The All-Russian Exhibition Centre, or VVTs, is launching an excursion service, with a diverse range of guided tours around the exhibition centre itself as well as around the city.

Excursions in and around Moscow begin on February 4 with the tours including “Our Ancient Capital”, “Secrets of the Stalinist Skyscrapers”, “World Religions”, “Secrets of the House on the Embankment”, and “The Magic of Cinema”.

VVTs excursions begin in March – “Preserved Masterpieces of VVTs”, “Legends and Myths of VDNKh”, “Heart of the ‘Stone Flower’”, and “Gastronomic Tour of VVTs”, among others.

Excursions within VVTs last one-and-a-half to two hours and cost 200-350 roubles, while city excursions run four to seven hours and cost 750-1,000 roubles.

Ticket offices are to open at the main entrance of VVTs on February 15.

Freezing winter temperatures don’t deter Russian Orthodox believers from taking a dip in an icy pond for Epiphany, which falls on Jan. 19.

And while city authorities are preparing 45 swimming holes around the city especially for the occasion – with Serebryany Bor traditionally being a popular Epiphany bathing spot – this year there will be a new ice pool right near Red Square and the Bolshoi Theatre.

“According to tradition, Epiphany bathing will take place at Ploshchad Revolyutsii on Jan. 19,” RIA Novosti quoted a Moscow Central Administrative District spokesman as saying on Monday. “This year, for the first time, beside a wooden pool there will be a pool made of blocks of ice.”

The ice pool’s walls will be 1 1/2 meters high and 30 centimeters thick, the spokesman said, adding that those afraid to bathe in the ice pool can still take a dip in the wooden one.

The weather forecast is for temperatures of minus 10 to minus 15 degrees Celsius on Epiphany night, Jan. 18-19. More than 60,000 people are expected to take a dip in icy pools all over the city.

If you spot an elk in one of Moscow’s parks, don’t take fright – it’s likely to be just one of the city’s 17 new moose monuments.

City authorities started installing the statues in late December, RIA Novosti reported, quoting a spokesman from the capital’s natural resources and environmental protection department as saying they had already been erected in Vorobyovy Gory, Troparyovo-Streshnevo and Setun River Valley parks. He added that soon the statues would appear in Moskvoretsky Park as well, and that the full-sized monuments are located near walking tracks so that park visitors can see them.

The elk is the symbol of Moscow wildlife and nature, having once been widespread in the area’s forests. Now the animals can be seen only in the Losiny Ostrov (’Elk Island’) national park in the city’s north.

Reaching St. Petersburg’s Hermitage museum just got easier, with the opening of Admiralteiskaya metro station.

The new station, on the purple line between the Sadovaya and Sportivnaya stations, is Russia’s deepest, at 102 metres below the ground. Located on the corner of Malaya Morskaya Ulitsa and Kirpichny Pereulok, it is close to Nevsky Prospekt, Dvortsovaya Ploshchad (Palace Square) and the Admiralty.

The official opening was on December 28, after 14 years of construction.

It’s the end of an era for the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, which on Dec. 20 closed its doors at the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage in northern Moscow.

Daria Zhukova’s contemporary art museum had operated in Konstantin Melnikov’s 1926 Constructivist bus depot since 2008, hosting dozens of exhibitions by Russian and foreign artists.

In 2012 Garage is moving to Gorky Park, where two currently derelict buildings – the 1960s Vremena Goda restaurant and the 1923 Shestigrannik pavilion – are to be restored to accommodate the art center.

In the meantime, Garage is to function from a temporary pavilion in Gorky Park, with Japanese architect Shigeri Ban enlisted to construct it.

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A dolphinarium has opened in Moscow’s All-Russia Exhibition Centre, or VVTs.

Six days a week – from Tuesday to Sunday – visitors can watch performances by dolphins and other animals transferred to VVTs from another recently closed dolphinarium in Moscow, RIA Novosti reported. Tickets cost from 400 to 1,200 rubles.

The dolphinarium is located behind pavilion No. 8 in the exhibition centre near VDNKh metro station. There are plans to develop a large aqua complex with a water park, SPA, swimming pools, diving centre, restaurants, cafes and thematic shops. Swimming with dolphins is also on the agenda.

Skating season has begun in the Russian capital, with the city’s two main outdoor ice rinks opening in the past week.

In addition to the perennial favourite – the 3,000-square-metre GUM rink occupying a quarter of Red Square’s total area – this winter skaters can test the ice on Gorky Park’s new rink.

Gorky Park’s 15,000-square-metre outdoor rink is Europe’s largest and Russia’s most modern. It has special zones for children, dancing and ice hockey, a skating school, skate hire, cloakroom, four restaurants and a cafe.

As part of efforts to combat traffic jams by making pubic transport more attractive, Moscow authorities are installing wireless internet access on city buses.

On Friday the Russian capital’s transport department head Nikolai Lyamov announced 10 new express bus routes running from the Moscow Ring Road to the city centre, with wifi on all the buses. He said that all the city’s express buses would be getting wifi; currently 60 buses provide wireless internet access.

Soon foreigners will be able to go to Moscow museums for the same price as Russians.

Moscow’s new culture department head, Sergei Kapkov, announced last week that the dual-pricing system on museum tickets would be abolished. He did not say when the change would take place.

The city’s tourism and hotels committee head Sergei Shpilko welcomed the announcement, calling it a “sensation,” RIA Novosti reported.

“You can’t imagine how much the market has been waiting for this,” he said.