BEST OF MOSCOW

Inspired by New York`s Jivamukti, this yoga studio is the prettiest in town, with great instructors and spacious rooms. It also serves chai and lassi, and sells clothes that are good for yoga class or any other occasion. Everything about this place is somehow appealing and amiable.

Yoga class — 600 rubles
Address: 4/5, Plotnikov pereulok

This legendary outdoor pool hasn`t changed much since it was built in 1957 for the International Festival of Students and Youth. In winter, you can still swim in clouds of steam under the falling snow without freezing. In summer, you can sunbathe on lounge chairs on the deck. All year round you can attend aqua aerobics classes held by the former head coaches of the national team in synchronized swimming. Chaika`s hygiene standards meet the SSS (State Standard Specification), but the smell of chlorine is mercifully mild.

History students, teachers, professors and historians either love or loathe this library. The main clientele here consisting mostly of ladies, obviously belongs to the first category. The top curiosities of the library are the massive wooden tables with lamps in the common reading room, the wooden card catalogues (despite an effort to put its catalogue online, the library still hangs on to the old cards), the librarians on duty monitoring the clients and keeping order, and of course the freshest and tastiest pastries in the cafeteria on the first floor.

Address: 9, Starosadsky pereulok, stroenie 1

This theater offers the city`s most comprehensive program of contemporary art-house movies, and — most importantly — they run movies undubbed with subtitles. They have weekly retrospectives and festivals celebrating everything from short films to animation.

Tickets range from 250 to 450 rubles.
Address: 47/24, Pokrovka str.

Despite some minor renovations, such as new seats and sound system, this veteran theater still evokes Soviet times. The management carefully maintains a retro experience complete with cheap tickets, a black-and-white marquee, matronly usherettes, a buffet with pastries and even a pianist. The repertoire is mainly classics intermittently diluted with a dose of art-house.

Tickets are 50 rubles and up
Address: 1/15 , Kotelnicheskaya Naberezhnaya (the high-rise building)

PThis is the most successful of the past decade`s club and subculture projects. The building looks like it has always been here, on the eponymous Solianka Street. The very word ''solianka'' is now associated mostly with the club. Despite its reputation for being a hangout for Moscow hipsters, the club attracts quite a variety of customers, from soccer fans to unmitigated sodomites. And for some unknown reason, all of them feel comfortable under the same roof.

On friday and saturday the entrance fee is 500 rubles
Address: 11/6, Solianka str., stroenie 1

Instead of a summer terrace, the recently opened restaurant Uilliams features a two-step wooden porch. It`s an untold pleasure to sit on the porch`s steps sipping wine from large glasses and leisurely watching passersby. It`s nice inside too — cozy surroundings, an open (to your wishes) kitchen and good food from the Italian owner and chef Uilliam Lamberti. The only disadvantage is that in winter you can`t sit too long on the porch, and inside it`s invariably a full house.

Wine from 350 rubles per glass
Address: 20a, Malaya Bronnaya st.

Photo: Mark BoyarskyOne of the most unexpected sources of summer entertainment in the city center. The club is situated near the swimming pool and looks a like an open, a bit abandoned field, through which run 18 homemade trails with brooks and waterfalls — and all this is under the dusty Krymsky bridge. For 250 roubles per hour you can get golf clubs, balls, a score table and even a demonstration of how to kick a ball putt a ball. The whole experience is so strange you can't resist coming back.

Price: 250 rubles per hour
Address: 13, Turchaninov per.

Regulars here, who are normally quite drunk and boisterous, tend to disappear in winter time as the pond turns into Moscow`s main skating rink. It has been the most popular winter attraction in the city center since the time of Lev Tolstoy, although over the last 20 years it has begun to resemble a suburban ice-hockey rink, with its rough ice and a changing room hidden in a snowdrift. Last year, traditional embellishments such as a fir tree, festive lights, music, skate rental and mulled wine — as well as free entrance — were brought back.

Address: between Malaya Bronnaya str., Bolshoy Patriarchie per., Maly Patriarshy per. and Ermolaevsky per.

This is still the best bath house in town and, strictly speaking, the only one worth visiting. The interior is impressive, and the place boasts some of the same clientele who used to drink in Gagarin`s company, and the same bathhouse attendants who used assist him. Visitors can lose themselves in the aura of Soviet-era chic, like the main character in the movie Twist of Fate. And the place serves excellent Adjarian-style khachapuri.

Address: 14, Neglinnaya st., кorpus 3-7

This is the only theater where you can go to any play and be sure you will not waste your time. Their forte is literary classics. In only ten years, the "Fomenko school" has become a benchmark for quality stage direction and acting mastery.

Ticket: 300—5000 rubles
Address: 30/32, Kutuzovsky Prospect