There are a number of major visitor attractions in the area surrounding the Korston Moscow. Just a few hundred meters from the hotel begin the Sparrow Hills, a wooded ridge that, at 220m, is one of the highest points in Moscow and has made numerous appearances in Russian poetry and fiction. Since 1953 it has been the site of the main campus of Moscow State University, housed in the largest of the Seven Sisters, the monumentally impressive neo-gothic skyscrapers that Stalin commissioned to make Moscow a worthy capital of world socialism. While it is not possible for tourists to get inside the main building, the exterior is impressive enough to warrant close inspection, and the view from the plateau on the north-west side of the building is one of the finest in Moscow.
From there it is possible to see the other major attractions in the area - the Novodevichy Convent and the Luzhniki Stadium. The former is one of a ring of fortified religious houses that acted as Moscow's outposts in the middle ages. Founded in 1524, the convent was both a refuge and a confinement for many daughters of royalty and the high aristocracy. It contains numerous buildings of interest, including the fine 16th-century Cathedral of Our Lady of Smolensk and the impressive 72-meter Bell-tower.
Next to the convent, the Novodevichy Cemetery is Moscow's most prestigious burial ground, with Chekhov, Bulgakov, Gogol, Stanislavsky, Eisenstein, Prokofiev, and Khrushchev among the great and good lying there. Even if you have no interest in paying your respects to any of the above, the cemetery is well worth a visit for the fascinating and sometimes fantastic ornamentation of many of the graves.
The Luzhniki Stadium, which is only about 15 minutes' walk from the Korston Hotel, is Moscow's premier sports stadium. Built in the 1950s, it was completely modernized for the 1980 Olympics and provides a venue for concerts and festivals as well as major football matches. The complex also contains a myriad of sports facilities open to the public, and a moderately interesting Museum of Sport.
Even closer to the Korston Moscow Hotel is the Circus on Vernadskogo Prospekt, one of the two major Moscow circuses the artists of which are better known abroad as the Moscow State Circus. While some of the animal acts may not be to the taste of all visitors, the clowns and acrobats demonstrate the skill and invention for which they are internationally renowned.
