Zaryadye Park in Moscow: A Practical Guide for Your First Visit

Zaryadye Park is the most modern attraction in Moscow and has already made it onto Time magazine’s list of the world’s best places. It sits right next to Red Square and the Kremlin, recreates Russia’s main natural landscapes and ends in a spectacular floating bridge over the Moskva River that offers the best panoramic view of the city. Entry to the park is free. In this guide I’ll tell you everything you need to know to visit it properly on your first trip to Moscow.

Why Zaryadye Park is a must-see in Moscow

Moscow has fantastic parks like Gorky, VDNH Park, Kolomenskoye, Victory Park or Tsaritsyno. But Zaryadye is different: it’s the first public park to open in Moscow in 50 years (in 2017), it’s right next to Red Square, and it combines gardens, futuristic architecture, digital museums and a concert hall with the best acoustics in the country. These are the reasons you shouldn’t skip it:

• It’s right next to Red Square, so you don’t have to walk more than 5 minutes from the tourist heart of the city.
• Entry to the park and to the floating bridge is completely free.
• It packs Russia’s most representative landscapes (taiga, steppe, tundra, floodplains) into 13 hectares.
• Its V-shaped floating bridge offers the best panoramic view of the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Moskva River.
• Time magazine included it on its list of world’s greatest places in 2018, and it has won several international architecture awards.
• It’s perfect to combine with Red Square, the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral on a single day.

How to get to Zaryadye Park

The official address is Varvarka Street 6, Moscow 109012, between Varvarka Street, Moskvoretskaya Street, Kitaygorodsky Passage and the Moskvoretskaya Embankment, right next to the Moskva River.

By metro (the easiest option)

There are four metro stations 5 to 10 minutes away on foot:

• Kitay-Gorod (lines 6 and 7) – the closest one, exit towards Kitaygorodsky Passage or Varvarka Street.
• Ploshchad Revolyutsii (line 3) – exit via Bogoyavlensky Lane.
• Okhotny Ryad (line 1) and Teatralnaya (line 2) – you cross Red Square on foot.

By bus

The most useful stops are “Krasnaya Ploshchad” (Red Square, lines М5 and 158) and “Zaryadye” on the Moskvoretskaya Embankment (line 255). From Slavyanskaya Square you can take lines М2, М9, М10, H2-H6, 38, 101, 144, 904.

By car and where to park

The park has an underground car park with space for 430 cars (entrance on Moskvoretskaya Street), open 24 hours.

Park and pavilion opening hours

Since the park is an outdoor space, it’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you can also walk through it at dusk (the illuminated bridges and dome look spectacular).

The indoor pavilions (Media Center, Florarium, Ice Cave, underground museum…) follow these hours:

• Monday: 12:00 to 21:00
• Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00 to 21:00

When is the best time to visit? My advice is to go in the afternoon, around 17:00-18:00: you walk up the floating bridge in daylight, watch the sunset over St. Basil’s Cathedral and enjoy the illuminated park on your way back. Set aside 2 to 3 hours if you also want to see a pavilion or two.

Tickets and prices: what’s free and what isn’t

Everything you do outdoors is free: walking through the gardens, crossing the floating bridge, seeing the glass roof, sitting in the amphitheater, visiting the churches on Varvarka… The only paid activities are the interactive pavilions (Media Center with its 360° films, Florarium, Ice Cave, Underground Archaeological Museum) and concerts at Zaryadye Hall.

Prices change often and by season, so the most reliable thing is to check and buy on the new official ticketing website: welcome.zaryadyepark.ru. As a reference, a standard ticket for a panoramic Media Center film usually costs around 700-900 ₽; smaller exhibitions (cave, florarium, underground museum), 250-400 ₽; Zaryadye Hall concerts vary depending on the event (from 1,000 ₽ to several thousand).

💡 Tip: if you carry the Troika public transport card, some pavilions offer discounts.

Map of Zaryadye Park

The park is bigger than it looks and the pavilions are quite spread out. Here it is in one image:

The floating bridge: the must-see attraction

If you only have 30 minutes at Zaryadye, head straight to the floating bridge over the Moskva River. It’s shaped like a “V” or a boomerang (Muscovites affectionately call it “the unfinished bridge”), rises 15 meters above the water and measures 244 meters long. Access is free.

