4 Best Sights in Moscow, Russia

This statue of a melancholy Nikolai Gogol (1809–52) originally stood at the start of Gogolevsky bulvar but was replaced by a more "upbeat" Gogol. The statue now stands inside a courtyard near the apartment building where the writer spent the last months of his life. The statue actually captures Gogol's sad disposition perfectly. He gazes downward, with his long, flowing cape draped over his shoulder, protecting him from the world. Gogol is perhaps best known in the West for his short stories, his novel Dead Souls, and for his satirical drama Revizor (The Inspector General), about the unannounced visit of a government official to a provincial town. Characters from his works are engraved on the pedestal.

The name of the strange, round, white-stone dais in front of St. Basil's Cathedral literally means "place of the brow," but it has come to mean "execution site," for it is next to the spot where public executions were once carried out. Built in 1534, the dais was used by the tsars as a podium for public speeches and the proclamation of imperial ukazy (decrees). When the heir apparent reached the age of 16, he was presented to the people from this platform.

In 1818 sculptor Ivan Martos built this statue honoring Kuzma Minin (a wealthy Nizhni-Novgorod butcher) and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who drove Polish invaders out of Moscow in 1612 during the Time of Troubles. This period of internal strife and foreign intervention began in approximately 1598 with the death of Tsar Fyodor I and lasted until 1613, when the first Romanov was elected to the throne. This was the first monument of patriotism funded by the public. The inscription on the pedestal reads, "To citizen Minin and Prince Pozharsky from a thankful Russia 1818." The statue originally stood in the center of the square, but was later moved to its current spot in front of St. Basil's. In 2005, November 4 was named a new public holiday in honor of Minin and Pozharsky, replacing the old Communist November 7 holiday, which celebrated the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

An enormous figure of the tsar stands at the helm of a ship, symbolizing his role as the founder of the Russian naval force in the 1700s. Most Muscovites agree that the statue, by Zurab Tsereteli, is an eyesore and has no place in Moscow—after all, Peter the Great moved the capital to St. Petersburg. Ongoing movements are afoot to remove the statue, but for the time being, it's here. When you finally set eyes on the colosso you'll probably understand why common nicknames for it are "Cyclops" and "Gulliver." A red light atop the 325-foot-tall monument is a warning beacon for airplanes.