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Red Square and GUM: why we removed these guides
Editorial Position
Updated:8 min1,667 words

Red Square and GUM: why we removed these guides

The four guides that used to live at this address are gone. They covered Red Square and Manezhnaya, GUM, Gostiny Dvor, and the historic food hall on Tverskaya. The Manezhnaya Square page was the most-cited Moscow piece on the old site.

All four shared the same tone: the center of the capital as a showcase of ordinary life, where you can stroll and shop. For a reader from the European Union, that normality no longer exists, legally or practically, and nowhere is that easier to see than in the topic of shopping.

💡 At a glance:

  • which four guides were deleted and what they had in common
  • why the "strolling and shopping in central Moscow" scenario doesn't work for an EU visitor
  • how the money argument works and why it isn't about oil and gas
  • which cities with similar squares and galleries remain in our live sections
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. After that date, the texts about the country's main square continued to serve their original purpose: presenting the capital as a pleasant weekend destination. We believe this is not neutral work but participation in creating that picture, which is why we removed the material entirely rather than rewriting it.

Let us be clear about what this text does not say. It is not about the people who walk across that square and go into those stores, nor about their choices. The subject here is the decisions of the Russian state and the decision of our editorial team, not the shoppers.

The financial part of the argument requires precision, because the common version is wrong. The share of oil and gas revenue in Russia's federal budget fell to roughly 22 percent in 2025 and 2026, down from 42 percent in 2022, so the phrase "tourist money goes to oil and gas" doesn't hold up (Centre for Eastern Studies OSW, 12/09/2025). What does hold up is different: the share of non-oil-and-gas revenue, which includes VAT and corporate profit tax from retail and services, has grown to roughly 78 percent. The shopping galleries of the center are literally the sector in question.

A showcase that doesn't exist for an EU visitor

The scenario our previous texts were selling requires one simple thing: the ability to pay. Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Russia on March 10, 2022, and cards issued outside the country stopped working there (The Moscow Times, 03/06/2022). Germany's Federal Foreign Office confirms this in its current travel advice: using cards commonly issued in Germany is currently impossible (Auswärtiges Amt). We do not explain how to get around this restriction: the texts in this section contain no practical travel information.

The contents of those showcases have also changed. After February 2022, more than a thousand brands wound down or restricted their operations in Russia (Ethical Consumer). In other words, a guide to the center's shopping galleries describes a reality that is not only inaccessible but also different in its makeup.

Finally, the flow of visitors these texts were written for has disappeared. Organized tourism to Russia fell by roughly 90 percent as early as 2022, with the consequences of the war, the suspension of payment systems, and Russia's own restrictive visa policy cited among the reasons (industry statistics review, Fox News, 2022).

There is also something a strolling-and-shopping text typically doesn't mention at all. Germany's Federal Foreign Office, in its current travel advice, warns against travel to the Russian Federation and explicitly cautions about the risk of arbitrary detention for German citizens and people with dual German-Russian citizenship (Auswärtiges Amt). A piece in the "what to see in the center in one day" genre cannot, by its very form, accommodate such a warning: it is written for a reader who has no reason to think about being detained. That is precisely why we believe the genre cannot be fixed.

The square as an address, not a sight

There is a second reason, beyond the practical one. Red Square and the surrounding block are not a museum ensemble detached from current politics: they are the administrative center of a state waging war and the main stage for its official ceremonies. Our previous text described the square as if that function had ended with the Soviet period.

We cover the Kremlin itself as a seat of power separately, so as not to mix topics. Here it is enough to say that this very inseparability is what makes the "stroll across the main square" genre impossible for us today.

Added to this is the legal framework that applies to any publisher in the European Union. Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2033 of October 23, 2025 replaced Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 with a direct ban on providing services directly related to tourism activities in Russia (EUR-Lex). The list of covered services includes travel agency and tour operator services, tour guide services, and related advertising services, and the transition period for contracts concluded before October 24, 2025 ended on January 1, 2026 (Skadden, 11/2025). A walking route through the center with recommendations on where to stay and what to buy is closer to that list than to neutral local history, and we do not want to test that boundary ourselves.

What this means for you

Item

Status as of 09/2026

Source

Services related to tourism in Russia

Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025

EUR-Lex

Transition period

Ended on 01.01.2026, no exceptions

Skadden, 11.2025

What the ban covers

Travel agency and tour operator services, guide services, and advertising of these services

Skadden, 11.2025

Paying with an EU card

Impossible since 10.03.2022

The Moscow Times, Auswärtiges Amt

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt" (translation: "travel to the Russian Federation is advised against")

Auswärtiges Amt

Risk of arbitrary detention

The German Foreign Office explicitly warns about it for German citizens and dual nationals

Auswärtiges Amt

Retail chains

More than 1,000 brands have wound down or restricted operations in Russia since 2022

Ethical Consumer

Where to go instead

The need that brought readers to these guides was for a large historic square, galleries under a glass roof, and a city that is pleasant to walk around. The live sections of the site answer that: Czechia with Prague, Austria with Vienna, Hungary with Budapest, Germany with Berlin, as well as Italy and Poland. The nineteenth-century glass arcades that drew readers to the GUM guide can be found in Milan, Brussels, and Budapest.

The editorial team's overall explanation for the entire section is collected in the section hub. Related text: our position on the Moscow Kremlin.

Where we stand

We believe that a guide to the main square of a country waging war sells not architecture, but a sense of normalcy. In our assessment, that sense was the main product of such texts, and that is exactly why they could not be left in place with a disclaimer. We decided to remove all four pieces and explain the reason at the same address.

We are not being ironic at the expense of those who live there, work there, or simply walk there. The editorial complaint is directed at the genre, which we ourselves produced.

We write about the state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who came out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish guides to Russia is about money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Why can't you write about architecture separately from politics?

Formally you can, and we are not claiming otherwise. But a travel guide is not an architectural essay, it is an invitation to come and spend money. That invitation is exactly what we removed, and the legal framework for a person from the EU is set out in Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033.

Can I pay there with a German card?

No, this has been impossible since March 10, 2022. Sources are collected in the table above. We do not describe workarounds.

Are you against people traveling to Moscow?

We do not tell readers what to do and we do not judge other people's trips. We are responsible for what we publish ourselves, and we decided not to publish material that works as advertising for a trip.

Where do old links to these guides lead?

To this page, in all language versions. A reader arriving from search gets an answer and a list of destinations we continue to write about.

In short

Four guides to Red Square, Manezhnaya, GUM, and the central shopping galleries have been removed. Data on card payments and brand exits is collected in the table above. Since October 25, 2025, services related to tourism in Russia, including advertising, are prohibited for a person from the EU. On January 1, 2026, the transition period for old contracts ended. Cities with similar squares and galleries are listed above.

How you can help

We do not collect money and we receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Link check date: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.