From the tip you get a unique panoramic view of the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kotelnicheskaya skyscraper, one of the Seven Sisters of Stalin. It’s said to be the only spot from which you can see all five red stars of the Kremlin at the same time. It’s the spot for the obligatory selfie in Moscow.

Right below the bridge is the Moskvoretskaya Embankment, connected to the park via an underground passage. From there you can take river cruises on the Moskva that pass right in front of the Kremlin: it’s a great way to combine Zaryadye with a panoramic view of Moscow from the water.

The four landscapes of Russia recreated in the park

Zaryadye isn’t a conventional park with trees planted at random. It brings together more than a million plants, 760 trees and 7,000 shrubs spread across different levels (the difference between the highest and lowest point is 27 meters), recreating the four great natural zones of Russia:

• Mixed forest or southern taiga: oaks, birches, maples and firs.
• Steppe: grains and flowering herbs from temperate zones.
• Tundra: mosses, lichens and small trees typical of the Arctic.
• Floodplains: meadow with wildflowers and ponds with riparian vegetation.

Each zone changes hugely depending on the season, so the park looks beautiful at any time of year: in spring and summer for the flowers, in autumn for the contrast of colors and in winter when everything is covered in snow.

The glass roof and the Great Amphitheater

One of the most striking images of the park is its glass “bark”: a translucent 8,500 m² structure that partially covers the amphitheater and the concert hall without touching them. It creates a mild microclimate underneath (even in the dead of winter you can walk under it in short sleeves) and at night it lights up that entire section of the park.

Under the roof and out in the open is the Great Amphitheater, which seats 1,500 people. It hosts concerts, screenings and open-air events in summer. Even if there’s no performance on, it’s worth walking down the steps and taking a photo: you’ve got the glass dome above you and St. Basil’s Cathedral in the background.

Pavilions and exhibitions: which ones are worth it

The park has several modern pavilions —some literally “buried” under the hills— where most of the cultural offerings are concentrated. If you have time, these are the ones I recommend, from most to least essential:

Dome Pavilion (free and quick)

Right at the entrance from Red Square you’ll find the Dome, a metal cupola with an interior lined with QR-code mosaic tiles that tell the story of the historic Zaryadye district. Inside there’s also a model of the park that helps you get your bearings. Free admission. Spend 10 minutes here before starting your visit.

Media Center: “Time Machine” and “Soaring over Russia”

This is the pavilion with the most spectacular offer and the one I’d recommend most if you can only pick one paid attraction:

• “Time Machine”: a panoramic film in an interactive room that takes you through the history of Moscow from Prince Yuri Dolgoruky to the arrival of Gagarin. Short duration, big visual impact.
• “Soaring over Russia”: you sit in a rotating chair that lifts you into the air while an immersive screen flies you over the most stunning landscapes in the country: the Caucasus, Lake Baikal, Kamchatka, St. Petersburg… It’s the favorite of children (and grown-ups too).
• “Gagarin. Lieutenant of the Sky”: the new flagship projection, created specifically for the 360° Media Hall by artists Jan Kalnberzin and Evgeny Afonin, with music by Nikolai Popov.
• “Russia. A Virtual Journey”: a 360° film featuring the 9 most spectacular natural landscapes in Russia, premiered at the Russian Geographical Society festival.

Florarium: 250 plants from Russia’s 89 regions

The Florarium is an experimental greenhouse inside the Nature Center (3,300 m²) where plants grow without soil, in aeroponic and hydroponic systems. The current exhibition “Russia Route” brings together more than 250 plant species from the country’s 89 regions. It’s very photogenic and especially interesting if you’re traveling with children.

Ice Cave

750 m² of ice at a constant temperature between -4 °C and -9 °C all 365 days of the year, recreating an Arctic cave. If you’re not warmly dressed, you can rent thermal blankets at the entrance. It’s a short visit (15-20 minutes) and quite a curiosity, especially if you go in the middle of a Moscow summer.

