Just a few blocks away from the Azimut, visitors can't fail to notice the impressive modernist Olympic Sports Stadium, built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics and designed to seat up to 35,000 people. The stadium can accommodate a football ground, skating rink or athletics track depending upon the event, and the adjacent buildings contain a gymnasium and an Olympic-sized pool. Nestled next to the stadium and recognizable only by a few Islamic crescents, is one of Moscow's few mosques.
A few streets away from the hotel guests will find the curious Durov Animal Theatre, founded near the turn of the century by Vladimir Durov and still performing today. Durov loathed cruelty to animals and shunned circus training methods, choosing to enhance his animals' natural behavior on stage and coax them to perform by handing out rewards rather than punishments.
Heading south east back towards the Garden Ring, visitors can find the nostalgic Vasnetsov House, built entirely of wood and reminiscent of a Russian life-style of the past. The former owner, the architect and painter Viktor Vasnetsov, created the house primarily as an exhibition space for many of his own larger canvases but also filled it with many fine pieces of intricately carved wooden furniture.
Within a few streets of each other and just two metro stops away from the hotel stand the Museum of Decorative Arts and the rather interesting Museum of Musical Culture, whose displays feature beautifully crafted musical instruments from all over the world and from all through the centuries. The museum also hosts occasional lectures on the history of music and stages concerts, where visitors have the opportunity to hear some of the museum's more unusual instruments.
