Fodor's Expert Review Ploshchad Kudrinskaya

Along one side of this square, cars race along the Garden Ring, the major circular road surrounding Moscow. If you approach the ring from Bolshaya Nikitskaya ulitsa or Povarskaya ulitsa, the first thing to catch your eye will be the 22-story skyscraper directly across Novinsky bulvar. One of the seven Stalin Gothics, this one is 525 feet high. The ground floor, home to a grand supermarket in Soviet times, is now occupied by clothing stores and a cafeteria called Central Restaurant House—this is worth peeking into to admire the towering ceilings and stained-glass windows inside. The rest of the building contains apartments. This area saw heavy fighting during the uprisings of 1905 and 1917 (the plaza was previously called Ploshchad Vosstaniya, or Insurrection Square). The Barrikadnaya (Barricade) metro station is very close by. Cross the ulitsa Barrikadnaya and bear right and down the hill; you'll see people streaming into the station to your right.