The festivities start at 10 a.m. on Saturday, with a parade of various countries’ military orchestras – participants of the annual Spasskaya Bashnya festival – along Tverskaya Ulitsa, starting from Pushkin Square. The gala opening starts at noon with a dance show on Red Square, where more than 2,000 dancers are to present the show “City of Love. Epoch in Dance.”
Saturday afternoon offers a full schedule of events all over the city. To see a show by the French street theater group Les Passagers, walk to Tverskaya Ploshchad, where artists hanging on ropes in front of a huge screen will be mixing circus and dance. Traditional cuisines will be offered at the Slavic Feast festival on Ploshchad Revolyutsii, and an exhibition of the winners of an Instagram contest dedicated to Moscow will be held at Cosmonaut Alley near VDNKh metro station. A major music festival will run at Poklonnaya Gora for two days. Prospekt Akademika Sakharova will be hosting a carnival that aims to compete with Rio’s and Venice’s, featuring the best street theater groups from Russia, Italy, Brazil and France, as well as activities for children. Tsvetnoi Bulvar will have circus performances from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Neskuchny Sad is preparing equestrian contests.
Museums will be offering free entrance, as well as special programs and concerts. In the evening, almost all public spaces in the city will have open-air dance floors. According to the head of Moscow’s Culture Department, Sergei Kapkov, there won’t be just one fireworks venue, but five or six, and each will be “unique in its beauty.” The main fireworks show will take place on Vasilyevsky Spusk at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday.