The Marriott Courtyard Moscow City Center may be most popular with business travellers, but it is superbly situated for sightseeing, with the vast majority of Moscow's major visitor attractions – including the Kremlin, Red Square, the Bolshoi Theatre, and Arbat – all within comfortable walking distance (less than 1km).
All around the Marriott Courtyard there are pretty historical side-streets and famous monuments. Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa, only two steps from the hotel, is one of Moscow's most famous streets, and home to the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, both Russia's premier music college and arguably Moscow's finest venue for classical concerts. Founded in 1866, it occupies a splendid Empire-style building only two minutes' walk from the hotel. A few steps further north along the street, the Mayakovsky Theatre is one of the city's oldest drama theatres, housed in a beautiful 18th century mansion that once belonged to the Princes Streshnev. A theatre since 1885, it was home the Theatre of the Revolution, managed by renowned experimental director Vsevolod Meyerhold. For those who wish to find out more about him and his hugely influential techniques, the Meyerhold Memorial Museum is also less than five minutes' walk from the hotel on Briusov Pereulok.
At the point where Bolshaya Nikitskaya meets the charmingly leafy Boulevard Ring, where the medieval Nikitskye Gates stood until destroyed by Stalin, visitors will find the Church of the Great Ascension. A plain but attractive early neoclassical building dating from the 1790s, it was designed by Matvey Kazakov, architect of the Kremlin Senate building and the original Moscow University (which is at the opposite end of Bolshaya Nikitskaya) and is perhaps most famous as the site of Alexander Pushkin's marriage to Natalia Gonchareva in 1831.
