The Best Moscow Travel Tips From Our Readers – Info Computing

We got a thread full of tips for visiting Moscow, and only two thirds of them were jokes about Trump or Napoleon. Go to that thread and see the best tips under the Staff tab, or check out the highlights below.

Each Monday on Hack Your City, we ask readers for your best tips on a city: driving tips, restaurant recs, things to do, and any other advice for visitors and locals. Then on Thursday, we present the best comments. We’re working our way around the U.S. and around the globe.

• “Try Georgian food, it’s delicious, visit Genatsvale Restaurant if you are able to and enjoy the lovely traditional dance shows.”—aesthetics4ever
• “Red Square is more than you think it is, if that’s possible. I’m a bit older, so I grew up with Moscow being the epicenter of the evil empire, and to actually be in Red Square is a really powerful experience. A tour of the Kremlin is highly advised as well. Getting an ice cream in the GUM department store is a Muscovite right of passage, and if you’re there, it’s seen as a disappointment if you don’t take advantage.”—ekimyllek
• “If you visit Moscow, you really should also try to get in a trip to St. Petersburg. Take the overnight train from Moscow. Note that when you buy a bunk, you are literally only buying that bunk. That means strangers will get put into the room with you if you don’t buy all the bunks in it. When my mom and I took the Red Star to St. Petersburg, two dudes got put in the room with us, one of which kindly and calmly informed us that he had a gun with him.”—mazzieD
• “I recommend getting a local sim card. The internet is way more reliable that what ever phone plan you brought with you. Make sure you are able to log into Uber before you arrive in Russia. When I switched sim cards, Uber kept sending my confirmation number to my old number.”—harviylopez
• “The Russian theater scene is very hardcore with lots of state sponsorship. I saw several productions there that put Broadway to shame, even watching in Russian (which I do not speak). MXAT and Satyricon are two of the best places to see shows. Unlike in the States, at any given time, a single theater will have up to a dozen shows performing in rep, so you could go see The Seagull on Thursday and Romeo and Juliet on Friday on the same stage.”—FKA Scooter

• “Learn to pronounce the Cyrillic alphabet. You might even look up why it’s called the Cyrillic alphabet. But for example Фото, ресторан, and супермаркет are the Russian words for photo, restaurant, and supermarket.”—dchall8
• “Practice pronouncing, reading, listening to, and sounding out (connecting the letters to their sounds) any major destinations or other important key words / proper nouns. Hotel, airport, subway stations, etc. The more ways you can recognize a word, the better off you are. Youtube has plenty of videos that can help.”—Helena Glory
• “Apple Pay and others work pretty much everywhere. Don’t bring lots of cash and don’t show it in public. Uber works, so does Gett. You can also use Yandex Taxi, the local option. Never use taxis without apps. Never. Ever. You will be scammed.”—Kirion
• “I had some non-white fellow Americans that I knew, and the shit they dealt with [in Russia] was unreal. Likewise if you’re not straight and don’t want to pretend to be straight, or if you’re at all gender nonconforming or even just on the non-traditional side of gender presentation.”—miapps 
• “Museums. Museums. MUSEUMS! For art, the Tretyakov and New Tretyakov. Both are outstanding. WWII: Victory Museum (Park Pobedy metro station). For space enthusiasts: the Cosmonautics Museum near VDNKh metro station. It’s my favorite museum, possibly ever.”—InvalidnostCCCP

Most of these tips come from long comments with more advice, so check out the original thread, and leave your own tips down here. Come back next week, when we go to possibly the least controversial city to visit, a city only a monster could hate.