 A modern Russian restaurant by Rappoport in the National hotel with a view of the Kremlin, open around the clock. What to order: pirozhki (small pies), pelmeni (dumplings), crayfish, and for dessert the Tsvetaeva pie.