Underground Archaeological Museum and Kitay-Gorod wall

Built around the original foundations of the 16th-century Kitay-Gorod wall, this small underground museum exhibits archaeological remains from the old Zaryadye district: coins, white-stone cannonballs, ancient Russian footwear, medieval customs seals and a reconstructed fragment of the wall. It’s accessed from the underground passage that connects the park to the Moskvoretskaya Embankment.

Zaryadye Hall: the concert hall with the best acoustics in Russia

Zaryadye Hall (zaryadyehall.com) is one of the most modern concert halls in the world, designed acoustically by the legendary Japanese engineer Yasuhisa Toyota (the same one behind the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles). It’s literally “carved” into an artificial hill and has two halls: a large one for 1,560 people and a chamber hall with 400 seats.

If a classical music, ballet or opera concert lands during your trip to Moscow, it’s a highly recommended experience and far more affordable than the Bolshoi. Programming and tickets at zaryadyehall.com. There are also guided tours of the building if you’d like to see how it’s built on the inside.

Where to eat at Zaryadye Park

Inside the park there are quick cafés in almost every pavilion plus two notable restaurants:

Zaryadye Gastronomic Center

Near the floating bridge, it’s a kind of gourmet food market with stalls specializing in the varied cuisines of Russia’s different regions: Siberian pelmeni, Caucasian khachapuri, fish from the north, traditional sweets… Ideal for a casual lunch and trying lots of variety.

Voskhod Restaurant

The Voskhod restaurant (“Sunrise” in Russian) has a retro-futuristic design inspired by the Soviet space program, with references to Gagarin and the cosmonauts. The menu revives traditional dishes from the former Soviet republics (Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan…). It’s a tablecloth restaurant, perfect for a special dinner.

Churches and historic monuments on Varvarka Street

The northern edge of the park borders Varvarka Street, one of the oldest streets in Moscow, where a unique cluster of churches and historic houses remain standing from when Stalin razed the district. They’re short visits but very photogenic:

• House of the Romanov Boyars: a 15th-17th century historic monument and birthplace of Mikhail Feodorovich, the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty. Today it’s a museum recreating the daily life of the 17th-century Moscow nobility.
• Old English Court: a 16th-century building housing a museum dedicated to trade relations between England and Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Church of the Great Martyr Barbara, Church of St. George the Victorious, and Cathedral and bell tower of the Znamensky Monastery: three small active Orthodox churches, all on Varvarka Street itself.
• Church of the Conception of St. Anne: the only one standing right next to the Moskva River (corner of Kitaygorodsky Proyezd). One of the oldest in Moscow.

A brief history: from the district Stalin razed to the 21st-century park

The most curious thing about Zaryadye Park is what used to stand here. On this site lay the historic Zaryadye district, one of the oldest in Moscow, which Stalin ordered demolished in the 1930s and 40s to make way for the so-called Zaryadye Administrative Building: what would have been the eighth of the Seven Sisters or Stalinist skyscrapers. In fact, at its planned height it would have completely overshadowed Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral.

Of that skyscraper, only the foundations were ever built. On top of them, in the 1960s, the Rossiya Hotel went up, which for several decades was the largest hotel in the world (until the opening of the Excalibur in Las Vegas in 1990). It operated between 1967 and 2006, when it was demolished.

The lot stayed fenced off for years until, in 2012, the authorities decided to turn it into a public park. After an international competition, the project went to the New York studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro (the same team behind New York’s High Line), together with Hargreaves Associates and Citymakers. The park cost around 480 million dollars and was opened on 9 September 2017 by Vladimir Putin and Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, coinciding with Moscow’s 870th anniversary.

Practical tips for your visit

• Allow 2-3 hours if you want to include a pavilion. If you’re only going for a walk and the bridge, an hour is enough.
• Combine it with Red Square: the logical plan is to do the Kremlin/Red Square in the morning and Zaryadye at sunset.
• Wear comfortable shoes: the park has slopes and paths at different heights.
• Watch out for the wind on the floating bridge: it’s noticeably cooler than the rest of the park.
• The park is accessible for people with reduced mobility (ramps, lifts and reserved parking spaces).
• For payments inside the park (tickets, food, souvenirs), Western Visa and Mastercard cards don’t work: bring rubles in cash or a Russian MIR card.

Frequently asked questions about Zaryadye Park