Spring in Moscow: Street Festivals and Classical Music
Valery Gergiev’s Moscow Easter Festival, May 1 – 17, 2016
This Festival has become the annual culmination of the musical season in the capital and all across Russia as it presents a series of 150 events over a three week period. The Moscow Easter Festival’s social priorities – charity, education and enlightenment – are highlighted in each of the four main Festival categories: the symphonic, chamber, and choral programmes as well as Bell Week.
A traditional feature of every Easter Festival is the free concert at Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow on Victory Day, which attracts about 300,000 listeners each year.
More information and a detailed progamme are available at the Festival’s English-language website.
Moscow Spring street festival, April 22 – May 9, 2016
This is a series of activities held at Moscow’s central streets and squares. Soon you’ll see a lot of Easter-decorated market stalls all over Moscow, so check them out for national specialties, crafts and souvenirs. Musicians will play Easter melodies and actors will give street performances. If you know a bit of Russian, you might also want to go on a free excursion around some of Moscow’s historical sites. More information is available on the festival website, but unfortunately only in Russian.
See more about some of the festival's venues
The Bogatyrs
Ploshad Revolutsii
The main character of this venue is Ilya Muromets, a bogatyr and main hero of Russian legends. The venue features a five-meter figure of the Three Bogatyrs, a copy of Viktor Vasnetsov’s painting from Tretyakovskaya Gallery. The festival venue will also have a ring where the guests will be able to measure their strength with a real bogatyr. Reenactments of some historical battles will also take place here.
Theatre poster exhibition
6 Kamergersky Pereulok
The exhibition tells the story of evolvement and best moments in the history of the Moscow Art Theatre.
Light Alley
Kuznetsky Most, at the junction with Rozhdestvenka
Fashion
Orthodox Easter Around the World
Tverskaya Ploshad
Orthodox world: representing cathedrals from various countries, including Egypt, Romania, Israel, Serbia and many others.
Garden in blossom
19 Tverskoy Bulvar (near the Esenin monument)
The greenest festival venue for those who love nature and care about the environment! The venue features separate waste collection and battery collection zones. The venue is decorated with an interactive kinetic object dedicated to the most environmental-friendly type of urban transport, the bike.
Garden fair
6-8 Stoleshnikov Pereulok, between Tverskaya Ploshad and Bolshaya Dmitrovka Ulitsa
This fair is about love to nature. Come to listen to lectures on gardening, to create a herbarium and other crafts from natural materials. The venue also includes a cozy ‘suburban’ restaurant with a comfortable relax zone.
Great Scholars
Ploshad Revolutsii (near the Karl Marx monument)
The venue is dedicated to Sofia Kovalevskaya, the first female professor of mathematics in the world. The venue includes a big experimental laboratory, which will demonstrate the history of great discoveries made by Russian researchers, in a form of performance.
Musical chamber
Junction of Kamergersky Pereulok and Bolshaya Dmitrovka Ulitsa
The world of music and dance. Here you’ll be able to listen to some nice classical music, or something more modern, as well as dance at discos by the country’s most popular radio stations. The venue offers master classes on painting musical instruments, as well as performances by folk musicians.
Autodrome
Rozhdestvenka Ulitsa, at the junction with Pushechnaya Ulitsa
Mini retro cars
Kids’ playset
Tverskaya Ploshad, behind the Yury Dolgoruky monument
A place to get prepared to the Easter and spring. An Easter egg playset and an outdoor cinema for kids. Fresh organic eggs, chocolate and cookies for kids, chocolate from Russia, Belgium, and Denmark, as well as wooden toys, construction sets, and learning games.
Alley of spring discoveries
20-24 Tverskoy Bulvar
Green topiary sculptures. This venue includes schools of rowing and lawn hockey. It also features an interactive kinetic object dedicated to the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite.
Make sure you don’t miss the free bike taxi, which shuttles between the Kids’ playset, the Garden Fair, and the Flower Fair.
See the map of the locations.
Additionally, there are a lot of interesting exhibitions right now in Moscow. Check the review here and choose from Kandinsky, the Cranachs, photography, and many more.